SUNDAY TIMES ' BOOKS OF THE YEAR' : ' the book develops into a bigger biography of the strange set of images [Rorschach] bequeathed, taking in everything from the origins of abstract art to the invention of the idea of empathy' – James McConnachie, Sunday Times
IRISH INDEPENDENT ' BOOKS OF THE YEAR'
The captivating, untold story of Hermann Rorschach and his famous inkblot test, which has shaped our view of human personality and become a fixture in popular culture.
In 1917, working alone in a remote Swiss asylum, psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devised an experiment to probe the human mind. He had come to believe that who we are is less a matter of what we say, as Freud thought, than what we see. Rorschach himself was a talented illustrator, and his test, a set of ten carefully designed inkblots, quickly made its way to America, where it took on a life of its own.
Co-opted by the military after Pearl Harbor, Rorschach’ s test was a fixture at the Nuremberg trials and in the jungles of Vietnam. It became an advertising staple, a cliché in Hollywood and journalism, and an inspiration to everyone from Andy Warhol to Jay-Z. The test was also taken by millions of defendants, job applicants, parents in custody battles and people suffering from mental illness – or simply trying to understand themselves better. And it is still used today.
Damion Searls draws on untranslated letters and diaries, and a cache of previously unknown interviews with Rorschach’ s family, friends and colleagues, to tell the unlikely story of the test’ s creation, its controversial reinvention and its remarkable endurance. Elegant and original, The Inkblots shines a light on the twentieth century’ s most visionary synthesis of art and science.
