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The Psychoanalytical Aspects of the Deconstruction of Images of Socialist Ideals the ontological status of the iconic sign to the conditions of visual perception. According to this opinion, the iconic sign deals not with objective reality, but with its specific perception and, consequently, with its mental representation. To perceive visual images, we use visual codes stored in our memory that determine the horizon of our vision (Limanskaya & Shvets 2014: 712). Gombrich studied the psychology of comic images during 1938-1963 because of his interest in Freud’s psychoanalysis and, in particular, his theory of sharp wit. While studying the link between night dreams, jokes, anecdotes and playful transformation of bodily images in grotesque and caricature, Freud concluded that these are all connected with the unconscious. Comparing the play of words in verbal jokes with the mix-up of visual images in night dreams and caricatures, he linked them with the psychological functions of the unconscious. In the introduction to his Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) Freud wrote: “The condensing work of a night dream creates images adequate to pictures of reality mixed or modified from another source (...) the analogy of night dreams and sharp wit gives us hope to explain the technique of wit” (Freud 2006: 29). Dreams and imagination play an important role in the process of increasing the adaptability, and stabilising the psyche, of an individual through psychological protection that relaxes intrapersonal conflicts. These conclusions made by Freud and his followers have become the foundation of the study of the psychotherapeutic function of artistic creativity. Prior to that, in the introduction to his The Interpretation of Dreams (1900), Freud. stated: “I will try to show the psychological technique of interpreting night dreams. With this method, any dream proves to be a meaningful psychic phenomenon, which may be included in waking activity. I will try to find out the processes responsible for strangeness and dark meaning of the dream produced by cooperation and rivalry of psychic forces (...)” (Freud 2005: 7). Gombrich continues Freud’s tradition of studying the roles of the unconscious and the creative Ego in an artistic mind, for which he turned to the creative methods of different artists from the Renaissance to the twentieth century. The similarity between caricature and night dreams lies in their mixed logic, metaphors, blended images and exaggerated details based on arbitrary associations. Comparing their functions, Freud noted that both proceed from thinking to visual perception (Freud 2006). While researching the specifics of the psychogenesis of sharp wit, Freud and later Gombrich tried to understand why bad logic, hyperbole and transformed images are presented in a comical vein in verbal jokes and caricatures. In Freud’s opinion, the answer lies in the sketchy nature of both, “often calling for filling in” (Freud 2006: 30). Gombrich further developed that idea in his works on the history of the grotesque and caricature. He considered caricature and grotesque to result from an integration of sensation, perception and will in the unconscious sphere, thus gaining an ability to negate the logic of common sense and in doing so freeing the suppressions situated in the unconscious mind. Comparing 439
