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In 1915 took place the earliest exhibition of cubist paintings ever held in Madrid. The event caused a considerable impact, and provided the stimulus for the Spanish histopathologist and neuropsychiatrist Gonzalo R. Lafora –himself a skilful painter– to approach the problem of modern artistic creation from a psychological point of view. Lafora’s interest in the topic was fi rst given public expression in a lecture delivered at the Madrid «Athenaeum» in 1922. His refl ections on vanguard art, however, are not the only extant considerations devoted by the author to the psychological interpretation of artistic matters. The aim of this paper is to study Lafora’s writings on the psychology of art, including one belonging to a neglected public controversy in which he engaged with the novelist, essayist and playwright Ramon Gomez de la Serna, as well as a scarcely known work on the paintings of a schizophrenic artist, which saw the light at the end of his life. Topics recurrently appearing in other areas of his work, such as the problem of normal and abnormal personality, the relationship between mental health and illness, or the value of psychoanalysis as a scientifi c method, are also dealt with in these writings in connection with artistic issues. By highlighting this little-attended aspect of Lafora’s contribution, it was our purpose to complete his picture as an applied psychologist.
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