Creators of modern art are unconscious about the meaning of their creations.
Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2, 1951-1961
- So f.i. “God,” then “magic,” “religious,” etc. I would propose the term “numinous” instead of “magic” or “religious,” which are prejudiced in a very definite way.
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Any convinced Christian of today would contest your assumption that his religion is not dynamic.
Though I think that such a statement, namely the feebleness of our religion, is not unfair.
- ·It is rather conspicuous that the creators of modern art are unconscious about the meaning of their creations.
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What modern art-forms represent is questionable.
It is certainly something which transcends any hitherto valid form of understanding.
Your general conclusion that contemporary Western artists unconsciously depict God’s image is questionable, as it is by no means certain that any inconceivability could be called “God,” unless one calls everything “God,” as everything ends in inconceivability.
But wh en one calls everything which is inconceivable “God,” then the term “God” loses all sense.
According to my view, one should rather say that the term “God” should only be applied in case of numinous inconceivability.
Since the term “God” always includes the meaning of an insurmountably strong affect of collective nature, I am not convinced that every piece of modern art is living up to such a postulate.
Very often indeed it is easy to see that very inferior factors have been at work.
Excuse the long delay of my answer.
Sincerely yours,
C.G. Jung ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. II, Pages 511-512
Carl Jung on Modern Art and the Artist.
Letters of C. G. Jung: Volume 2, 1951-1961
To Walter Mertens
Dear Walter, 24 November 1932
I am entirely in agreement with the spirit of your essay on Picasso.
I am only against artists getting away with it like the theologians, about whom one may not say anything critical.
I don’t see why artists should not have exactly the same human psychology as everybody else.
The claim to be the infallible mouthpiece of God is as odious to me in art as in theology.
From the artistic standpoint I can well appreciate the achievements of modern art, but from the standpoint of the psychologist I have to say what the nature of these achievements is.
In my article in the N.Z.Z. I expressly pointed out that I wasn’t talking of art but of psychology.
Yet psychology seems to be as hateful to artists as it is to theologians, and as I say I find this extremely repugnant.
Moreover, art fails entirely in its educative purpose if people don’t see that it depicts the sickness of our time.
That is why this art is neither enjoyable nor elevating, but as you rightly say a “scream.”
But a scream is always just that-a noise and not music.
Hence I shall hold unswervingly to the view that modem art is much more correct judged from the psychological rather than from the artistic standpoint.
“Kunst” [art] comes from “Konnen” [ability, skill]: “stammering” is not skill but only a miserable attempt to speak.
Naturally I don’t want to discourage modem art; it must continue its attempts and I wish it luck.
The creative spirit cannot be discouraged anyway, otherwise it would not be creative.
So nothing untoward has happened.
With best greetings,
Yours, CARL ~Carl Jung, Letters Vol. I, Pages 107-108.
The development of modern art with its seemingly nihilistic trend towards disintegration must be understood as the symptom and symbol of a mood of universal destruction and renewal that has set its mark on our age. ~Carl Jung, CW 10, Pages 303-304.
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