Daniel Niehus, The Art of C.G. Jung, Foreword
FOREWORD
The success of the facsimile edition of The Red Book, published in 2009 by W.W. Norton, is proof of an enormous interest in Jung’s visual and creative works.
For the first time Jung became visible to a wider audience not only as a founding figure of modern psychology, but also as an artist in his own right.
Exhibitions of The Red Book itself in renowned art institutions in the United States and Europe, culminating in its showing as the centerpiece of the Venice Arts Biennale 2013, attracted attention from far beyond the circles already familiar with Jung’s life and work. Realizing the growing demand for more complete and informative documentation of Jung’s creative legacy, the Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung decided to undertake
a new publication presenting this material in a volume dedicated exclusively to Jung’s visual work.
The cover illustration from The Red Book chosen for this volume highlights some of the unique features characteristic of Jung’s artwork: the combination of freedom in color, motif, and perspective displaying similarities to the development in modern art of the early twentieth century; the play with light and shadows to create perspective and dimensionality; the use of transparent and opaque techniques to create plasticity and light effects as seen in the central symbolic abstraction seemingly suspended in midair depicted against a dark background; the working in a very free and unrestricted manner exemplified in the use of mosaic patterns for the modeling of the tree bark, lending the object almost animistic qualities.
Here is an imaginative language that for many opens up a new way of knowing the work of this exceptionally creative man.
The inclusion of previously unpublished drawings, paintings, and sculptures in The Red Book and related exhibitions lifted the veil on the remarkably broad spectrum of visual works produced by Jung. Further searches have since led to the discovery of early drawings from childhood and adolescence.
Jung himself never wanted to be considered an artist. While he included illustrations in some of his texts during his lifetime, he always ensured that he remained anonymous as their creator.
Most of these works remained unacknowledged until the publication of The Red Book brought their authorship to light.
For a book called The Art of C.G. Jung ever to be published is remarkable
and, finally, allows us to present the substantial corpus of Jung’s creative work in the context of his intellectual and personal development.
There are many people to thank for making this publication possible, yet one person stands out in particular: the presentation of this material would not have been possible without the dedicated work of Ulrich Hoerni, grandson of CG.Jung and Emma Jung-Rauschenbach, the first director of the Foundation of the Works of C.G. Jung and longtime chairman of the former Society of the Heirs of C.G. Jung.
As far back as the early 1990s he started to pick up the pieces and began compiling an inventory of all of Jung’s surviving visual works.
Over the course of two decades he travelled widely and interviewed many people, including members of the family and Ex those close to Jung who were still alive, the aim being to document the whereabouts of works
and to collect information on them.
Particularly helpful were comments by Jung’s close collaborator Marie-Louise von Franz and his son, Franz Jung.
After the publication of The Red Book in 2009, Ulrich Hoerni returned to completing the task with a view to laying the ground for a publication of]ung’s remaining visual works.
In 2013, Thomas Fischer took over as director of the foundation, and, together with the foundation’s new collaborator, Bettina Kaufmann, jo_ined Ulrich Hoerni on the project.
With the support of the foundation’s board, they coordinated and advanced what has now become the first-ever editorial project under the full responsibility of the Foundation of the Works of CG.Jung.
Along the way they were assisted by Lorenz Hornberger, former curator at the Rietberg Museum Zurich, who acted as a consultant to the project, as well as Medea Hoch, who, as well as contributing an essay to the book, worked closely with the editorial committee to bring all the texts, commentaries, and the selection of images into shape.
I would like to thank wholeheartedly everybody involved with the Foundation of the Works of CG. Jung for the work and dedication they have put in this project.
Another person who has been key to this undertaking and deserves special recognition is Andreas Jung, another grandson and the owner of the Jung Family Archive, which preserves large parts of the works included in this volume.
He signaled full support for the project early on, and he and his daughter Susanne Eggenberger-Jung, together with Eva Middendorp, provided
access to information about the items presented, whenever needed.
They are joined by a number of institutional and private owners of individual visual works by Jung, which we would all like to thank for their help and agreement in obtaining high quality photographs of the objects in their possession.
Their names are listed in the catalogue entries, unless they have asked to remain anonymous.
Along with the essays and catalogue entries written by the members of the editorial committee, Diane Finiello Zervas and Jill Mellick each contributed an essay on specific aspects ofJung’s visual work.
We are particularly grateful to them for their willingness to share the results of their ongoing research for this publication.
Photographers Alex Wydler and Rainer Wolfsberger in Zurich produced most of the new image material for this volume, and Laura Lindgren in New York has done a wonderful job on the design of the book.
We would like to thank all three of them for their excellent work.
A special mention is also due to translators Paul David Young in the U.S. and
Christopher John Murray in the UK who have worked with the editors and the publisher on bringing the English version of the texts for this publication into fine shape.
Others that lent a hand or assisted with information in the production of the catalogue include Christian Huber and Yvonne Voegeli from the ETH Zurich University Archives (CG. Jung Papers collection),
Vicente de Moura from the picture archive at the CG. Jung-Institut Zurich in
Kusnacht, Monika Metzger and Andreas Schweizer at the library of the Psychology Club Zurich, the members of the CG.Jung Stiftung Bollingen-Jona,Jost Hoerni, Hans Hoerni, Andreas and Marianne Fischer, Felix Walder, Eric Baumann, Christine Benz, Carl C Jung, Sonu Shamdasani, Martin Liebscher, Daniel Minder, Taddeo Lozano, Robert Hinshaw, Reto
Brunner, Hsin-Mei Chung Messmer, Corina Fisch, Susanna Wettstein, Giampaolo Russo, Peter Fritz and Annkathrin Wollert from the Fritz literary agency in Zurich, Alex Anderfuhren andJannJenatsch at Keystone, as well as Hugh Milstein from Digital Fusion in California.
Without a dedicated publisher, finally, nothing would have come of all of this.
We are particularly grateful for the keen interest shown by Jim Mairs, late editor at large at W.W. Norton, New York, who strongly supported the project from the very first presentation of the idea all the way to the very last days before his passing away in summer 2016.
We are equally grateful for the services of his colleague Elisabeth Kerr, who took over the project after Jim’s death with great professionalism and dedication.
We will remember Jim Mairs as an exceptional editor who was the first person in the publishing world to see the full potential of Jung’s visual work with the facsimile production of The Red Book.
We would like to thank everyone involved at Norton for ultimately bringing this new volume to publication. ~Daniel Niehus, The Art of C.G. Jung, Foreword, Page 6-9
The Art of C.G. Jung on Amazon
A lavishly illustrated volume of C.G. Jung’s visual work, from drawing to painting to sculpture.
A world-renowned, founding figure in analytical psychology, and one of the twentieth century’s most vibrant thinkers, C.G. Jung imbued as much inspiration, passion, and precision in what he made as in what he wrote.
Though it spanned his entire lifetime and included painting, drawing, and sculpture, Jung’s practice of visual art was a talent that Jung himself consistently downplayed out of a stated desire never to claim the title “artist.”
But the long-awaited and landmark publication, in 2009, of C.G. Jung’s The Red Book revealed an astonishing visual facet of a man so influential in the realm of thought and words, as it integrated stunning symbolic images with an exploration of “thinking in images” in therapeutic work and the development of the method of Active Imagination.
The remarkable depictions that burst forth from the pages of that calligraphic volume remained largely unrecognized and unexplored until publication.
The release of The Red Book generated enormous interest in Jung’s visual works and allowed scholars to engage with the legacy of Jung’s creativity. The essays collected here present previously unpublished artistic work and address a remarkably broad spectrum of artistic accomplishment, both independently and within the context of The Red Book, itself widely represented. Tracing the evolution of Jung’s visual efforts from early childhood to adult life while illuminating the close relation of Jung’s lived experience to his scientific and creative endeavors, The Art of C.G. Jung offers a diverse exhibition of Jung’s engagement with visual art as maker, collector, and analyst.
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