Art and the Creative Unconscious

A landmark account of how artistic expression arises from the collective unconscious
This book brings together four essays by analytical psychologist Erich Neumann, who explores the connections between creativity and the unconscious mind. The archetypes of the collective unconscious, he argues, are intrinsically formless psychic components that take form in art. The psychology of the individual in whom they appear, the mediums of expression through which they pass, and the time and place in which they occur mold their varying forms. Neumann illustrates his theme in the first essay, “Leonardo da Vinci and the Mother Archetype,” in which he shows how the work of art, and art itself, were for Leonardo not ends in themselves but rather instruments and expressions of his inner life. He follows with “Art and Time,” “A Note on Marc Chagall,” and “Creative Man and Transformation.” Neumann sees the artist as a hero in isolation, a tragically lonely figure whose mission is often to oppose the cultural canon of the age. He demonstrates how the problem of form in modern art is linked to the chaos of the modern world and a fundamental change in how the individual seeks a life of dignity.

Erich Neumann (1905–1960), a psychologist and philosopher, was born in Berlin and lived in Tel Aviv from 1934 until his death. His books include Amor and Psyche, The Fear of the Feminine, The Great Mother, and The Origins and History of Consciousness (all Princeton).