Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) didn’t want to be known as an artist or even credit himself for the illustrations that occasionally accompanied his writings. However, the 2009 publication of The Red Book revealed that he was thinking in images as well as writing about them. The Art of C.G. Jung is a further exploration of visual art produced by the path-laying psychoanalyst. The early work shown in this handsome volume reveals a modestly talented painter on the cusp of Expressionism. During the 1910s, he embarked on a “confrontation with the unconscious,” resulting in paintings and drawings that represented archetypes, mandalas and psychedelic visions. He also carved totemic statues revealing his inspiration in African and Native American sources. In one of the book’s essays, “C.G. Jung and Modern Art,” the authors recall that the psychoanalyst found similarities between Picasso and the art therapy of neurotics and schizophrenics. Jung’s own art was strikingly modern in the abstract simplicity of its lines.
