Pictorial Space throughout Art History: Cézanne and ... - ARAS

ARAS Connections Issue 2, 2012
Pictorial space models the structure of an evolving personality (5)
Great literature moves us profoundly in part because it tells us something
profound about what it is to be a person. But why does a great painting move us
in the same way, even when its subject matter may be abstract or mundane?
Some of our greatest literature is based upon the myth of the hero's
journey to the underworld. The stories of Inanna, Gilgamesh, The Odyssey,
Beowulf, the New Testament, and Dante's Inferno are examples. The myth of the
hero's journey occurs in isolated cultures, in stories of the Australian aborigines,
of the Polynesians, and of native peoples of South America, in myths from Africa
and so on. Perhaps each of these cultures created it independently, or perhaps we
created this myth when our species first evolved and then carried it with us
wherever we went. Either way it seems clear that the myth expresses something
fundamental about the human condition.
Freud and Jung both showed that our personalities widen and deepen as
we become more conscious of images, thoughts, and feelings which had been
hidden in the unconscious. Jung showed that the myth of the hero's journey is a
metaphor for this development. In this myth the hero brings back treasure from
the underworld and shares it with others. If we explore the unconscious then we
may contribute artistically or through some other form of leadership. Jung called
such development individuation because it leads us away from collective attitudes
and closer to our individual potential. Gauguin illustrates the point. Had he
remained a banker he might have remained uneasily within collective attitudes;
by becoming a painter he became more individual.
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