The Red Book Hours

Jill Mellick

The Red Book Hours

Discovering C. G. Jungâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Art Mediums and Creative Process

Scheidegger & Spiess

“Atmavictu” The breath of life, the creative impulse “When I was in England in 1920, I carved out of wood two similar figures without having the slightest recollection of that childhood experience. One of them now stands in my garden in Küsnacht. Only while I was doing this work did the unconscious supply me with a name. It called the figure Atmavictu—the ‘breath of life.’ It was a further development of that fearful tree of my childhood dream, which was now revealed as the ‘breath of life,’ the creative impulse.” —

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reﬂections, 27

Detail from The Red Book, page 117. © W. W. Norton and Company | Used by permission of the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung

“Atmavictu” The breath of life, the creative impulse “When I was in England in 1920, I carved out of wood two similar figures without having the slightest recollection of that childhood experience. One of them now stands in my garden in Küsnacht. Only while I was doing this work did the unconscious supply me with a name. It called the figure Atmavictu—the ‘breath of life.’ It was a further development of that fearful tree of my childhood dream, which was now revealed as the ‘breath of life,’ the creative impulse.” —

C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reﬂections, 27

Detail from The Red Book, page 117. © W. W. Norton and Company | Used by permission of the Stiftung der Werke von C. G. Jung

Introduction

At the Rubin Museum of Art in New York City, the stairwell spirals from

slow discipline of calligraphy and his detailed techniques for illumination. The

ground floor to basement. I can glimpse it lying in state in a square glass col-

end product is breathtaking, but if his own statement is to be believed, he was

umn at the center of the space: The Red Book.

more interested in the process and his insights than in the product—and he

After I descend the stairs, one of Jung’s pastels—a simple landscape—

neither saw himself as an artist nor viewed his “product” as art.

greets me at the entrance to the exhibit space. The pastel is a quiet scene in a

Knowing that matter and method determine process in general, having

quiet style with bodies of subdued color. Few gestures.

read Jung’s comments about his work, and having spent decades as a researcher,

Then The Red Book, open at pages 78–79. Transparent inks quickly

academic, clinician, painter, and writer exploring the effect of art processes on

declare themselves as the bearers of the calligraphy. The paints for the illumi-

psychological development, I naturally want to know what materials Jung

nation glow. Illuminated indeed. Is it painted with tempera? Gouache? I find

used. Learning more about matter and methods will let me better imagine his

no mention of the materials Carl Jung used.

technique, his experience, his creative process. He was not working on this

Since childhood, passionate and exacting experimentation with art

manuscript for all those years just to achieve an end product.

materials has been as natural and necessary to me as breathing. However,

Despite looking everywhere and inquiring further, I discover nothing.

raised in a British-based education system and fated to be university-bound,

My inquiries appear to reach an end when Kavie Barnes, the Rubin Museum’s

I knew no degree that included art-making. Making art seemed destined to

assistant curator, directs me to Sonu Shamdasani, who edited The Red Book

be an avocation.

for its publication in 2009. He writes to me that all we can know is that Jung’s “media are tempera and ink.” 4

A few years after graduating, working in Sydney and having recently read Jung’s Modern Man in Search of a Soul, which had been sent to me across the

Thus begins my personal quest.

Pacific by Jeanne Shutes, I learned about a small exhibit of paintings by Jung.1

What were those hours of creative absorption like? What character-

I took the ferry across the harbor to see it. The images burned themselves into

ized Jung’s process apart from the use of unknown materials?

my memory with their complexity and intense hues. Now, decades later, in

A chain of connections leads me to conversations with three of Jung’s

2009, she and I are looking at The Red Book itself in New York City.

grandsons who are intimately connected with Jung’s physical, creative, and

In his Epilogue to The Red Book, Jung refers to the need to “absorb the

theoretical legacy: Ulrich Hoerni, Andreas Jung, and Jost Hoerni. To each I

2

overpowering force of the original experiences.” To attempt this, he says, he

pose similar questions about the context, materials, and techniques for The

“knew of nothing better than to write them down in a ‘precious,’ that is to say,

Red Book. Each expresses interest in my questions but confirms that all that

3

costly book and to paint the images that emerged through reliving it all….” He

can be known appears to be known.

invested sixteen years in the making of the manuscript. He was not simply

Andreas Jung, a retired conservation architect, is co-author of The

rendering a product. He prepared, worked with, and experienced his creative

House of C. G. Jung,5 family archivist, and current resident of the house Jung

process as his way of absorbing “the overpowering force of the original expe-

built along the Zürichsee (Lake Zürich) at Küsnacht. He has confi rmed

riences.” He immersed himself in a sustained experience. To “absorb,” through

already that he knows nothing more about The Red Book mediums or tech-

writing and painting, he chose mediums and techniques that required excep-

niques. However, he does mention that his cousin, Jost Hoerni, knows some-

tional patience, accuracy, focus, and a slow pace. It seems to me as I view the

thing about the mineral pigments that Jung used for his wall paintings at

manuscript that Jung must have valued “absorbing” above all, that he must have

Bollingen, the sandstone tower he began building in 1923 on the shore of the

effected this by creating an interaction between his inner world and both the

Obersee (upper Lake Zürich). I also have a small clue that I share with Andreas Jung. An analysand has mentioned a stand on which Jung kept The Red Book open during her

1

According to Thomas Fischer (personal communication, 2017), this traveling exhibition was produced following the Helmhaus exhibition in Zürich (in 1975, on the occasion of Jung’s 100th birthday). It was set up by Pro Helvetia, the organization responsible for the promotion of Swiss culture abroad, with reproductions and photographic material (on show in different countries in the second half of the 1970s). 2 C. G. Jung, The Red Book, 360. 3 Ibid.

24

4 5

Kavie Barnes, curatorial coordinator and assistant to the chief curator, Rubin Museum of Art, personal communication, 2011. A. Jung et al., The House of C. G. Jung.

25