Art & Art History ETDs

Publication Date

6-8-1972

Abstract

This dissertation is primarily a response to a five-year-old question: "Why do you make photographs?" A kind of "answer" was found with the help of Carl Jung, depth psychologist, especially in his psychological interpretation of the medieval symbolic process--the alchemical opus. For Jung, alchemy prepared the ground for his psychology of the unconscious. For me, Jung's inquiry into the "secrets" of the alchemical opus is a workable analogy to what I have termed the "photographic opus." Through this analogy I feel I have shed new light on the creative process from the viewpoint of a photographer who is in search of his Self. The search for Self is an instinctual drive in man. It is an involuntary movement towards uniting the fragmented psyche (i.e., the conscious and the unconscious psyches). A conscious awareness of the Self is the goal of Jung's "psychological opus," and correspondingly, the goal of the "photographic opus." This can be achieved via the voluntary, conscious activity of making symbolic photographs. I define the symbolic photograph as a visual representation of what Jung terms the synchronicity experience, i.e., the coincidence of a certain psychic image (the archetypes of the collective unconscious) with a corresponding objective process perceived to take place simultaneously and experienced as being "meaningful" equivalents of each other. Then I go on to use these ideas in relation to the concepts and photographic images of Cartier-Bresson, Weston, Stieglitz, Minor White, and Uelsmann. This objectifies and clarifies the ideas of both Jung and these five master photographers. The "photographic opus" consists of two parts: the "Practice" and the "Contemplatio." The "Practice" is the process of making symbolic photographs. This is defined in the chapter dealing with synchronicity. If the symbolic photograph is a visual representation of that which is unknown (i.e., unconscious contents, or archetypes), then a conscious, voluntary gesture by the photographer is necessary to withdraw and assimilate (contemplation) the unconscious contents into conscious "knowledge.” In this way one can come to know one's Self--that which embraces both the conscious and the unconscious psyches. I use Jung's concept termed Active Imagination to define a method by which the photographer can contemplate his symbolic photographic images.

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Arts

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

UNM Department of Art and Art History

First Committee Member (Chair)

James Norman Kraft, Jr.

Second Committee Member

Peter Walch

Third Committee Member

Beaumont Newhall

Fourth Committee Member

David Marcus Johnson

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