Image of the Week: Enantiodromia
© D. Yael Bernhard
One day this week I got an unexpected block of free time – a rare windfall in the form of cancelled work. It was raining outside, so I sat down at my kitchen table, did a quick ink sketch, and then did something I haven't done for over a year: I took out my gouache paints and created a small painting – about 14" wide – just because I felt like it. No clients, deadlines, or publishing projects compelled me. It was pure play.
What a pleasure to work with gouache again! – so subtle and responsive, yet flat as can be. My paper was the back of an old illustration of prairie dogs – nothing worth saving, but the other side of the finely-toothed watercolor paper was still usable.
The subject I chose has been on my mind for months: enantiodromia – the concept in Jungian psychology that every extreme eventually flows over into its unconscious opposite. Over time, the expression of the extreme exhausts its own energy, giving rise to that which it opposes. The unconscious, in this context, signifies that which is hidden or unmanifest – the shadow side of consciousness.
Plato also articulated the concept of enantiodromia when he wrote, "Everything arises in this way: opposites from their opposites." Responding to this, Jung declared Plato had discovered "the most marvelous of all psychological laws . . . [which describes] the regulative function of opposites." Jung was fascinated by opposites all his life, from yin and yang to anima and animus, as they ripple through the tides of history and folklore. These opposites, and the polarity between them, may be channeled into art, investing images with energy and tension.
Examples of enantiodromia abound. Think of the youth with insatiable wanderlust who evolves into a comfort-seeking homebody later in life. Think of the reckless disregard for matters of health that lead, over time, to health problems that are all-consuming. Think of the rich man who ends up penniless, the tyrant who loses power. Human nature seems to be ruled by a physics all its own, a swinging pendulum of the psyche that seeks equilibrium. What examples of this phenomenon have you experienced or observed? I invite you to share by commenting on this post.
My spiritual mentor in my twenties was an octogenarian named Winifred, a Jungian analyst who predicted the angular nature of my artwork at the time would eventually give way to a more relaxed and curvy style of drawing. Winifred was right. In this painting, I tried to show this progression – straight lines giving way to curves, warm colors changing to cool, and the energetic thrust of an arrow transforming into yielding spirals of watery softness. Both sides also contain the seed of their opposite: the angular arrow contains a pair of wavy lines, and two curly shapes are crowned with budding lines as straight as sewing pins.
As I painted, I was also thinking of the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci, in which he strove to depict the effect of a straight waterfall on the curling eddies of a pool; the spiral currents of air created by the heat of a candle flame; and the natural curls of human hair – all of which the artist drew to a nearly obsessive degree. I also tip my hat to Paul Klee, who drew many arrows in his art (see example below, "Separation in the Evening") and knew better than anyone that art can be a diagram that expresses concepts visually. I tried to imbue my painted diagram with the interplay of opposites of both color and form – and the breaking through of the unconscious into consciousness.
This is my idea of a fun day off. But after all that sitting still and carefully applying color – you guessed it – I had to do the opposite, get outside and get moving. The rain had stopped. My dog was happy to accompany me in both extremes, first laying at my feet for hours, then trotting along beside me down the road. I'm sure Jung would have something to say about that. In his day, we didn't have terms like "radical acceptance."
A good week to all!
D Yael Bernhard
http://dyaelbernhard.com
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