Syzygies: Engaging Jung’s The Red Book and Salomon’s Life? or Theater?

Abstract

After he began his confrontation with the unconscious, but before he started work in the red leather-bound volume regarded as The Red Book: Liber Novus, C. G. Jung argued with an inner female voice. In the argument he declared that what he was doing was not art but nature. To probe Jung’s perceived gap between art and nature, this study forms a conjunction between The Red Book and Charlotte Salomon’s multimedia artwork, Life? or Theater?. Employing Jungian, arts-based, and feminist perspectives through hermeneutical and transdisciplinary methods, it invites new perceptions to emerge by closely engaging with the images, voices, and insights evoked by these distinctive yet related artistic endeavors. Findings demonstrate how creative work in the form of psychological investigation or as art can facilitate a reciprocal relationship with the unconscious as a means of psychological development and knowledge transmission. The study also reveals a relevant historical connection between Jung and Salomon’s artwork.