Week 7: Neuroscience + Art

Of our varied Week 7 discussions on neurology, I am most interested in those about psychology - specifically, Jung’s ideas about the collective unconscious. I believe that the unconscious is central to artistic perception.

When I experience art (e.g. look at a painting or listen to music), my immediate reaction is entirely out of my conscious control. Instead, the art directly or indirectly evokes emotions in me.

Besides advances in technique, why are large groups of people disproportionately attracted to specific pieces of art? Why do so many people admire the Munch’s The Scream of Nature when there are countless Expressionist paintings of suffering men?

The Scream of Nature, a widely admired and discussed artwork. What do you feel when you see it?

I hypothesize that the culprit is the collective unconscious. Jung argued that our mind has evolved to hold certain archetypes or ideas at its foundation. I believe that when certain artwork is admired across large groups of people, it is tapping into emotions or archetypes in the collective unconscious. In the case of The Scream of Nature, it could maybe be tapping into some innate human capacity for frenzied terror, but I’m honestly very unsure. Wikipedia mentions that it is “seen as symbolising the anxiety of the human condition”.

Another, more recent, Expressionist painting of a (seemingly) discontent man by artist David Padworny. Not to discredit the artist nor anyone’s reaction to it, but why is this painting so less widely-admired than Munch’s?  

Variations in artistic preference could subsequently be attributed to the personal unconscious, Jung’s term for the personal part of the unconscious that we do not share with the rest of our species (the two together form the whole unconscious).

A short video providing the perspective of the relation between the unconscious and the art-creator, as opposed to the unconscious and the art-perceiver.

“Carl Jung on Creative People & Unconscious Assimilation.” YouTube, YouTube, 17 June 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWOTWJXc6JU. 

“Expressionist Abstract Portrait Painting - Man Art Self Portraiture in Oil: x1061 Painting.” Saatchi Art, www.saatchiart.com/art/Painting-Expressionist-Abstract-Portrait-Painting-Man-Art-Self-Portraiture-in-Oil-x1061/57451/2525697/view. 

Frazzetto, Giovanni, and Suzanne Anker. “Neuroculture.” Nature Reviews Neuroscience, vol. 10, no. 11, 2009, pp. 815–821., doi:10.1038/nrn2736.

Jung, Carl Gustav. The Spiritual Problem of Modern Man. 1931.

Mcleod, Saul. “Carl Jung.” Carl Jung | Simply Psychology, 1 Jan. 1970, www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html.

“Personal Unconscious and Collective Unconscious.” Journal Psyche, journalpsyche.org/tag/personal-unconscious-and-collective-unconscious/.

The Scream, 1893 by Edvard Munch, www.edvardmunch.org/the-scream.jsp.

“The Scream.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 May 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scream.