[mythistorian]

Thank you Marianne,

Yes, I think you’re right. It is a general insight about Art that it functions as a kind of mirror of society and the historical epoch in which it was created. Of course, this “leadership” of Art remains mostly unconscious and it requires a further step to bring what the artist has formulated in aesthetic terms back into the conceptual element of the understanding to become part of our conscious life. This reminds me of Jung’s paper on the transcendent function where he talks about this double movement of the self from aesthetic form to intuitive understanding:

“Where aesthetic formulation tends to concentrate on the formal aspect of the motif, an intuitive understanding often tries to catch the meaning from barely adequate hints in the material, without considering those elements which would come to light in a more careful formulation.” (CW8 The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, pg. 84)