Page 24 - Studio International - December 1972

mouthpiece naturally commends itself to those 'American' art as opposed to the 'European' him to a well-recommended doctor, a
involved in artistic activity. tradition by simply asserting that neither was psychiatrist . . .'8 The recommendation may
Also Jung's books are extremely 'literary', more than a peripheral phenomenon on the well have been Helen Marot's because she was
narrative, associative and full of dramatic surface of more primitive cultural drives. In involved with Pollock's psychiatrist in his
incident and personal comment, with much fact, if anything, American culture was voluntary entry into hospital for treatment for
moralizing on the state of Man's Soul. privileged by having in its midst the remnant his acute alcoholism in June 1938.9 In January
A further reason for the interest shown in Jung of a surviving primitive culture. The logic of or February 1939 he re-entered analysis with a
in the 193os and 4os is the general reappraisal of, this may be suspect, but for a generation of Jungian psychiatrist who has said that Pollock
and interest in, myths, in the new studies in artists wanting to assert their independence it was well acquainted with Jungian theory when
ethnography, anthropology and the sociology of may have helped their self-confidence. In 1943 he first saw him.10 These sessions, at which
primitive cultures. The works of Frazer and the New York painters stressed their 'kinship Pollock made drawings as a therapeutic aid,
Tyler had become well known and Levy-Bruhl's with primitive and archaic art'4 in direct terminated in the summer of 1940.
books on primitive mentality and religion had contradiction to the surrealist's European Despite this long experience of Jungian ideas
recently been published in English, followed by sophistication and anti-religious Freudianism. Pollock did not paint his first overtly Jungian
Ernst Cassirer's investigations into the In a statement made after his 1943 show picture until I942. This is, in fact, the first of
philosophical implications of the new researches. Pollock wrote: the 'mythological' series we are discussing and,
Jung was himself in part responsible for this `. . .. the fact that good European moderns are according to Frank O'Hara, his first
interest, his book Wanderlungen und Symbole now here is very important, for they bring masterpiece :11 Male and Female. It was not the
der Libido' was a psychological analysis in with them an understanding of the problems of first time he had painted the theme of two
terms of myth, written in I9I2 and translated modern painting. I am particularly impressed figures, it seems to be a recurring subject
into English in America in 19I6. The medium with their concept of the source of art being the throughout his career. It seems, however, that
of his work was itself the then current unconscious .... I have always been very the 1942 painting conspicuously lacks the
myth — psychology. This is not meant to imply impressed with the plastic qualities of American predatory violence of these early works and the
that psychology qua psychology is mythical, Indian Art. The Indians have the true painter's figures' sexual differentiation is also
only that the distortion of it which was approach in their capacity to get hold of ambiguous. Both appear to have opposite
generally accepted had some of the appropriate images, and in their understanding sexual attributes incorporated in them and it is
characteristics of myth. It was accepted as a of what constitutes painterly subject matter. this which is characteristically Jungian. Jung's
panacea, and while controversies raged about its Their colour is essentially Western, their vision theory of the 'anima' and 'animus' suggests
different schools it was applied to the whole of has the basic universality of all real art. Some that the conscious must have the opposite
life in ways and in terms which its originators people find references to American Indian Art sexual characteristics of the unconscious.
and theorists would not have sanctioned. The and calligraphy in parts of my pictures. That Because the masculine consciousness represses
psychiatrist became the 'tribal head-shrinker'. wasn't intentional; probably the result of early any female components of the mind, they gain
When Pollock was introduced to Jung's ideas memories and enthusiasms.'5 in strength and rule the unconscious and become
in New York in I934 he had already tasted the Pollock said that he had been 'a Jungian for a the 'anima'. The multiple masculine identities
spiritual and political panaceas of Krishnamurti, long time's in 1956, and already in I943 he had of the unconscious of a woman's mind Jung
Communism and Theosophy, and it is probably been a Jungian for ten years. In 1934 calls the 'animus'. In Male and Female (a title
probably safe to assume that the characteristics he was befriended by Helen Marot, who was which itself points to the essence of
which made Jung's ideas attractive generally 'deeply interested in Jungian psychology',7 and masculinity and femininity rather than to any
appealed particularly to Pollock, with the it is probable that his commitment to Jung individual man or woman) Pollock has used
addition of another factor — Jung's concept of began at this time. Pollock began psychiatric visual devices to imply this tension which he
the 'collective unconscious'. The American treatment for alcoholism in January I937 and it believed exists in each personality. Both have
artists in the inter-war years were greatly is probable that his doctor was a Jungian owing breasts, but the right-hand figure exposes them
concerned over their national identity, and this to Helen Marot's continuing interest in him. while those of the left-hand figure are concealed
idea of Jung's removed the problem of an His brother Sanford wrote in July 1937: 'I took from its partner. The left hand figure's
masculinity is overtly expressed by his erect
phallus and his association with the truncated
fluted column, a symbol of masculinity perhaps
borrowed from de Chirico, while the other's
shadow is clearly phallic and Jung used the term
'shadow' to denote the unconscious.
A source relevant to the theme of Pollock's
picture is Picasso's Girl Before a Mirror of 1932
which he had already used as the inspiration for
Magic Mirror in I94I. Picasso's picture has
many of the bi-sexual characteristics of the
Pollock but the masculine component is not read
as part of the girl's personality but rather as a
key to the eroticism of the image and Picasso's
attitude to the model. Where Picasso is erotic
and evocative Pollock is more analytical, and
despite its technical freedom and emphasis on
sexual confrontation the picture is very cool.
Male and Female seems to denote a coming to

The She-Wolf 1943
Oil on canvas, 4 x 67 in.
Museum of Modern Art, New York
218