By engaging in art making, such as one of the many forms of printmaking in a therapeutic context with a qualified art therapist, one can benefit from psychological insight into some of the many underlying processes that manifest in daily life because life is a creative process and art reflects life. This aliveness can also be experienced as the tension that is created in the printmaking process. It is a part of traditional Chinese philosophy and religion and is a way of creating harmony with one’s will or nature, coming into being or enlightenment or experiencing an aliveness. Tao is considered the path or way of life and signifies the fundamental nature of the universe and its primordial essence. Jung stated, “There can be no doubt, either, that realization of the opposite hidden in the unconscious-the process of “reversal”-signifies reunion with the unconscious laws of our being, and the purpose of the reunion is attainment of conscious life or, expressed in Chinese terms, the realization of the Tao” (CW 13:30). The reversal expresses the opposite of what is desired, calling the grapes too sour even though they were very much desired. It is easy to disregard, strongly dislike, or hate what one is unable to obtain, which is both the moral of this story and the protective function of the psychological process of reversal. At last exhausted by his efforts, he turned away in disgust remarking, “Anyone who wants them can have them they are too sour for my taste.” Try, Try, Try as he might, the grapes were just beyond his reach. Upon this sight, he was overwhelmed with joy as he licked his lips, although his elation was short-lived. In the vineyard, the glistening grapes cascaded in the sun and made him all the more hungry. In this retelling of the tale, one can see how the rejection of the unobtainable is illustrated (Dean, 2016b).Ī fox, feeling very hungry, made his way to the vineyard, where he knew he would find a hearty bounty of grapes. For example, in Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Grapes, the fox rejects the grapes after being unsuccessful in obtaining them. The dissonance arises when there are two or more conflicting beliefs and results in exceptional discomfort because there is often no way to reconcile these states of being. Reversal is also considered a defense mechanism its primary purpose is to defend or hold emotional and cognitive dissonance. Reversed writing in a print can be seen in a mirror, setting the writing into a legible form. This secret code writing can be seen in many of Leonardo da Vinci’s journals, which was meant to be both a challenging mind exercise and a protective measure to keep his inventions safe from potential theft (Chastel, 1961). The image is printed in reverse, “so any handwriting has to be done backwards and thus already feels as if one were writing in secret code” (Nissen, 2008, p. When one is printing letters and words, reversals can lead to illegibility or a kind of coding. This reversal may change or distort one’s original composition, intentionally or unintentionally (Dean, 2016a). Many printmaking processes employed in therapy result in reversed images. The details associated with shading, more appropriate to drawing, are not needed in the print-making process, but in the place of this perceived limitation comes the power of strong impact images made through simplification and contrast (Hurwitz & Day, 2001). These steps also help to create distance from the final outcome, so many times, the self-consciousness of the accuracy of a shape or object to be portrayed is minimized during the process due to the seeming disconnect from the final picture. In order to create a print, something must be done to one substance in order for another to emerge, like an alchemical process, there is a series of steps that must be undertaken that lend themselves to the process to a ritualistic method. To create a print is to weave the artist’s experience and perception, insight, and differentiation into one (Neumann, 1974). Printmaking can be a source of fascination and challenge that requires an indirect way of working (Hurwitz & Day, 2001).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |