The creative process of the Swiss artist Peter Birkhäuser (1911-1976) took a striking turn when he entered midlife. A successful and influential graphic artist, Birkhäuser entered a deep depression and sought answers in the ideas of C.G. Jung. He entered analysis with Marie-Louise von Franz and developed a friendship with Jung himself. As it became more difficult for Birkhäuser to finish his creative assignments, he began to illustrate images from his dreams. Over the course of 35 years, he kept notes on over 3400 of his dreams, and his work increasingly focused on the images emerging from his unconscious. His new work was not well-received by the art community of the time, but, viewed today, his vivid paintings bear striking testament to the disruptive and transformative reality of the individuation process. Few artists have so powerfully evoked the uncanny otherness of the unconscious.
Many images in this gallery are accompanied by commentary by Jungian analyst Dean Frantz, who devoted much of his professional career to chronicling Birkhäusers story and creative work. The images are scanned from Frantzs slides; where titles are known, they are included under each thumbnail. Frantzs collected papers are housed in the collection of The Jung Center of Houstons library, and a DVD presentation by Frantz on Birkhäusers work is available for sale through The Jung Centers bookstore.
This is the first painting I saw, which hung in the office of the Jung Institute in Zurich. It launched me on a quest to learn more about the artist and his life. It suggests the shadow, which is the foremost issue with which one must deal in the individuation process. As the alchemists were wont to say, "The diamonds are often found in the dunghill." Sometimes the most precious elements are found in the most unlikely places.
To make a living in his early years, he painted landscapes, still lifes, and posters.
These are typical of the posters by which he earned his living in the first half of his
You will notice the contrast between a poster like this and the later paintings from the last half of his life.
However, it was posters like this that put bread on his table
Near the beginning of his analysis with Marie-Louise von Franz, he dreamed of a huge praying mantis which attacked him, and against which he was determined to defend himself.
Here Birkhauser stands between two paintings which were displayed in a Zurich art gallery in his last public exhibit in the fall of 1975.
This was the first painting after his mid life crisis when he realized that he could no longer paint his outer world as he once did. It was orginally called "The Split One: but it has now been renamed "The World's Wound." It was the result of a dream in which he saw this wounded man, and realized he had to paint him as he saw him in the dream, although he had formerly used living models. But in this case, he had to paint the image as it was given to him by the unconscious.
This poor workman would not attract a second glance. He is clad in his working clothes, and apparently has been working underground, as he climbs a ladder. But he has a lantern in his hand, suggesting the light of consciousness, and the ladder suggests the connection between two different levels, or two different aspects. Also, some legends suggest that hunchback brings good luck. Jung wrote: "The savior is either the insignificant thing itself or arises out of it ... Over and over again ... he appears in the unlikeliest places." Jung also wrote "How often in the critical moments of life everything hangs on what appears to be a mere nothing."
This was his famous cathedral dream, in which the artist found himself at the bottom of the tower in the Basel cathedral, confronting this huge fish-like creature. His wife easily made her way to the top, but the artist had enormous difficulty getting past the creature. When he finally did so and reached the top of the tower, he faced an enormous gulf between him and the other side of the tower. He felt he could not make the leap, but finally he leaped across the gulf, and as he did so he saw a green triangle in the wall of the tower, and in the center was the eye of God.
Jung once said "The first step in making an omelette is breaking the eggs." One never knows what will emerge when the shell is broken.
While a firestorm rages over the earth, and all seems to be destroyed, there is a new being hidden in the depths, a new life which will emerge in the "fullness of time."
This painting is reproduced in "Man and His Symbols" and Jung comments about it "The dark animal is freed, and now in the form of the white and boar-like horse he moves through the dark heavens. It is the white Pegasus bringing up the aeon of Aquarius ... The God reveals himself to everybody. That is what the people cannot understand ... l could not tell you all there is to know about this image of the puer, it has to do with the progressive incarnation of the godhead."
Jung once said "The eyes of the centuries are upon you." There is something within us that knows, that sees things beyond our conscious mind.
This painting was not the result of a dream, but was the result of the artist's cat coming into his studio, and he draped this fabric over the cat. Perhaps she is the representation of Bastet, the cat goddess, who possessed ancient secrets. This was one of Jung's favorite paintings, and it hung in his consulting room.
The two youths are united as the fish swims down and to the left, where they may bring a new meaning from the depths of the unconscious. Above it all is the eye of God. The relationship between three and four was an important idea for Jung, and it is here seen in the body of the fish.
This strange creature lives in the depths of the ocean, but it has discovered a beautiful mandala, symbol of wholeness and order.
This painting repressents both being and non-being, so it is a paradox. Jung wrote "The paradox reflects a higher level of intellect and by not forcibly representing the unknowable as known, gives a more faithful picture of the real state of affairs ... We have stripped all things of their mystery and numinosity, nothing is holy any longer." This painting has the quality of being mysterious and numinous, therefore it has a quality of holiness.
This is reproduced in Volume 10 of the Collected Works, also a dream of Birkhauser which is Dream No. 7 in paragraph 712. This painting was the result of a vision which the artist had on his way to see Jung one day. Jung named it. It portrays a dimension which is beyond time and space. There is a cosmic background, from which flows living water. The images suggest another dimension of our world where a new God-image is faintly visible for those with eyes to see.
Creative power is often contained in the images of dwarfs,which in Greek mythology were known as cabiri. They were the creatures who mined the treasures in fairy tales. This figure walks through the streets of a modern city, but wears armor, but the shape of his armor is like an egg, suggesting the possibility of new life.
In mythology the tortoise is considered the spirit of earth. Here he points toward the left, and he glows with inner fire, suggesting an inner wisdom. Tortoise shells are often used by primitives for divination purposes. Many creation myths also tell of the world being carried on the backs of tortoises.
Jung asked "How can anyone see straight when he does not even see himself and the darkness he unconsciously carries with him into all his dealings?"
Jung wrote "There is no light without shadow and no psychic wholeness without imperfection. To round itself out, life calls not for perfection, but for completeness; and for this the 'thorn in the flesh' is needed, the suffering of defects without which there is no progress and no ascent." ..." The fundamental error persists in the public that there are definite 'answers', 'solutions', or views which need only be uttered in order to spread the necessary light. But the most beautiful truth--as history has shown a thousand times over--is no use at all unless it has become the innermost experience and possession of the individual. Every unequivocal, so called 'clear' answer always remains stuck in the head, but only very rarely does it penetrate to the heart. The needful thing is not to know the truth, but to experience it. Not to have an intellectual conception of things, but to find our way to the inner, perhaps wordless, irrational experience--that is the great problem. Nothing is more fruitless than talking of how things must be or should be and nothing is more important than finding the way to these far-off goals."
This person beats on the door in alarm in frustration, but if she would only turn around, she would see the symbols of wholeness which are behind her and to the left, that which could restore the balance in her life.
The Prisoner
The creative power represented by this fiery creature comes out of the unconscous. The artist has locked the door, and keeps his hand on the handle, trying to keep the creature from entering, but we know he will not succeed. This creature brings light and life, compared to the dark, narrow space where the man has been living.
Jung wrote "For the Chinese, spirit does not signify order, meaning and everything that is good; on the contrary, it is a fiery and sometimes dangerous power... Creation is terribly demonic--and wonderful--an awe-inspiring and terrible secret."
The artist has painted himself, but he will continue to be enveloped by the tentacles of depression. The only way out is to turn around and face it. Jung defined a neurosis as the suffering of a soul that has not yet found its meaning." ; also as the "cry of the soul for growth." He wrote about a neurosis "We should not try to cure it--it cures us ... We should not try to get rid of it, but to experience what it means, what it has to teach, what its purpose is. We should even be thankful for it."
Jung once said "If God is kind, he will send us a neurosis."
Under the surface lurk all kinds of strange powers. This was painted at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, and shows ships sailing the ocean completely unaware of what lurked in the depths.
It is most important to HEAR, even in the world of jet planes. Our antennae must be out to catch the sounds of what might otherwise escape us.
Moden man is topsy-turvy, his values are upside down.
Against the background of the drabness of contemporary life is this huge spirit, which carries a broom which could sweep clean and create a new atmosphere. The fire of the spirit is contained within him.
This is a portrait of our contemporary world, a business man who wears dark glasses and is so engrossed in his outer world that he cannot see the symbols of that which Is eternal and universal on the building behind him. The words fire and change are also engraved on the building, also Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending.
Rootfoot
Jung wrote "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable, and therefore not popular."
Wisdom looks out over a dark world, in which there is only a glimmer of light. But the wisdom symbolized by this huge owl is there for all who have eyes to see.
Conflicts are part of our nature. The figure on the r~ghht as a weapon, which is a symbol of discrimination. Jung wrote "Man needs difficulties, they are necessary for health. The serious problems in life are never really solved. If ever they should appear to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost. The meaning and purpose of a problem lies not in its solution, but in our working at it incessantly. This alone keeps us from petrificationand stultification."
The spirit of the storm.
The artist must reckon with the forces beneath the surface, invisible but powerful.
The artist often dreamed of wild cats and the power which emanated from them.
Jung wrote "This enemy often appears in alchemy in the guise of the poisonous or fire-spitting dragon."
This is a cat-like figure unlike anything seen on earth.
Creative forces emerge from the depths, like lava from a volcano.
Like the phoenix, new life emerges from the ashes.
This was the date of his wife's death. Although the artist's life was shattered by her death, here he suggests that what appears senseless may be the work of some cosmic being with human aspects, that meaning can often be found even in tragedy.
The creative person lights his torch at the fire of the Creator. The artist once dreamed that he was given this privilege.
The tree is an image of inner growth where we find illumination, and the golden mandalas suggest the fruit which is for our picking.
This painting was suggested by a letter from his son who was in the Far East and saw temple maidens carrying the sacred fire.
This is a series of anima paintings. At first the anima is hidden, then she emerges from the unconscious.
Jung wrote "The anima is the archetype of life itself."
He continues (The anima) "sums up everything that a man can never get the better of and never finishes coping with ... Hence it is practically impossible to get a man who is afraid of his own femininity to understand what is meant by the anima."
Jung continues "Because she (the anima) is his greatest danger she demands from a man his greatest, and if he has it in him he will receive it."
The look within reveals strange figures: a devouring witch, a beautiful woman, framed by a snake, symbol of spiritual power and of renewal. There are many other images here which speak of the power of the feminine principle, and the creative power if the man with his eyes shaded would only look around him. The artist often dreamed of an old woman from whom he had to flee in order to get in touch with his creative energies.
Here the anima is represented by the colors of the peacock, which in alchemy was a symbol of the completion of the work.
Moira
She looks within, but she brings the gift of life and light. She is the soul of man, but she carries in one hand a lotus blossom, and in the other a claw which suggests her instinctual side. When dealing with the anima, one must be cautious, but she carries the possibility of great meaning.
Meister Eckhart wrote "Suffering is the fastest horse to carry us to completion." When the soul accepts the suffering which is inevitable, then our pain is often revealed as the birth pangs of a new inner being.
The snake is always a symbol of new life, and transformation, so it is right that it should be linked with this anima figure.
The artist did not understand this painting after he had completed it, but its meaning became apparent when his wife died a few months after he had painted it. This woman is a visitor from the beyond, and she encourages us to live life with meaning each day.
This was painted after his wife's death, and speaks of a process which leads to the center, also again a serpent, which is a healing agent leading us to the center which is the goal of our journey.
We are helpless in our own right, until the ego gives way to the Self, until we accept the encompassing power which is more than we are. Jung wrote "The spiritual adventure of our time is the exposure of human consciousnesss to the undefined and the indefineable."
There is that within us which frees us from too narrow a view of reality. In his autobiography, Jung wrote "The decisive question for man is: is he related to something inifinite or not? That is the telling question of his life ... If we feel and understand that here in this life we already have a link with the infinite, desires and attitudes change."
The creative spirit has been banished from our high-tech world, the gray monotony of life as we know it. He moves toward the left, but carries a trail of flames, the rainbow symbol of hope, but also the cataclysmic fire which could destroy our civilization.
Jung wrote "The animal which is imprisoned in the mountain is a content of the unconscious exerting a strong pressure; it is something in the soul, perhaps also in the body, which could provoke an explosion. Inadequate emotional outbursts often characterize such a situation."
Jung continues "Now the content is breaking out from the hot fires of libido, one could also say from the waves of emotion and excited feeling. It is creative energy."
Out of the collective unconscious symbolized on the left, comes a new being, born in free space. It is a symbol of psychic totality, the image of the Self, the wholeness towards which we all strive.
The artist called this "the revealing light of nature." The quaternity suggests totality.
The wounded man has been transformed, and blood flows from his wound. He was formerly mute, but now he can speak. This is what happens when one follows the unconscious and its inspiration, as Birkhauser did.
This is the artist's last finished painting. He wrote me from his hospital bed that he was surrounded by electric sparks and feared that he would not escape.
The artist's unfinished painting of an anima figure, which suggests that work with the feminine principle is never completed.
The artist's studio.
The artist's studio.
The artist's studio.
