From the Instinctual to the Cosmic: Jung’s Exploration of the Colour in The Red Book, 1915-1929/30

Abstract

Jung wrote extensively about colour symbolism in his patients’ dreams, paintings, and active imagination, beginning with his first mandala study in 1929, and continuing during the 1930s as he learned more about alchemy and Eastern esoteric texts. Students of Jung and Jungian analysts are already well acquainted with this material. The publication of The Red Book (2009), and Jung’s visual works in The Art of C.G. Jung (2019), present new opportunities to study how Jung explored colour between 1915 and 1929. This paper will trace Jung’s colour journey, concentrating on imagery that illustrates the instinctual and cosmic energies of the new god, the self and individuation. Jung’s evolving colour symbolism demonstrates The Red Book’s crucial role as an experimental medium, and confirms that Jung had developed a well-established colour hermeneutic by the 1920s. KEY WORDS colour, instinct, cosmos, new god, self, individuation, mandala, Goethe.