Jungian Functions and the Fine Arts

So, I'm acutely aware of summer rapidly approaching its end. In just over two weeks, my teaching appointment for the semester begins, and a week after that, I'll be teaching two undergraduate philosophy classes, as well as taking two graduate text seminars. I have a few ideas I've been tossing around, so hopefully I get them all done. Once the semester starts, my posting may slow down again. I'll probably focus on my personal(ish) blog when the time allows. (When being the operative term.)

In the meantime, here's something quick(ish) that I've been tossing around for awhile.

There are certain associations people make about Jung's types and the arts. One of the myths I've seen most frequently is that artistic production belongs to the realm of the feeling types. In actuality, all of the types have some contribution to the arts, but the different functions have different areas of mastery.


Intuition: Jung is quite clear in Psychological Types that intuition represents artistic inspiration. This is the sort of "aha!" that comes in, where one has a sudden inspiration or idea. This makes no claim to the ability. The person could be a tormented genius like Blake, or they could be that guy who sits around in a cafe, writing really bad poetry that everyone secretly wishes he won't ask them to read. There is something very unstructured about this. It is pure inspiration, what the ancient Greeks often referred to as divine madness. If you would like to get an idea of what this looks like, go read Plato's Ion on this website. It's one of Plato's shorter dialogues, and the section on divine inspiration gives you a good idea of this process.

Sensing: Sensing is the function most associated with artistic production. It's the sensing type who can do really detailed, realistic drawings, paintings and sculptures. In contrast to intuition, which has inspiration but can often lack technique, sensing types are skilled with technique, but may have trouble with the risk taking and imaginative leaps that the intuitive type is so comfortable with. As you can imagine, both are essential to artistic creation, and either in the extreme could result in artistic failure: the intuitive type fails on account of being pure idea with no way of communicating it, while the sensing type fails by doing technically proficient works that are nonetheless uninspired. This exemplifies the need for both types to become integrated with the inferior function. When the sensing type becomes more integrated, she's able to be more courageous in her work, while the intuitive type who engages her inferior sensing is able to finally master the technique necessary to make her inner vision comprehensible to others.

Thinking: Thinking is what gets us theory. In the extraverted thinking type, this lends itself (as von Franz points out) to the art historian who situates the work of art in a movement. It's extraverted thinking that determines what sort of art is thought to belong in a museum, what school it belongs to and what year a certain work was likely created. By contrast, introverted thinking type asks questions about what a work of art is, what sort of criteria we ought to have to determine both what qualifies as a work of art and how one ought to conclude whether or not a work of art is "good." The introverted thinking type might, for example, look at The Museum of Bad Art's website, and say, "Well, wait a minute, what sort of criteria are you using to determine 'bad art?' What do you mean by 'bad,' for that matter, what do you mean by 'art?'"

Feeling: The feeling function would most properly belong to the MOBA site referenced above. The feeling type rules neither artistic production nor artistic inspiration, but rather rules the judgments made about art. This is not the same as an intellectual process used to determine how art relates to a concept or to the data, but rather, a pre-set criteria through which the art is deemed good or bad. For the extraverted feeling type, this will refer to social norms. How art fits the current standard will be the criteria. For example, the extraverted feeling type might look at the latest trends in the art world as shown by a magazine like Art Forum and, when viewing a work of art, determines whether or not it ought to be viewed in a respectable museum. The introverted feeling type's aesthetic judgment will be keen as well, but will be based on some sort of internal criteria which is hard to articulate, and will simply be experienced as a moving experience. Edvard Munch's The Scream is deemed a beautiful work of art because it is very moving, the person relates to it or because they had some sort of aesthetic experience while viewing it that is difficult to articulate and even harder to pin down.

Again, both of these are rather one-sided. The philosopher of art who has never had an aesthetic experience won't be able to say anything meaningful about the work itself. She may try to concoct a logical proof for determining a work of art's worth, which, to the feeling type, will seem to miss the point entirely. By contrast, the feeling type without considering either the history of the work or the philosophical questions behind it gets reduced to the "I don't know a lot about art but I know what I like" stereotype. She may seem at best to subordinate the work to her own pre-existing expectations and at worst will only mimic the views of others. Each function has to engage with its opposite to really have any sort of insight into the artwork.

From here, you can piece together the likely approaches from the combining of the dominant and auxiliary. Remember that the dominant will be the most prominent. The auxiliary serves the aims of the dominant only loosely and until deliberate efforts or circumstances push the auxiliary to fully differentiate, it will usually be more toned down. (Some people, though, have both so well developed that it can be hard to determine which their dominant function really is.) This probably shouldn't be used to type others, since Jung considered that to be not only difficult but contrary to the system's intent. (Most Jungian analysts suggest he would have been against the use of personality inventories too, and that the only way to really learn your type is to live with the system for a long time. Not to say you can't use them if you find them helpful, but even MBTI practitioners urge just using it as a starting point and that ultimately you, not the test, are the best judge of your type.)

However, where the aesthetic approaches may be helpful is in getting a deeper understanding of what each of the functions does. In that sense, it can help with self-typing. Also, as so much of Jung's system was developed through examining the type problem in philosophy, literature and the arts, I believe the approach to aesthetic issues to be yet another useful avenue in finding one's own type. Examining one's approach to the arts in light of this may reveal important information about the self which can then be used as a starting point for further self-exploration.