What is your Artistic Archetype?
Take the Artistic Archetype Quiz!
I created this short, quirky quiz
to explore the idea of Jungian Archetypes in visual art.
Right? I KNOW! Archetypes are everywhere - the story of the unwitting hero on her journey, embarking down a dangerous path full of helpers and challenges, only to be shoved into the belly of the whale (and more) and finally return with a precious gift she can use to heal not only herself, but her community.
Sound familiar?
Like….ALL artists do this on a daily basis?
Like, your JOB description?
But also, what about our INTERNAL journey - as we paint, write, dance, cook, sculpt or perform? The concept of archetypes as tools along our creative path can help us understand who and where we are in the actual doing - and get more in tune with our own (super individual) creative process.
For instance, when we start out learning to paint - We are The Fool / The Innocent - we should keep our mind open and even naive to new ideas, so we can take in information fully and not resist it. The Orphan is the second stage, where we have lost our innocence and illusions, and must build up a new Self. At this stage, we must watch that we are too overprotective of ourselves and fall into unsubstantiated fears.
And so on.
The 12 Artistic Archetypes
The Innocent or Idealist; The Orphan or Realist; The Hero or Warrior; The Caretaker; The Rebel or Destroyer; The Seeker; The Creator; The Lover; The Trickster; The Sage; The Magician; The Ruler
represented in my quiz are based on a few different sources, including:
Carl Jung’s book Man and His Symbols, with his concept of primordial images, include the anima/animus, the self, the shadow, and the persona.
Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, from which we get the famous Hero’s Journey and all its stages and characters, based on Campbell’s research of myths from around the world, and of Jung’s archetype model.
Carol Pearson’s Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator (PMAI), a test you can take online, which assigns your score for all 12 archetypes, and her books, mostly Awakening the Hero Within, where she encourages the use of her model in psychology, commerce and the arts for greater insight into motivations and identity.
Kaye Putnam (the Psychology-driven Brand Strategist), whose Brand Archetypes Quiz turned a lot of lights on for me for my own business, and especially coaching model.
ARCHETYPE: The word archetype, "original pattern from which copies are made," first entered into English usage in the 1540s(Wiki). From the Greek: ARKHE - origin, beginning, first; and TYPOS - model, image, figure, impression (as in a dent or pressing), blow or mark of a blow, as a hammer on a piece of metal.
Philosopher, psychologist (and artist) Carl Jung based his concept of psychological archetypes on Plato’s eidos, calling it "the formulated meaning of a primordial image by which it was represented symbolically."
Plato's eidos, or ideas, were pure mental forms that were imprinted in the soul before it was born into the world. As in the Greek meaning of impressing a design into metal or clay.
Jung states in part one of Man And His Symbols that:
My views about the 'archaic remnants', which I call 'archetypes' or 'primordial images,' have been constantly criticized by people who lack sufficient knowledge of the psychology of dreams and of mythology. The term 'archetype' is often misunderstood as meaning certain definite mythological images or motifs, but these are nothing more than conscious representations. Such variable representations cannot be inherited. The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif—representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern.
In her book, Awakening the Heroes Within, Carol S. Pearson says that the 12 archetypes represent different “selves” or stages on the path of the Hero’s Journey. So therefore, we are ALL of them - just at different times or stages in our lives. So we can use this as a tool to say - ok, where am I now?
In the Native American Animal Medicine Cards - which I LOVE - each animal has a different “medicine” or message for the person who encounters it on how to view the world, what to focus on, how to get past obstacles, how to relate with others, etc. The Whale is the Record-keeper, for instance, reminding us to listen within to the song of our ancestors and nature, in order to create our own, original song.
The Jungian concept of archetypes is the same: depending on where you are on our creative journey, you can draw from the magic or message of a different archetype. The Tarot draws from these same archetypes.
All of these concepts are what I call “Generating Systems” that help us find new, expansive ideas about our own creative process and new ways to create art that connects with ourselves and others. (I wrote more about Generating Systems in another blog post.)
More to come on each archetype and how this can help in understanding our own creative process.
