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MANIFESTO OF VISIONARY ART
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Where the Surrealists were primarily inspired by Freud's writings on dreams, the Fantastic Realists had Jung's latest discoveries to spur them onward to new dimensions of consciousness. And so, while the early dream-works of Dali manifest much of the repressed sexual imagery uncovered by Freud, the fantastic works of the early Fuchs, by contrast, revealed the sacred images of alchemy which Jung had recently uncovered in dreams. (For example, Jung's Psychology and Alchemy which, with its many plates and engravings, led Fuchs onward to new experiments in imagery with his unicorn engravings of the fifties).
During his own 'confrontation with the unconscious', Jung spiralled down into deeper and deeper strata of the mind, discovering there the collective imagery of dreams. However, during the process, many of the images upwelling from his dreams and fantasies remained a mystery to him. After seeing a horned, bearded prophet flying through the sky with four keys in his hands, he responded in a curious manner: "Since I did not understand this dream-image," he wrote,"I painted it." (71)
A series of dream and fantasy images followed, all rendered into art. This culminated in a revelatory dream where Jung visited a city shaped like a mandala, with a sacred tree growing from its centre. "Out of (this dream)," Jung wrote, "emerged the first inkling of my personal myth." (72) This was the beginning, the moment of discovery, the emergence of his own creative psychology. Years later he remarked that "the years when I was pursuing my inner images were the most important in my life." (73)
Through the further researches of Eliade and Campbell, this creative interplay between art, myth, and dream has been expored to ever-greater depths over the last century."Imagery, especially the imagery of dreams," Campbell remarked, "is the
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basis of mythology."(74) And Eliade echoed this sentiment: "In the oneiric universe, we find again and again the symbols, the images, the figures and events of which mythologies are constituted." (75)
By documenting the evolution of imagery in their dreams, visionary artists have contributed to this impetus - offering a rich array of imagery from the darkest depths of the unconscious and leading their beholders, unexpectedly, to the light. Through the on-going impression of image after image onto canvas, an artist could gradually discover his own life-myth: a myth that would reveal to him, ultimately, the Sacred underlying his life. For "Myth," Jung recognized "is the revelation of a divine life in man."(76)
Hence, the visionary artist descends nightly into the underworld of dreams, arising each morning with new possible sources for his works. Though some dreams are difficult to remember, another species of dreams are almost impossible to forget. This is especially true of 'lucid dreams', which have become increasingly documented lately. Though Hervey de Saint-Denys (1851) was the first and probably most-indepth researcher of lucid dreams, Stephan Laberge has emerged lately as their greatest champion.
In a characteristically lucid dream, the dreamer suddenly 'wakes up' within the dream, becoming strangely aware of his state of dreaming. To a degree, he may even begin to control its actions and events. The obvious advantage, for Visionary artists, is the possibility of exploring dream-imagery much more deeply. While Saint-Denys used the technique to confront demons from his nightmares, LaBerge used it instead to soar to new heights of awareness and experience.
During his two revelatory dreams, Fuchs also felt that 'he was awake' and seeing things 'with eyes open'. Indeed, he "...was overcome by a high feeling at the very beginning of the dream," (77)
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