Life Transitions: Cave Paintings, Homer and Greek Tragedy
The C.G. Jung Foundation of New York City has been lifesaver during the Pandemic, offering a range of courses in how to cope with psychological stress. But the organization is also very attentive to the creative needs of its members. A recent seminar, offered as a Tuesday Lunch via Zoom, explored the “Importance of the Story” and how early forms of artistic expression can be seen as expressions of life’s transitions.
The instructor, Harmar D. Brereton, MD, in addition to being a medical and radiation oncologist, is well versed in the classics, having taught courses on Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey and the Paleolithic Cave Paintings. He has visited and studied caves in France and Spain.
The purpose of the program was to examine the origin of consciousness as expressed in original works of art including the Paleolithic cave paintings, the Homeric Epic and Greek tragedy to show the artist understanding of the human psyche, especially during times of psychological transition. The instructor noted that this “understanding” is remarkably consistent with modern psychological theory developed by Carl Jung and Eric Erickson.
Human consciousness can be described as the ability to think and communicate through letters, words and stories. And we can reach a level of symbolic thinking through art, a form and artifact that can teach us things not known in any other way.
Archaeological studies based on findings in Britain and elsewhere suggest even the most primitive tools from two to six million years ago represent levels of consciousness. This is well-demonstrated in the evolution of tool-making, including spear points and hand axes in which these weapons were modified over time to satisfy engagement with the enemy at close range or a distance. The more exacting the design and the sharper the spear or the axe, the more likely the killing would be at close range.
Perhaps the most graphic example of the evolution of consciousness can be found in the Chauvet caves in Southern France dating from 30,000 to 35,000 years ago. Researchers can’t be sure what was the motivation for such astonishing art work depicting cave lions in in such detail. Some research suggests the cave dwellers were more interested in recording contemporary events rather than featuring animals, such as lions, that were not their usual prey.
According to the instructor the Chauvet Cave art, discovered in December 1994, likely represented a service to the community, a representation beyond the hunter-gatherer existence, something of an altered consciousness, a poetic caste of mind, a leap of sorts. One can certainly see this impulse and this reach in the images of lions on the lookout for bison, then attacking them, and finally consuming a bison head. There is a sense of movement in these images, a world in motion and, in the words of our teacher, a kind of “proto-cinematic” feel. As the oldest known story in this form the shape, tone and life of the graphics is quite extraordinary.
In Les Cavernes Begouen (or Cavernes de Volp) outside of Paris, discovered in 1911and still being researched, a deer tooth has been discovered and a painting of a spear thrower. On a more intimate, human level engravings of humans copulating were found. Also identified were imprints of an adolescent’s heel, suggesting movement, dance or some kind of ritual.
Also discovered was a painting of a shaman as if he was overlooking the scene. He also appears as half bison/half man playing a nose flute. There are images of a phallus and vulva. This might suggest a story-line, perhaps of a male involved in a puberty ritual or a time of transition, such as adolescence. Given that the lifespan for this period was about thirty years, the teacher suggested these caving paintings and marks could also suggest a movement, a growing of consciousness. In these and other caves images there is a sense of transformation, perhaps away from an archaic, instinctual consciousness towards a more cultural, introspective state.
In the program we learned that the archaic consciousness reflects outward; the modern consciousness, inward. Early cave paintings depicted mammals. Later images, such as of shamans, suggest a movement away for this early phase. Our instructor sees parallels between these early developments and Carl Jung’s psychology. In a process Jung called individuation we are invited to move beyond the outer world embraced by our ego and conscious self and move inward and embrace our shadow, the unconscious self and our opposites, such as his feminine side for a male.
If the various cave paintings represent this psychological matrix in rough, suggestive ways, the instructor suggested that the Homeric Epics are much more illustrative of this journey, with the “Iliad” and the “Odyssey” representing distinct periods of Odysseus’ life. In short, Odysseus in the respective books goes from asking what to why; from focusing on ego to the self; from being prototypical masculine to embracing his feminine side. This is a outline of Jung’s individuation process.
In the “Iliad” women have no real role in the action. The masculine dominates. The narrative line is linear and simple: from Ithaca to Troy. The hero is focused on elements associated with the first half of life.
“The Odyssey” occurs thirty years later with Odysseus returning home but is told in a non-linear, richly descriptive manner with flashbacks, shifts in story line, and a sense of slowness and a kind of introspection. The feminine is a powerful, dominant presence in this and has a marked influence on Odysseus. He must get home to his wife. This is no straightforward return trip. There is a lot of meandering, side trips, and interruptions. The primitive masculine must be confronted and for that Odysseus needs the feminine, including Athena and Circe. He needs the help of Teiresias, both man and woman, to help him get home. Even the underworld, including the Sirens, have a hand in the hero’s return.
In the psychological sense Odysseus is expanding his self, becoming more humble, forgiving and wise. From a Jungian perspective Homer’s first book might be described as about ego development; his second is about the pursuit of meaning or individuation.
For his last example of early artistic expression of life’s transitions the instructor goes to the Greek trilogy “Oresteia” by Aeschylus about a son’s revenge murders of his mother for the death of his father and the dramatic consequences. He uses the language of psychologist Erik Erikson’s stages of life to underscore Orestes development and fulfillment.
In short, Orestes is instructed by Apollo to kill his mother (Clytemnestra) for cheating on her husband (Agamemnon) while he away at the Trojan War. Orestes kills the mother and her lover only to be pursued by the Furies, almost to the point of his madness.
At its root the play is about a man being in conflict with the laws of nature that threatens to kill him and his finding the strength in the middle of this conflict in integrate the shadow and expand consciousness. The Furies must be brought into human consciousness and transformed. It is as if the playwright suspended some of the rules of that period theater. Athena and the women lead this charge, this transformation of the Furies into a kinder version, the Eumenides. The psychological and social transitions are in plain view. Modern psychological drama portrayed on the ancient Greek stage.
This program has served an invitation to me to reread these classics from another perspective. Although the caves are closed to the general public, there is “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” on YouTube that is a good introduction to the subject.
