ABSTRACT
Jung claimed that modern painters were immersed ‘in the destructive element,’ thus promoting the dissolution or fragmentation of their subject matter. The modern artists that Jung discussed in Flying Saucers were able to express Jung’s own preferred notion of a symbolic expression—which is to say, in his view, they offered a compensatory expression of wholeness. In Flying Saucers, Jung suggested that mandalas appear in situations of psychic confusion. In Jung’s view, the intense interest and excitement surrounding UFO sightings suggested that there was a collective tension amongst modern people. Jung related UFO sightings to the psyche’s compulsion to be provided with a sense of ‘wholeness’ at a time of great social and cultural upheaval. Jung’s visceral response to Picasso’s art prevented him from acknowledging the artist’s early works as compatible with his theory of developing consciousness. The chapter maintains that Jung’s paintings depict his struggle to integrate ego and the unconscious.
