Archetypes in art – a deeper encounter

Some images appear before our mind’s eye without us being able to say where they come from. They enter our consciousness like emerging from the fog of a distant memory: familiar, yet enigmatic. An ancient face that seems to gaze at us, as if it has seen many lives. A solitary figure on an unknown path. Scenes that evoke myths, stories from other times that continue to live within us. They feel like fragments of a deeper reality, older than our own lives, yet firmly anchored in the here and now.

Such moments touch something within us that cannot be put into words. They bring a quiet sense of something fundamental, timeless. In these mysterious and haunting images, we encounter what depth psychology refers to as archetypes.

The term was shaped in particular by Carl Gustav Jung. Archetypes are collective primal images: symbolic patterns of human experience deeply embedded in the unconscious. They are not learned, but inherent in us: structures that repeatedly appear in myths, dreams, fairy tales, and of course, in art. The wise old man, the great mother, the inner child, the shadow, the heroine—these are just a few examples. They act as soul-deep prototypes and reflect universal themes that touch all people in one way or another.

In my artistic work, such archetypes don’t appear deliberately. They sneak in. Sometimes a woman appears who radiates both strength and vulnerability. An animal that is both companion and mirror. Or a landscape that relates more to an inner state than to an external scene. Often, I realize afterward: this wasn’t just a random image, it was an archetypal encounter. These encounters are not always clear-cut. They often elude direct language, just like dreams. And yet they are there, we feel them. An inner resonance, a recognition that cannot be rationally explained, but is deeply felt.

Archetypes in art function like gateways. They open spaces to something greater, beyond the personal. They create connection—between the individual and the collective, between now and ancient time, between the conscious and the unconscious. And this is where their power lies: they remind us of what we share as human beings. Of our roots. Of experiences we all go through, even though we experience them in uniquely personal ways.

Archetypes also appear in art therapy, often in the form of symbols, colors, and shapes. A protective circle, a growing plant, a dark forest. These images help to make inner themes more tangible without the need to name them. They offer support, orientation, or set an inner process in motion.

Archetypal images cannot be forced. They emerge when we least expect them, quietly, powerfully, as if from another layer of our being. And when they appear, they often touch something in us that has remained untouched for a long time.

Perhaps such an image has already found you: in a dream, in viewing a piece of art, or in a quiet moment of deep intuition. Such images do not speak in concepts, but in feelings. They carry something within them that does not explain, but reminds. An inner knowing, ancient, clear, and connective—often more powerful than words.

Further Reading:

Jung, Carl Gustav. Die Archetypen und das kollektive Unbewusste. Walter Verlag, 1968. (German original)

Or: Jung, Carl Gustav. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Translated by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton University Press, 1981. (Collected Works Vol. 9, Part 1)