Mystical
tension: The Grail legend as analogue of the creative process
Master Thesis The University of Texas at Dallas 117 (1995)
The Grail legend as it occurs in Parzival , by
Wolfram von Eschenbach, serves as an analogue of the creative process as I have
experienced it in my paintings and poems exhibited at the University of Texas
at Dallas in the spring of 1994. The paintings are a series of images of
vessels that illustrate my various conceptions--which change over time--of the
Grail. The poems parallel steps along the journey taken by Parzival in his
progress to selfhood. The thesis is divided into chapters that demarcate the
stages of Parzival's maturation, culminating in his "attainment" of
the Grail. The works of anthropologist Victor Turner and of Carl and Emma Jung
not only shed light on Parzival but also offer parallels to my creative work.
The structure of the initiation rituals described by Turner is similar to the
process through which Parzival arrives at maturity and the identity confirmed
by his new name and status. The symbolic nature of Parzival's initiation is
paralleled in the symbolic nature of my experience of the creative process. My
creative work arises from a need to define myself through the symbolic media of
painting and poetry. The process of "individuation" and
"transformation" through which the creative artist and poet works
toward this goal has been described by Carl Jung. The most powerful model for
this integration of the "Self" is found in the alchemical model
elaborated by Emma Jung and Marie von Franz in The Grail Legend . The
alchemical metaphor of a cosmos created in a glass vessel--which alchemists
often called a "uterus"--is exactly the theme of my paintings. At the
center of this creation, as Jung put it, there is a "hidden
treasure." This hidden treasure is the soul. The language that Turner and
the Jungs use in their own fields has enabled me to identify meanings that are
hidden in my own work as a result of the intuitive method I use. The hidden
meanings inherent in the Grail are thus parallel to meanings hidden in my work.
Both the poetry and painting attempt to define the Grail, which defies
definition. The problem creates branches to some of the deepest questions, such
as what it is to be contained in mortality itself and to grapple with the
unknown. Such questions imply that through vital experience, such as
confronting death, a transformation takes place that vitalizes the creative work
as well. The work thus attains the status of the Grail (gift) as an outcome of
the initiatory hell-trip and rebirth. The assumption is that the search for
meaning, or "spirit" as Carl Jung called it, is the main driving
force in human beings. In this way I emphasize that the terms "art"
and "meaning" are synonymous. For me the most direct road to this
goal is the intuitive process--a finely tuned mechanism that incorporates these
issues unconsciously by tapping into archetypes and providing a link with myth
and ritual.
