THE SACRED ROUND: Mandalas by the Patients of Carl Jung

February 5-May 6, 2012

“The Sacred Round: Mandalas by the Patients of Carl Jung,” the first-ever
exhibition of forty mandalas created by patients of Swiss psychoanalyst C.G. Jung, will be
showcased at the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art from February 5 through May 6, 2012.
The exhibition is courtesy of the C.G. Jung Institute in Kusnacht, Switzerland.

The Sacred Round features multiple works created by five patients during the course of their
treatment between 1926 and 1945, offering rare insight into the patients’ creative analytical
process and the symbolism within their mandalas. Among the exhibited works is a handmade
book containing one patient’s dream descriptions and drawings, hailed as the feminine version of
The Red Book, Jung’s famous manuscript only recently made available.

Mandalas, meaning “circles” or “holy circles” in Sanskrit, were used during therapy to express
both the conscious and unconscious. The use of mandalas in therapy was a result of Jung’s own
self-experimentation with mandalas between 1913 and 1917, documented in The Red Book.

The Sacred Round is curated by Vicente de Moura, archivist at the C. G. Jung Institute and a
Jungian analyst. Assistant curators are Dr. Jutta von Buchholtz, a Jungian analyst from
Birmingham, Alabama, and Lloyd Nick, director of the Oglethorpe University Museum of Art.

“Jung realized through his own paintings that balance is possible when one gets out of the
opposites and focuses in the middle. Intuitively Jung drew mandalas, which led him to a center,”
explained Curator Vicente de Moura. “Later he observed that the symbol had a similar meaning
for his patients.”

“Since I first visited the Jung Institute in Zurich, I have worked to bring these mandalas to
Oglethorpe University and Atlanta,” said OUMA Director Lloyd Nick. “This is an exceptional
opportunity to view symbolic and historic art that has been secured in the Institute’s archives for
decades.”