Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn and the Spiritual Function of Images in Eranos, 1933–1962

This essay examines the pivotal yet understudied role of images in the Eranos conferences (1933–1962), an interdisciplinary forum founded by Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn to explore universal archetypes across myths, religions, and psychology. Central to Eranos was Fröbe-Kapteyn’s image archive—a collection of cross-cultural photographic reproductions and her own symbolic paintings—which served as a visual lexicon for scholars like Carl Jung. Drawing on the visual lexicon of the Theosophical Society as formulated by Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater in Thought-Forms (1905), and Jung’s theory of archetypes, I argue that Fröbe-Kapteyn’s curation of images made Eranos into a site where the “collective unconscious” was made visible. Through analysis of her geometric and representational paintings, archival exhibitions, and the scholarly works they inspired, the essay demonstrates how Eranos synthesized spiritual and academic modes of inquiry, treating images as conduits for transcultural, timeless truths.