John Foster|Accidental Mysteries
April 28, 2013
The Inkblot and Popular Culture
Hermann Rorschach (1884-1922), who is still famous today for his psychoanalytic work using inkblots, was very familiar with a popular 19th century parlor game called Blotto. So much, in fact, that as a schoolboy, young Rorschach was nicknamed “Klecks,” (or, “inkblot”) by his friends — because of his fascination with the game. Players of the game would make up poems or stories based on what they saw from the folded paper inkblots they would create.
Few know that the game evolved from a German doctor and poet by the name of Justinus Kerner (1786-1862), who, in 1857, created a book of poems inspired by the symmetrical shapes he created with inkblots. Kerner called his abstractions Klecksographen, (translated “Blotto-graphs”), and were enhanced by hand to create surreal, anthropomorphic creatures. Though his book was not published until after his death in 1890, it became the spark that influenced not just parlor games but the future career of young Hermann Rorschach.
For the last 60 years or so, the Rorschach test has been used as a psychoanalytical testing tool by many psychologists, and at the same time, discounted by scores of medical professionals who call the test worthless and tantamount to a scam. But one thing is sure — the inkblot has come to personify mystery, interpretive analysis and the science of psychology as a whole.
By the 1960s and 70s, the Rorschach test was commonly known, at least enough to where the idea of it made its way outside the lexicon of psychiatrists and into the mainstream vocabulary. That’s where the symmetrical inkblot became known in popular culture, and in 1984, was “pop” enough to be used by Andy Warhol (1928-1987) in several dozen large paintings.
And yes, the inkblot eventually made its way to advertising, where it continues to be used off and on to this day.
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Observed
By John Foster
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