In 1941, when the world was at war, Gottlieb began the breakthrough paintings he called Pictographs. In these works, he responded to the barbarity of the conflict among the highly civilized cultures of Europe and Asia. Gottlieb's search for a means to address this brutality and destruction was steeped in ideas of modern psychology, classical literature, and premodern and tribal art. Gottlieb, like most Abstract Expressionists, endeavored to make his paintings a reflection of his unconscious. He began the Pictographs by painting a grid directly on the canvas. Then, employing a method of free association, he envisioned an individual image for each compartment. Jungian psychology-with its focus on archetypes and its theory of the collective unconscious-significantly informed Gottlieb's approach. The painting Untitled (Box and Sea Objects) (1940), an arrangement of diverse objects in compartments of a box, marks the transition from Gottlieb's more traditional work to the Pictographs. With these paintings, the artist empowers the viewer to interpret and engage with images that are rife with primeval force. He weaves together strands of art history as seemingly diverse and contradictory as the rational modernist grid, the ambiguous imagery of Surrealism, the partitioned panels of Renaissance altarpieces, and the formal and emotive forces of tribal sculptures and textiles. Adolph Gottlieb (American, 1903-1974) Mariner's Incantation, 1945 Oil, gouache, tempera, and casein on canvas ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY Adolph Gottlieb (American, 1903-1974) Sounds at Night, 1948 Oil and charcoal on linen ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY