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[NF] infj vs infp art

the state i am in

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it's interesting- i just had this like sudden realization due to mbti typing that was very disillusioning. i realized that as an infj i will never have the IMMEDIACY and deal 100% in EMOTIONAL CURRENCY like an infp. my first instinct is to be paralyzingly jealous. i find that ability to be so valuable. i will never write something that affects me with the immediacy and directness and conviction of Fi.

infj does not have the depth of internal feeling that infp has
infj sees the connection between things, perceives the big picture with more penetrating depth, clarity, and complexity, but it does not have the inner sanctum of feeling where humans TRANSFORM life into art (emotional value, emotional currency, etc)
infj is far more DISTANT emotionally, it PERFORMS less but attempts to reveal more in the way of insight (which i feel so unexcited about comparatively i can't even bring myself to capitalize it)

this is why i always describe my favorite artists as “perceptive” and why i need an intellectual backbone to support the emotional currency and allow me to react with total abandon, i can't just have faith i have to have insight too, the highest insight is what gets me off strongest and most allows me to openly experience feeling with the greatest depth i am capable of. (i cannot table my insight/understanding and just openly and un-self-consciously FEEL with total FAITH and conviction, it is such an antagonistic process for me to ever let go of Ni to just FEEL)

concluding, for me to make anything of special value, my art has to be based on INSIGHT rather than IMMEDIACY.

i want to know if other infjs feel similarly, or if they feel more comfortable than i describe being CLOSE to the work and letting the pages breathe with the immediacy of their own personality, presence, nearness, transparency, etc. looking at the (guessed) lists of writers and musicians typings, it does not seem to go along with infj predispositions.
 
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Venom

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i have this debate all the time ^^^

"so i feel like some sad/artistic/deep music.... Pink Floyd or Goo Goo Dolls? do i feel like existential downer art or just run of the mill 'lets ham up the feelings' downer art?" (i usually go PF)
 

Kyrielle

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concluding,
***for me to make anything of special value, my art has to be based on INSIGHT rather than IMMEDIACY.***

Then what's the problem? There is nothing for you to be jealous about as you have just pinpointed that the two types are simply different. If your art needs to be based on insight to work, then so it shall be and your best art will come from that. This is not because of your type. This is because you place importance on insight and you realise that is what you need to make things work. I'm not terribly sure, but you could try to place importance on immediacy and see where that gets you. You might be surprised, or you might not.
 

the state i am in

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i would like to know if other infs feel this characterizes their experience and the differences in their artistic capabilities, predilections, yada yada.

so my question is entirely based on the notion set forth that infp and infj DO have different dispositions as far as what they can contribute artistically. the question being, is it true, do you feel this way, etc?

right now i do feel this way, and i am not only surprised but disappointed. particularly in the "woah, this is disillusioning and i will have to radically adjust my own self-perception" sense. ie more of a bob dylan and less of a jack kerouac.

insight is so DISTANT, and the opposite of immediacy. feelings are moved around the chessboard in the form of symbolic pieces like dostoeyevsky characters. the emotional currency comes from outside and not within. (Fe vs Fi). very interesting to me, and i'm still letting all of the votes tabulate before i know what comes out as the result.
 

cascadeco

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I don't really have an opinion on the difference between infj and infp approach to art and how that results in differing content/style, but I do want to comment that I believe it's possible to allow mbti to become too limiting for you.

Ultimately you can and should feel motivated with whatever you put your mind to, and whatever you feel inspired to do. It's that inspiration that should be the driver for your creativity, and one force - you call it immediacy vs. insight - isn't better than the other. Also, I want to comment that INFJ's don't lack Fi. If you believe you do, then of course you will set your own limits and boundaries as to what you can achieve and do. And if you believe you are limited in some fashion in your own abilities, and focus on whatever limitations you perceive you have, then you are in effect setting rigid walls around your personality. Just my opinion of course. But just because it's not your dominant function/strength, doesn't mean you don't have it.

I can understand what you mean by your Dylan/Kerouac comparison, and wishing to be more Kerouac-ish (Edit: although, I always thought of both of them as SFP's, so am unsure of the reason behind comparing INFP's vs. INFJ's in this subject matter when it's more cognitive functions you're talking about?), and wishing you had more of certain traits - innately. But I think if you can reach a place where you're happy with what you DO have, and can really build off of that, and also don't put any self-imposed restrictions on yourself or your ability (but of course be realistic too), then you'll be equally happy and proud of what you can produce - whether it be artistically, or in another sense.
 

BlackCat

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Your OP is so stereotypical it hurts. MBTI is not linked to art whatsoever. Your ability to do art is only limited to how much of a passion you have toward it. My ESTJ step mom is masterful at her art style, everything that she creates is beautiful. Me, on the other hand, an INFP. I can say that I am not artistically expressive at all besides with writing.

infj is intellectually far better than infp, but artistically far worse (in terms of immediacy and presence and emotional nearness, rawness, openness)

This is just... So stereotyped. All INFJs are intellectually superior to INFPs? Really? I had no idea I'm sorry. Explain your reasons, you probably have a good one.

Otherwise you are just saying the differences in types. No type is any better than the other, they each have weaknesses and strengths. There are plenty of INFP vs INFJ threads and even websites to compare the differences. Neither type is any better than the other. I can say though that INFJs and INFPs can come to the same conclusions but in a very different way from each other, each accomplishing something different along the way to enlightenment.
 

sciski

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Nonono, I think you're letting yourself get trapped into the functions.

INFJ just has a preference to use Ni-Fe, as INFP has a preference to use Fi-Ne. There's nothing to stop an INFJ from practising using Fi... just as there's nothing to stop an INFP from practising using Ni and getting damned good at it.

Nobody is ruled by their functions, you use the functions at your disposal. Different types are simply more comfortable with using their top two functions, or value/express them more. I think knowing MBTI is the first step to becoming a more developed person because then you become aware of which areas of your life you can improve and how to go about doing it.

Practise the other functions and see what you come up with!
 

BlueScreen

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I agree with sciski. But I don't think you need to use other functions more to be good. Remember there is more than one way to do things. The greatest thing you can create is the thing that is most you, and most in your style. Replicate your heroes in your way, if you want to replicate them. There are some very good INFJ artists around too.

Plus you over and underrate INFPs in many areas. Their gift in this sense is clarity and insight into humanity, and seeing in word flow. It makes poetry and songwriting and stuff quite easy for them. John Lennon is a great example. He just knew how to make things connect, be authentic and be deeply human; even without the musical skills of McCartney. Shakespeare is another, they are just in their natural domain. INFPs are quite intelligent also. Someone in one of the other threads said they have the highest IQ on average of any type (I don't know the reference). They just don't talk about it much. So the brilliance is no accident, or gift of deeper feelings, just better expression and understanding of how to express them and connect with people. They live in touch with these things more. Still anyone can learn to express things, and your feelings and thoughts probably run just as deep, just less expressed. So find your own way of getting them out into your art. Even as an ENFP it took me years to be completely open and honest on paper when writing.
 

Skyward

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Nonono, I think you're letting yourself get trapped into the functions.

INFJ just has a preference to use Ni-Fe, as INFP has a preference to use Fi-Ne. There's nothing to stop an INFJ from practising using Fi... just as there's nothing to stop an INFP from practising using Ni and getting damned good at it.

Nobody is ruled by their functions, you use the functions at your disposal. Different types are simply more comfortable with using their top two functions, or value/express them more. I think knowing MBTI is the first step to becoming a more developed person because then you become aware of which areas of your life you can improve and how to go about doing it.

Practise the other functions and see what you come up with!

Yup.
All the functions are are preferences of the psyche. Everyone's brain is basically made of the same pieces, how those pieces work and where they are effective, I think, is what causes type preferences. How you grow up develops values. That means everyone can practice all the functions, it just depends on how easily they come and how hard it is to work with them.

And Art is just expression and creation. People who love to create may be drawn to art (Or mechanics if theyre a T :newwink:) and people who love to express are likely practicing some artform... art is a broad term anyway.

I, myself, LOVE to watch something grow and fill out. I hate beginning an artwork, so I just learned to value Immediacy in art, so Se kind of helps in the starting phase. After a while Ni comes in and gets an idea and then it flows. I find that MY Ni gets in the way with art until it's well underway.

After a drawing has its outline, I love filling in the details. I cant stand the first part because it's so proportion and symmetry based (I can draw profiles of faces much easier than front views, for example. No comparative calculation involved)

- And what I think about how INFPs can have the highest IQ is that they absorb so much. INFJs are too busy bustling around doing their idea work, ENFPs are too busy being silly everywhere at once :)newwink:) and INTPs need to make sure it's logically right.

For the INFP, I think, as long as their values arent jabbed at, they can just absorb. I think it's what makes them so deep. A full sponge sinks deeper into the sink (Or something :p )
 

Kyrielle

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I, myself, LOVE to watch something grow and fill out. I hate beginning an artwork, so I just learned to value Immediacy in art, so Se kind of helps in the starting phase. After a while Ni comes in and gets an idea and then it flows. I find that MY Ni gets in the way with art until it's well underway.

After a drawing has its outline, I love filling in the details. I cant stand the first part because it's so proportion and symmetry based (I can draw profiles of faces much easier than front views, for example. No comparative calculation involved)

Hey Skyward, I bet you want to tear up the paper when you have to draw The Other Eye, yes?

I do agree, I also love to do all the fancy details and rendering bits. It's like the moment the work comes alive for me, and that's very, very exciting.
 

CrystalViolet

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To the OP,
Whether you like or not, every INFP is going to react badly to your post, the minute they see INFJ's are intellectuality superior.
Great, I can write pretty poems, and draw pretty pictures, but I just can't think because I'm too busy being emo.
And people wonder INFP's have such low self esteem.
 

BlackCat

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Ohhh my gahhddd I have no sense of logic whatsoever! I solve math just by how I feel about the problem! Whee unicorns! Hurr Durr. :drool:
 

PeaceBaby

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A full sponge sinks deeper into the sink (Or something :p )

My favorite TypeC quote so far! That's ... deep.

To the OP: I am hesitant to respond to your post, suffice to say that you simply need to be yourself and not let MBTI limit your creative process.

Avoid stereotyping; there's little to recommend it.
 

BlueScreen

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hehe, at blackcat.

I'm actually sharing a project with an INFP at work, and the main difference between INFP and ENFP seems to be the tertiary. He gathers information and reads up on stuff more readily, and I have this obsession with organising and optimising stuff. Other thing I've noticed in terms of work, is the dom Ne can be a blessing for speed, but long term concentration and care seem to improve if you push it down to auxiliary.
 

the state i am in

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To the OP,
Whether you like or not, every INFP is going to react badly to your post, the minute they see INFJ's are intellectuality superior.
Great, I can write pretty poems, and draw pretty pictures, but I just can't think because I'm too busy being emo.

it was a dumb (and now retracted) statement. my intention was to say that infj focuses more attention on objective abstraction and insight that often trumps its own feelings, values, beliefs. (why i get called a shape-shifter). we are more idea based and less value based. i have to change my values to support my ideas, which are, for me, higher on the food chain.

infj would be more likely to go on the attack and undermine the legitimacy of the claim. infp says, are you serious? wtf gives you the right to talk to me like that. it's different. either way, point taken- it was a mistake on my part.
 

the state i am in

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It's that inspiration that should be the driver for your creativity, and one force - you call it immediacy vs. insight - isn't better than the other. Also, I want to comment that INFJ's don't lack Fi. If you believe you do, then of course you will set your own limits and boundaries as to what you can achieve and do. And if you believe you are limited in some fashion in your own abilities, and focus on whatever limitations you perceive you have, then you are in effect setting rigid walls around your personality.

i don't disagree, or intend to sound drably fatalistic. infj pays WAY MORE ATTENTION to (the meaning of) the past than most other types. i was intensely effected by my anthropology courses bc it changed my perception on the potential and future actualization of humanity at large, mySELF, the world, etc. i see animal behavior and it changes the way i feel about aspects of my own social life. we think this way. one of my primary goals is recognizing myself within the larger scope of the world, and fostering a creative process that will help me unleash myself on the world. i'm still learning, but the Big Picture idea is a huge aspect of what i can do and who i can become, bc it doesn't stop and just like *press pause* while i paint, or draw, or dance. that's not me, i don't do TM yet and i have very little practice centering myself. i'm too old to feel so adolescent (25!) but i still do, caught in the throes and the throngs of things, that, sadly, often get bogged down in ideas more than life itself. for good or ill i tend to be hyperbolic, and allow ideas to drive me more than subjective values and the internal resonances of emotionalized experience.

this conflict is an exciting moment for me to understand myself.

I can understand what you mean by your Dylan/Kerouac comparison, and wishing to be more Kerouac-ish

dylan = infj troubadour. distance. impersonal. dostoeyevsky. leonard cohen might be too. characters are symbols to be maneuvered and placed. the connections between them will speak, not I (not I not I not I). folk music is owned by no one.
kerouac = ticking infp time bomb. tear-stained pages. insanity (big sur! desolation angels!) and paranoia! he is an industrial revolution of emotion. he produces enough to blow up entire cities. the void and his buddhist abyss can't hold them, they burst at the seams.

i grow tired of hyperbole trying to defibrilate my heart and jump my battery. the delicate shades of feeling only come back to me when i see them outside of myself.
 

BlackCat

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it was a dumb (and now retracted) statement. my intention was to say that infj focuses more attention on objective abstraction and insight that often trumps its own feelings, values, beliefs. (why i get called a shape-shifter). we are more idea based and less value based. i have to change my values to support my ideas, which are, for me, higher on the food chain.

Ne = ideas essentially. How are INFPs less idea based?

Definition of cognitive functions | Spreading Applicable Ideas

Ne- "Interpreting situations and relationships; picking up meanings and interconnections; being drawn to change "what is " for "what could possibly be"; noticing what is not said and threads of meaning emerging across multiple contexts"

Ni- "Foreseeing implications and likely effects without external data; realizing "what will be"; conceptualizing new ways of seeing things; envisioning transformations; getting an image of profound meaning or far-reaching symbols"

Both kinds of intuition are good for ideas and looking forward, just in different ways.
infj would be more likely to go on the attack and undermine the legitimacy of the claim. infp says, are you serious? wtf gives you the right to talk to me like that. it's different. either way, point taken- it was a mistake on my part.

No not really. I'm always on the look out for someone not being genuine or lying. Why would we sit there and take it when we know something is wrong? Explain how this happens, really. The way you are describing INFPs is that you know probably one INFP in real life and you are basing everything you say off of that one person, or you have read too many profiles and don't realize how overly generalized and sometimes inaccurate they are. See? This is me, right now, going on the attack and undermining the legitimacy of YOUR claim. Most NFs I know will do this in fact, it's not just an INFJ quality.
 

CrystalViolet

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it was a dumb (and now retracted) statement. my intention was to say that infj focuses more attention on objective abstraction and insight that often trumps its own feelings, values, beliefs. (why i get called a shape-shifter). we are more idea based and less value based. i have to change my values to support my ideas, which are, for me, higher on the food chain.

infj would be more likely to go on the attack and undermine the legitimacy of the claim. infp says, are you serious? wtf gives you the right to talk to me like that. it's different. either way, point taken- it was a mistake on my part.
No worries...point taken about the reaction too...it was a bit emo, and kinda proves your point about our emotional immediacy. BTW INFP's are ideas based too, Values are based on ideas and concepts, that why we get called idealistic.
We react first then break down the idea. I see your intentions aren't bad, but I think you have read too many profiles.
 

speculative

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Ohhh my gahhddd I have no sense of logic whatsoever! I solve math just by how I feel about the problem! Whee unicorns! Hurr Durr. :drool:

I actually had a very 4-ish reaction to math. I wanted to try to solve the problems in a unique, original way. Of course, this is the wrong approach to take. (At least when it comes to high school level math.) I learned the "rules" of math somewhat, and studied extremely hard and eventually got A's in high school math, but I was never able to see a grand, overall big-picture "theory" of math behind the steps to each individual series of problems. To me, we'd walk into class one day and try to calculate something in trigonometry, and the next day the problems would look exactly the same and I'd try to do them the same way, but that wouldn't work and they'd need to be done a different way. So, I always felt I was stuck between two irreconcilable issues: trying to figure out how to figure out how to solve problems, and wanting to figure that out but needing to do it the same way as everyone else in order to get the correct answer. Math for me was too paint by numbers to wrap my head around...

I do soak up info like a sponge. I can surf the net from morning until midnight and hardly notice time has passed, while amassing several hundred bookmarks.

I would say, that I would not worry too much about which specific type you are in relation to art, except to help you recognize your strengths and weaknesses and thus to act as a starting point. I don't think being INFP makes one communicate emotion through art better than another type; in fact, it can sometimes be a hindrance that keeps you from seeing the forest for the trees...
 

nanook

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i guess my own visual art, if you can call it art, most of which was created in the last century :D :jew: was often the embodiment of a desire, often using contrast, eg a "chained person=desire for freedom"

there is also a little bit of insight in that, i guess.

but the motive of creating it was either destiny oriented embodying/crystallization(Ni ruling Si) - this can be seen as future oriented or as strengthening roots by referring to the past -, or it was communication of a need (relation, Fe)

today my ideas are no longer figurative and not much personal (if you have a figurative idea about what a person is)

they can no longer be expressed in symbolic/epic/figurative motives that i could draw/paint with my skills.

so i am stuck with words for now.

i love this picture "atomus spiritus christ" from robert venosa (attached to this post), because it connects meaningful ideas (or just something of psychological resonance) with the visual/spacial (de)constructive structural meta-level that you may find in spacial graphics like [damn lost the genial link, compensate with this spacializer or this timebeat ]

if i will ever create visual art again, it will most likely be rooted in mindmaps, somehow. but 2 dimensionality is very limiting, and creating 3d computer rooms would be a huge learning curve. i would rather want to get a live, someday. its probably such illusionary goals, that make me a looser. but dealing with computers is such a waste of a lifetime. once software will have evolved, that makes it more straight forward like this. i schedule doing such art for my next reincarnation.


i also like this study of emotion

although this is the only thing in my collection that screams Fi its something, that eventually even i could have created. sounds cocky. but i don't know how precise the underlying artist's vision was. for what i know it could be "made up". and after all i (NiFe) do have some emotions myself. Fi is a cognitive function anyway.


or this great movie: pencil face

or this very interesting experiment Mystery of Existence
 
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