'Walk through Walls' - Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection

Within a few years of relocating his home and studio the visionary artist Peter Rodulfo (b.1958) has assembled an extraordinary portfolio of artwork which focuses upon the architecture and landmarks, street-life and social activities of Great Yarmouth. Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection was exhibited at Skippings Gallery in Great Yarmouth  from April 14th until the 20th April 2018.

The Yarmouth Collection takes as its springboard observations made by the artist on walks throughout the town. Rodulfo's paintings depict the coastal town in both well-known and little-known guises. The walls which the artist invites the viewer to walk through are those of indifference and inattentiveness to one's everyday environment. Viewing the many gems of Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection one not only acquires a new awareness of the sights and attractions of Great Yarmouth but also a deepened appreciation of the technical brilliance, wide stylistic diversity and protean imagination which the artist now commands, Rodulfo himself stating -‘Looking is like a language. The best art doesn't need a dictionary, but for general usage a context is needed’.

The attractions and architectural treasures of Great Yarmouth are the context of the Yarmouth Collection - its Marketplace, Regent Road, King Street, the Star hotel, St. George's Park, the Hippodrome Circus, Atlantis Tower, Nelson's Monument, Britannia and Wellington Piers all feature in the Yarmouth Collection.

The chequered fortunes of what geographically speaking was once little more than a narrow peninsula of shingle sandwiched between the North Sea and the River Yare, is clearly visible in Great Yarmouth’s  varied architecture. On  South Quay there's a 13th c.Tollhouse and  a 17th-century Merchant's House, as well as Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings. Behind South Quay there’s a maze of alleys and lanes known as "The Rows" while Yarmouth’s medieval wall is the second most complete Medieval town wall in the country. With eleven of  its eighteen original turrets still standing, its more extant than nearby Norwich's surviving medieval city walls.  

Rodulfo shares with fellow leading member of North Sea Magical Realism, Mark Burrell (b. 1957) an interest in the interaction between architecture and social activities; the townscape of Burrell’s hometown of Lowestoft  is often the setting of his luminescent paintings. As with Burrell however, its the overall ambience and mood of a location rather than meticulously reproducing architectural detail which interests Rodulfo. 

An ambiguous, even unsettling atmosphere is evoked in Approach to the Pleasure-Beach (below).  In equal measure of light and dark, cheer and gloom, an overcrowded boat is seen ferrying people to a Pleasure-Beach, some of which resembles the Bolton bros. fun-fair. With its sombre sky and churning water along with overcrowded boat, the viewer is left to wonder about the lengths people will go to in their pursuit of pleasure. The painting's background includes Yarmouth's 'Golden Mile' complete with the Atlantis Tower, Waterways boating-lake, windmill and approaching train.

Portraiture of Yarmouth’s leading cultural figures also occurs in the Yarmouth Collection. The proprietor of the Hippodrome Circus, Peter Jay, along with his bearded and bespectacled son Jack Jay, the current Ringmaster, can be seen mingling among the performing clowns and trapeze artists of The Day the Clowns Left (77 x 61 cm ) (below) as well as a pair of giraffes who rubberneck into the frame.

Great Yarmouth Hippodrome was built in 1903 by the legendary Circus showman George Gilbert. Its Britain's only surviving total circus building, one of only three in the world. The painting's title alludes to the fact that clowns are to be dropped from the performing artists of the Hippodrome Circus, because they are now considered to be too scary for a family audience.

Another leading figure in Yarmouth's cultural life, the artist John Kiki, a founding member of the 'Yarmouth six’ art-group is portrayed in On the Corner (below) with its grinning coffee-cup faces, vertical word COLUMBIA and surly-looking seagull peering from behind it.  John Kiki can be seen standing beside a yellow van in the lower right corner of the canvas, while in the lower left  corner stands a hill-top Greek village, a visual reference to Yarmouth’s long-established Cypriot-Greek community.

Rodulfo’s Quayside view of Yarmouth (below) far from either a pastiche or homage to Jan Vermeer’s famous View of Delft (1661) simply highlights an intuitive artistic perception - that Vermeer’s Delft and Yarmouth town share distinctive qualities of light, as well as cloud formations; both towns being situated on low land encompassed by water with a  full hemisphere of sky above (major contributing factors for Norfolk’s famed sunsets).

The skilful reproduction of cloud and sky reflected in the river Yare in Quayside view of Yarmouth is of particular note. The artist  himself stating of this  quayside view -

'I just thought the view is beautiful, but most people would walk by without a glance, as I am sure Vermeer’s contemporaries did, when walking past his view of Delft'.

Great Yarmouth itself is no back-water in British art history. Almost every major artist of the Norwich School of Painters which flourished exactly two centuries ago has an association with Yarmouth. Many Norwich School artists visited Yarmouth in order to paint beach and marine subjects; others, such as J.S.Cotman, resided in the Town attempting to make a precarious living, other Norwich School artists such as Joseph Stannard embarked from Yarmouth in order to view major art-collections such as the ‘Golden Age’ Dutch masters on display in Amsterdam; later in his short life the tubercular Stannard was sent to Yarmouth by family and friends in hope that the salubrious sea-air would restore his health. For many years John Crome visited Yarmouth weekly as an art- teacher, he also sailed from the sea-port in order to view the art-treasures newly on display in Paris which had been plundered by Napoleon in his military victories.

Another allusion to European art-styles occurs in a painting which features two of Yarmouth's tallest landmarks, the Britannia Monument (44 metres in height) and the Atlantis Tower (56 metres in height). A naval Admiral's hat, a crane stacking container cargo, seagull and traffic cone can also be seen in this relatively small painting sized 36 x  49 cm. (Top of this post). 

The Britannia Monument is a tribute to Lord Nelson (1758-1805) which was completed in 1819, some 24 years before the completion of Nelson's Column in London. The Monument shows Britannia standing atop a globe, holding an olive branch in her right hand and a trident in her left. Originally planned to mark Nelson's victory at the Battle of the Nile, its installation was delayed due to insufficient fundraising which resulted in it not being completed until after the Naval hero's death. Now surrounded by an industrial estate, Rodulfo links the monument's current environ to the settings of the paintings of Giorgio De Chirico (1888 -1978) who greatly influenced the Surrealists and whose paintings often included arcades and towers, stating- 'When thinking of monumental surrealism of course De Chirico springs to mind’. This being the primary reason why the painting references the  distinctive style of the Italian metaphysical artist.

In Yarmouth Market Place (148 x 117 cm)(below) the vibrancy of one of England's oldest and largest marketplaces is represented through swirling activity and a cheerful and pleasing tonal palette. Market produce of fruit and vegetables, flowers and clothes, along with  gangways and shoppers, are all depicted in what may be termed Rodulfo's multi-layered perspective. Gate-crashing into the picture are two seagulls, near ubiquitous to Yarmouth town, one humorous, the other slightly threatening. They also contribute to the general hustle and bustle of Yarmouth Market Place, and can be seen in various other paintings of Peter Rodulfo's wholly original Yarmouth Collection.

'Rainy Bank Holiday' (with Atlantis Tower)

Thomas Rawlins

Among the many unsung treasures in Norwich's three dozen medieval churches there are an extraordinary variety of well-executed and beautiful funerary monuments. These include the seventeenth century monument to Christopher Layer at the church of Saint John the Baptist, Maddermarket, and those to Sir John Suckling and Robert Suckling at Saint Andrew's. A number of splendid eighteenth century funerary monuments, in particular those by the sculptor Thomas Rawlins (1727-1789) can also be seen in Norwich's medieval churches.

Thomas Rawlins died on March 18th 1789, 227 years ago today. Although from a humble background as the son of a weaver, he was trained by a London sculptor, speculated to have been Sir Henry Cheere. In 1753  Rawlins advertised himself as a carver and mason of monuments and chimney pieces, both ancient and modern. He worked as a monument mason at a yard on Duke Street in Norwich and had a relatively long career, active from circa 1743-81. Rawlins specialised in coloured marble and was a leading member of 18th century 'Norwich school' of stonemasons.

Ranking high as a sculptor in the view of  the art historian Nicholas Pevsner, Rawlins, like other English funerary masons, followed artistic trends which originated from the work-yards of London stonemasons and sculptors. Following in the foot-steps of London trends, a stylistic change in Rawlins sculpture can be seen, from a late Baroque Rococo to Neoclassical in style. This significant stylistic change is well-illustrated by two funerary monuments at St Andrew's church; the first to John Custance (circa 1756) is intricately decorated with sweeping and detailed flourishes; in complete contrast the monument for Richard Dennison (circa 1767) is uncluttered and opts for linear simplicity in geometric form, including oval and circular arches.

This transition of artistic styles from that of late baroque to Neo-classical, occurs sociologically, from the rule of the ancien regime to the various movements which advocated and even installed Democratic rule; its a radical transition which can even be expressed in terms akin to keyboard instruments with the dominance of music written for the harpsichord giving way to the new voice of the pianoforte during approximately 1730-1770 .

In addition to specialising in coloured marbles, Rawlins seems to have had a predilection, held in common with his patrons, for putti, some of which are colossal in dimension, at least three times the size of any normal-sized baby. Rawlin's monuments for Hambleton Custance at St. Andrew's (left) and for Timothy Balderstone at St. George's (right) are both over 5 metres height in total. 

Later monuments by Rawlins, such as the one for Robert Rushbrook (1705-81) in the church of Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, (detail top of post) are considered to display a great awareness of neo-classical motifs. However, its his monument for Sir Thomas Churchman at St. Giles which is considered to be his finest work. The monument features a sarcophagus upon which are carved allegorical figures representing Vanity, Time and Judgement, a structurally incomplete Egyptian pyramid  is in its background.

Rawlins also practised as an architect. His designs, like those of his contemporary Thomas Ivory, the architect of the Octagon Chapel (1756) of Norwich, were Neo-Palladian in style. In 1768 he published his, Familiar Architecture: or Original Designs of Houses for Gentlemen and Tradesmen; Parsonages; Summer Retreats; Banqueting-Rooms; and Churches. subsequently reprinted in 1789 and 1795. Remarkably, Rawlin's book remains in print today.

Rawlins' reinforcement with ironwork of the south aisle of the church os Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, in 1772, became the subject of satirical verse, in what was the first English provincial newspaper, the Norwich Mercury.

Curiously, a stone inlay in the floor of the aforementioned church describes him simply as an architect; however, Rawlin's legacy can be seen in various Norwich churches today, in particular at Saint Andrew's, where no less than three of his funerary monuments can be viewed.

This post is developed from an earlier Wikipedia contribution.

Mercurius and Saturnus (2)

The city of Norwich is the home to over thirty medieval churches, more than other city north of the Alps. Norwich was once a thriving centre of European trade and commerce, as well as a place of significant religious and cultural importance throughout the Medieval and Renaissance era; it's not too remarkable therefore to discover evidence of esoteric symbolism in art-work such as funerary sculpture in the city's churches.

Located at Saint Andrew's the second largest of Norwich's medieval churches, there's a superb example of how symbolism which originated from pre-Christian and esoteric sources, occasionally infiltrated Christian iconography.

Not unlike the monumental funerary sculpture in the adjacent parish, at the church of Saint John the Baptist, the Suckling monument, which is also from the early 17th century, has also the decorative motives of child and old man (puer et senex) .

During the Renaissance the Greek god Kronos, who later became identified with the Roman god of Saturn, was frequently depicted wielding a harvesting scythe as symbolic of "Father Time". With his attributes of hour-glass, scythe and skull, the right-hand decorative figurine on the Suckling monument clearly alludes to Time and mortality. Just like the Layer monument where an aged, grey-bearded Saturnus figure is also accompanied by a putto figure who is playing with cup and bubble, his mythological counterpart and polar opposite, the elusive 'deity' of alchemy, the trickster figure, Mercurius. The remnants of the double symbol of  puer et senex survive in modern-day cartoon depictions of the Old Year greeting the New Year in.

The juxtaposition of youth and age in religious symbolism far pre-dates Christianity. The seminal scholar of comparative religion and alchemy C.G.Jung (1875-1961) confirms the close relationship of the double symbol Mercurius and Saturnus in esoteric symbolism. On more than one occasion he succinctly asserts in his collected writings-

 'Graybeard and boy belong together. Together they play a considerable role in alchemy as symbols of Mercurius'. - CW 9 i :396

               
Monument of Sir Robert Suckling (1520-89) at the church of Saint Andrew's, Norwich.

Click on images to enlarge
See also - Mercurius and Saturnus
More on the Suckling Monument

The statue in alchemy

Statues have been associated with religion and spirituality from earliest recorded time to the present-day. 'From the Minoan Age and throughout the Mediterranean world of antiquity, statuettes of gods in human or animal shape were carved from terracotta, bronze, wood, or stone. They had religious significance and were deposited in graves or dedicated to the gods in shrines and in private homes, where they exercised a protective influence upon the dead, upon the community or upon the family. They were tutelary symbols'. [1] 

The statue also performs a number of roles within the western esoteric traditions of hermeticism and alchemy. In the Corpus Hermeticum, a mixture of  Egyptian, Greek and Gnostic wisdom texts originating from the early Christian era, a dialogue between the mythic sage Hermes Trismegistus and Asclepius occurs. Trismegistus celebrates humankind’s ability for learning the art of “god-making” – making statues come alive by drawing divine powers into them, stating-

TRISMEGISTUS : But the figures of gods that humans form have been shaped from both natures - from the divine, which is purer and more divine by far, and from the material of which they are built, whose nature falls short of the human - and they represent not only the heads but all the limbs and the whole body. Always mindful of its nature and origin, humanity persists in imitating divinity, representing its gods in semblance of its own features, just as the father and master made his gods eternal to resemble him.

ASCLEPIUS : Are you talking about statues, Trismegistus?

TRISMEGISTUS : Statues, Asclepius, yes. See how little trust you have! 

I mean statues ensouled and conscious, filled with spirit and doing great deeds; statues that foreknow the future and predict it by lots, by prophecy, by dreams and by many other means; statues that make people ill and cure them, bringing them pain and pleasure as each deserves’. [2]

After being damaged in an earthquake in 27 BCE  the eastern colossus of Memnon, one of two statues of the ruler Amenhotep III (14th century BCE) was believed to emit sound. Many travelers throughout antiquity travelled to Egypt to visit Amenhotep’s statue in the hope of hearing it, including Roman Emperors. The Greek historian Strabo, the travelogue author Pausanias and the Roman satirist Juvenal, all claimed to have heard Amenhotep’s statue. Pausanias compared its sound to 'the string of a lyre breaking’, Strabo reported it sounding, 'like a blow', but its sound was also likened to the striking of brass or whistling.

The seminal Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung in his Mysterium coniunctionis (1956) observed - ‘the statue plays a mysterious role in ancient alchemy’[3]. 

Jung noted that the medieval cleric Thomas Norton (1433-1513) in his Ordinall of Alchemy depicts the seven metals/planets as statues. In the anthology of alchemical texts Aurora Consurgens (1566) Mother Alchemy or mater alchemia is portrayed as a statue of different metals, as are the seven statues in the writings of Raymond Lully. In the German Rosicrucian Michael Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae (1617) the protagonist on his peregrinations through the continents encounters a statue of a golden-headed Mercurius who points in the direction of Paradise.

Commenting upon the biblical verse, ‘And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house’. (Genesis 28: 22) C.G. Jung theorized - ‘If our conjecture is correct, the statue could therefore be the Cabbalistic equivalent of the lapis philosophorum.’ [4] In agreement with the Gnostic’s teaching that the biblical Adam was a  'corporeal or 'lifeless' statue, Jung concluded his survey of the statue’s role in alchemy stating- 

'The statue stands for the inert materiality of Adam, who still needs an animating soul; it is thus a symbol for one of the main preoccupations of alchemy'. [5]

Statues, as C.G. Jung detected, are often encountered in alchemical themed artwork and literature, frequently within the setting of a rose garden, sometimes speaking or guiding the questing adept, or even emitting an ethereal light from their eyes. The alchemical operations of thawing and warming in order to bestow life upon the inert, readily lent itself to the notion of statues coming alive. The alchemical author J. D. Mylius (c.1583-1642) in his Philosophia Reformata (1622) stated –'It is a great mystery to create souls, and to mould the lifeless body into a living statue.’

  

In the first of the illustrated series of Philosophia Reformata (above), a group of alchemists drink from statues which spout wine. When intoxicated with vinum nostrum (our wine) they walk into the dark corners of a mountain in order to begin the task of mining the prima materia from the rock, intending to refine its impure metals into gold.

There are other instances of statues becoming animated. and of  their relationship to the esoteric in the arts. In Shakespeare’s late drama The Winter's Tale  a statue by ‘that rare Italian master, Julio Romano’ of Queen Hermione comes to life. In reality however, the Queen only imitates a statue in pose before coming to life. [5] 

The statue’s ability to transcendently communicate the invisible is alluded in Sir Thomas Browne’s discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) in the numerological observation-

‘in their groves of the Sun this was a fit number, by multiplication to denote the days of the year; and might Hieroglyphically speak as much, as the mystical Statua of Janus in the Language of his fingers’.

But perhaps one of the most dramatic of all tales of statues coming to life occurs in Mozart's opera Don Giovanni (K527). Mozart’s anti-hero, hastily returning home  at night after an amorous escape through a graveyard, encounters a statue. He dismissively invites it to dinner. In one of the most intense and psychologically loaded acts of the entire operatic repertoire, the statue of the Commendatore calls upon the Don, knocking loud at his door. Failing to persuade him to repent from his dissolute lifestyle, the Stone Guest requests the Don shake hands with him. Locking his hand in an icy, unbreakable grip, the Stone Guest drags the unrepentant Don Giovanni down into the infernal regions.

The many and varied roles the statue plays in the esoteric arts suggests that the four statuettes of Christopher Layer’s funerary monument in the church of Saint John the Baptist at Maddermarket, Norwich, with their thinly-veiled planetary and elemental symbolism, are superb examples of the statue’s role in spiritual alchemy; for, to repeat, the reviving of the inert and inanimate soul of man is fundamental to the alchemist’s quest to animate the spiritual man within. 

If conjecture has any substance, the guiding psychopomp of alchemy and the conductor of souls (frequently depicted standing upon a rotundum to denote his world-wide influence in alchemical iconography) Mercurius, is alluded on the Layer monument in the form of Vanitas a playful, bubble-blowing child standing upon a rotundum. [7]

Notes

[1] Penguin Dictionary of Symbols ed Jean Chevalier

[2] Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius

Brian P. Copenver 1995 Cambridge University Press

[3] CW 14 :  The Statue,  paragraphs  559 -569

[4]  Ibid.

[5]  Ibid.

[6]  The Winter’s Tale Act 5 scene 2

[7] Examples include- Figurarum Aegyptorum secretarum (Ms. 18th c) and Canari Le imagini de I dei  (1581) in C. G. Jung CW vol. 12 illustrations 164 and 165

Hubert Gerhard

The angle from which a cast of Hubert Gerhard's highly dramatic sculpture Perseus and Medusa (above) has been photographed highlights quintessential characteristics associated with late Mannerist art - violent and/or erotic subject-matter, often within a mythological setting, startling imagery of striking impact and psychological depth, and the utilization of a distorted or unusual perspective.

The myths of antiquity became increasingly popular during the Renaissance. The Greek myth of Perseus rescuing Andromeda for example was painted by many artists in the latter half of the sixteenth century. Another popular myth as subject-matter in art, and equally dramatic, was that of the hero Perseus and his encounter with the hideous, serpent-haired gorgon Medusa. Whoever gazed upon Medusa's face immediately turned into stone. Perseus however, successfully avoided such a fate and decapitated her. 

Like several other artists of his generation, the Dutch sculptor Hubert Gerhard (b. Hertogenbosch c.1550-1620) left his homeland as a young man, probably to escape from the political upheavals and iconoclasm experienced by the Netherlands circa 1566-67. Gerhard moved to Italy, training how to design and cast bronze sculptures in Florence in the circle of Giambologna, who heavily influenced his style. Gerhard's dominant subject-matter, as with many Northern Mannerist artists, was the mythological gods of antiquity. His early patrons, the banking family the Fuggers of Ausgsburg, commissioned Gerhard to create for their castle at Kirchheim, a mantelpiece, bronze ornaments for a fountain of Mars and Venus and a bronze on a base bordered by fantastic imagery.

While at Augsburg, Gerhard first met the Florentine-trained artist, Friedrich Sustris (1540-1599). When Sustris became the artistic superintendent for Wilhelm V of Bavaria (1548-1626) he persuaded Gerhard to live in Munich, where the sculptor duly resided from 1584 to 1597. Gerhard created large bronzes for  the fountain, garden and grotto of Wilhelm's ducal palace. He prepared the monumental bronze St. Michael Vanquishing Lucifer that adorns the façade of the Jesuit church of St. Michael's in Munich and with Carlo's assistance he also made about fifty over life-size terracotta statues of saints and angels which line the interior of St. Michael's church.

With the financial crisis of 1597, which forced Wilhelm V to abdicate, Gerhard and most of the court's artists were suddenly unemployed. Between 1599 and 1613 Gerhard next worked under the patronage of Archduke Maximilian III of Austria, first in Bad Mergentheim and then in Innsbruck. Unlike Wilhelm V however, Maximilian III commissioned mostly small-scale bronzes, including equestrian portraits and mythological statuettes, in addition to his tomb and other projects.

In 1602 Gerhard added two bronze sculptures to the Augustus fountain in Augsburg in which the four rivers of the city are represented by statues of four river gods around the fountain's basin, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II when viewing  them critically said  -

 the workmanship is subtle and pure, but the positioning of the figures is rather poor. Master Adriaen, as his Imperial Majesty's sculptor is far more accomplished in this. 

Rudolf's withering remark highlights the rivalry which existed between two art-loving connoisseurs, for at the time Gerhard was employed by Rudolf's younger brother, Archduke Maximilian III of Austria, while his contemporary Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626) was resident sculptor for  Rudolf II.

Gerhard returned to Munich in 1613, where he worked until his death seven years later.

Although Gerhard worked primarily in the medium of bronze he also sculptured in terracotta a quartet of personifications of the seasons. In Gerhard's set of four figurines Spring sits holding a cornucopia or horn or plenty, Summer also female, holds a sheaf of corn, Autumn is represented by a cheerful, wine-drinking youth, while a care-worn, bearded old man personifies Winter.

                                                                                                                           

There's an extraordinary affinity to certain themes and imagery encountered in Gerhard's Four Seasons to the four marble figurines of the Layer monument (anon. Norwich, circa 1600). Intriguingly, Hubert's quartet  are also a complex of opposites in their juxtaposition of classical antiquity and contemporary figures, mortal and deity, male and female, youth and age, pleasure and suffering. Gerhard's sculptures are therefore valuable pieces in completing the jigsaw puzzle of identification of the stylistic source and possible sculptor of the Layer monument's quartet of figurines.

Another remarkable affinity of style occurs between Gerhard's sculpture of the mythological sea-god Neptune (below) and the figurine of Labor (figure higher up on the right here) of the Layer monument. Dating little more than a decade apart, both figures are depicted with wrinkled brows, gnarled high cheek-bones, care-worn expressions and shaggy tufted, highly-stylized designer beards.

Neptune 

The combined factors of close chronology, Gerhard's predilection for producing sculpture in groups of four, his juxtaposition of figures from Classical antiquity alongside the contemporary, as in his allegorical personifications of  Four Seasons, are indicative of an affinity between him and the anonymous sculptor of the Layer monument. However, the quality of artistry, the sculptural medium of marble and geographical distance make it fairly unlikely that the four figurines of the Layer monument were carved by Gerhard, who worked primarily in bronze. In any event Gerard's essentially Northern Mannerist art retains an affinity in subject-matter and style to the Layer monument's figurines. Indeed, as its recorded that Gerhard maintained a workshop with apprentices named as Colin and Alexander Kaspar Gras, it's possible the four figurines of the Layer monument share not only the esoteric template of the quaternity with Gerhard's Four Seasons, but may originate from a workshop closely associated with the Dutch sculptor. 

Notes

I  have no qualms in admitting that most of this post is copied from Wikipedia, for upon discovering it had no entry on  Hubert Gerhard  I wrote one, based and indebted to this review -

Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance (review)
Jeffrey Chipps Smith
From: Renaissance Quarterly
Volume 59, Number 1, Spring 2006
pp. 241-243

Link to page of sculpture by  Hubert Gerhard

Stairway to Sublimation

In the foreground of an illustration in Alchemia (1606) by Andreas Libavius (above) two lions clash, locked in fusion upon impact they share one conjoined head. Together they emit a powerful, vaporous blast. These two duelling lions are framed by a series of rampant lions ascending a stairway. At the top of the ziggurat pyramid sits King Sol and Queen Luna enthroned. Above, at the apex there is a verdant tree. Seven  planetary stars hover above it.

Andrea Libavius (1555-1616) was a German physician and university lecturer whose major work Alchemia (1597) became a European best-seller which went through several editions in his life-time. Although described as the first systematic chemistry-book, book two of its six books is entitled A dialogue on the Philosophical Mercurius, while book three discusses Azoth, an arcane name for the mercury of the philosophers and universal spirit of the world. In both chapters all such mysticism is roundly condemned as detrimental to the true advancement of the science of chemistry.

Like many transitional figures in the late Renaissance Andreas Libavius was a Janus-like intellect. He advanced practical knowledge of chemistry while retaining a belief in the transmutation of metals. He vigorously attacked the ideas of Paracelsus as harmful to the development of chemistry, yet was well-versed in mystical Paracelsian thought himself. Libavius also reproduces in Alchemia John Dee's highly influential glyph in Monas Hieroglyphica, a series of theorems upon  the mystical symbol dedicated to Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I in 1564.

The pages of Alchemia are a curious conglomerate on practical advice on how to prepare and use chemicals, in particular strong, corrosive acids, alongside illustrations on how to acquire the Stone of the Philosophers (above). Because acids were important for purifying, separating and cleansing metals, in alchemical literature they were often likened to lions for their dangerous and devouring properties. Sulphuric acid, also known as ‘oil of vitriol’ in the sixteenth century was popular amongst followers of the Swiss alchemist Paracelsus (1493-1541) while precipitation of silver from nitric acid solutions baffled and fascinated alchemists of the era.

The startling image of two lions locked in fusion is characteristic of Northern Mannerist art which often employed bizarre imagery from esoteric sources. The image can also be found in the frontispiece of the cosmic mandala of Opus medico-chymicum (1618) by J. D. Mylius (1583-1642) and in his Philosophia Reformata (1622) below. Such explicitly shared symbolism suggests the artist of Philosophia Reformata is directly alluding to the original two-in-one lion imagery of Alchemia.

Symbolism involving the lion has a rich and complex history. Because it is essentially a symbol of the self, the lion has many, even contradictory meanings. At its highest level its symbolism is associated with Kingship, Nobility, Dignity, Bravery and the Hero. These archetypal qualities are reflected in the historical figure of  King Richard the Lion-heart and in modern times in the popularity of characters in films such as  The Wizard of Oz (1939) in which a cowardly lion quests for courage and Disney's animation, The Lion King (1994).  On a lower level the lion symbolically represents the animal passions, blood-lust, fierceness, violence and (an aural  pun here) raw nature.

The index to C.G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctionis (1955-56) lists over 50 references to lions, including as a symbol for both Christ and the devil. Symbols can easily absorb such paradox for like the human psyche they are paradoxical in nature. The Lion features among the archetypes of the animal-circle known as the Zodiac and in Christianity's major re-synthesis of astrology for its own purpose in the Tetramorph of the four evangelists.  In the four-fold symbol of the tetramorph the Lion represents Saint Mark and the strength of Christ. Because of its association with Kingship and Royalty the Lion is also emblematic of kingdoms as well as cities including Venice, Heidelberg and Norwich.

Whenever two lions are encountered in alchemical symbolism, often in the form of the Green and the Red Lion, the clash of opposites within the human psyche as well as the reconciled and united antagonists are evoked. In the extraordinary illustration in Alchemia rampant lions are seen ascending a stairway, a common symbol of spiritual ascent throughout world religion iconography. The scaled ascent suggests that the initial conflict may need to be repeated several times before reaching a final sublimation and harmony, as represented by Sol et Luna. With its bestial, lower nature and higher noble nature, the two lions is a fitting symbol of the warring factions at conflict in the human psyche, and exemplary of the depth and understanding of the human condition by alchemists with their  arcane symbolism. Not unlike the  the Mermaid, the two lions in their dual role of healing and harmful are a lesser-known symbol of the elusive 'deity' of alchemy, Mercurius.

Returning to the alchemists and early chemists of the late 16^th and 17^th centuries who investigated nature’s properties, one shudders to think of the possible great minds whose lives may have ended prematurely through dabbling in unknown, hidden hazards while experimenting. Such speculative thinking lays at the heart of the stoical meditations of Browne’s Urn-Burial.

Who knows whether the best of men be remembered, or whether other remarkable persons may have been forgotten ?

Browne and early scientists such as Libavius occasionally and unwittingly one suspects, courted harm in their examination of the physical properties of nature, which includes poisons and toxic substances, fungi and corrosive acids for example. The novice and would-be alchemist are warned of the hidden dangers in  alchemical experimentation in the tract Aurelia Occulta.

I am the poison-dropping dragon, who is everywhere and can be cheaply had....My fire and water destroy and put together; from my body you may extract the green lion and the red. But if you do not have exact knowledge of me, you will destroy your five senses with my fire. From my snout there comes a spreading poison that has brought death to many.[1]

The peculiar properties of the liquid-metal mercury in particular acted as a kind of psychic play-dough upon the imagination of the enquiring alchemist, as can be seen in Browne’s remarkable admission-

I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into thousand shapes it assumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self. [2]

Throughout the pages of Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica  numerous experiments are recorded. Book two of his encyclopaedia includes investigation of the properties of jet, glass, porcelain, coral, magnetism, amber and static electricity.The wide-ranging nature of Browne's many experiments can be gleaned from the entry - Candle, one discharged out of a Musket through an inch board, while the entry - Philosophers Stone, not improbable to be procured reveals like Libavius before him, Browne was a Janus-like figure in the history of science, simultaneously assisting and anticipating advancements in the development of modern science, while also critically assessing ideas associated with western esoteric traditions.

Although Andreas Libavius (above) and his influential chemistry book Alchemia isn't listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Thomas Browne and his son Edward’s libraries, it’s worth remembering that the fate of Browne’s library was vulnerable to abstraction for almost 30 years before finally being auctioned. And in fact Libavius is fleetingly mentioned by name by Browne, referencing one of his books in Pseudodoxia. It's highly unlikely that such an informed reader and scholar as Browne would not have known of Libavius and of his influence upon the new science of chemistry.

It’s in book four of Alchemia that an illustration of the monument of the alchemical opus can be found. Its useful to juxtapose these two different versions of the diagram De Lapide Philosophorum to appreciate just how much symbolism can vary and alter within a short period of time in the alchemical imagination. Adam Maclean speculates upon their shared symbolism -

These are interesting and yet puzzling. On a superficial view they are very similar in structure, but when one examines the symbolic components in depth, they obviously are emblematizing entirely different ideas. The imagery in places is so very different between the two emblems. I wonder what the source was for these two emblems. Were they entirely devised afresh as illustrations for Libavius' text, or were they taken from some earlier manuscript source ? 

Both versions of Libavius' diagram on the Philosopher's Stone includes lions. A lion can be seen on the bottom sphere of the left version while in the version on the right the King is described as in the company of a golden Lion. The relationship between Libavius' two mysterious diagrams (below) which were first printed not in the first edition of 1597 but in the 1606 edition of Alchemia raises tantalizing chicken and egg questions surrounding the source of the Layer monument's rich and complex symbolism. 

 

Books by Libavius include –

* Neoparacelsia (1594) an attack on the use of aurum potabile as a panacea.

* Rerum chymicarum epistola forma (1594) A collection of correspondence to German philosophers and physicians warning of the evils of the new Paracelsian iatrochemistry.

* Alchemia (1597) His most famous work includes advice on the preparation of strong acids alongside a declaration in the belief of the transmutation of metals.

* Singularium (1599-1601)  lectures on natural philosophy.

* Defensio …alchymicae transmutatriae (1604)  an attack on the French physician Guibert for his denying of the truth of the transmutation of metals and a statement of belief of the Philosopher’s Stone being known to the alchemists.

*Alchymia triumphans (1607)  926pp. Libavius’s contribution to the confused battle and debate between supporters of Paraclsus, Hermeticism, Galen and Aristotle.

(Bibliographic source:  Haeffner- Dictionary of Alchemy  Harper Collins 1991)

Colossal Greek funerary marble lion 350-200 BC from Knidos, south-west Asia Minor,Turkey. British Museum.

Notes

[1]  Aurelia Occulta  from vol. 4 of Theatrum Chemicum. 
Listed in Sir Thomas Browne's library in 1711 Sales Catalogue page 25 no.125
[2] Religio Medici Part 1 paragraph 48 

Mercurius and Saturnus

Together Puer et Senex or child and old man represent not only the earth-bound human condition of Adamic man in Christianity, but also quite specific planetary symbolism.  The reason why Christian art absorbed pagan symbolism and why such syncreticism occurred during the Renaissance is discussed on the page on the Layer monument. 

The lower pair of Vanitas  and Labor on the Layer monument can  also be interpreted as highly-charged vessels of alchemical symbolism. In the realm of alchemical and astrological correspondences Saturn is the ruler of time and old age, melancholy, grey beards, agriculture and digging. A more fitting example of Saturnine attributes could not be found in the statuette of Labor with his highly expressive suffering features.

Similarly Mercurius, the messenger to the gods is often depicted as a youth or child, sometimes standing upon a rotundum in alchemical iconography to represent his world-wide influence and winged communication. The Layer monument's youthful Vanitas with his playful bubble-blowing could not be more allusive to Mercury in his symbolism. However most revealing of all as regards understanding the rich and complex symbolism embedded within the Layer mandala  is the four-fold relationship between each statuette, human and divine, temporal and eternal.

If C.G. Jung had ever seen photographs of the Layer monument he would immediately have recognised the reason why Vanitas and Labor are paired together, for he noted-

Graybeard and boy belong together. The pair of them play a considerable role in alchemy as symbols of Mercurius. [1]

C.G. Jung amplifies the close relationship between Mercurius and Saturnus -

But the most important of all for an interpretation of Mercurius is his relation to Saturn. Mercurius senex is identical with Saturn, and to the earlier alchemists especially, it is not quicksilver, but the lead associated with Saturn, which usually represents the prima materia.... In Khunrath Mercurius is the "salt of Saturn," or Saturn is simply Mercurius..Like Mercurius, Saturn is hermaphroditic. Saturn is "an old man on a mountain, and in him the natures are bound with their complement [i.e., the four elements], and all this is in Saturn". The same is said of Mercurius. Saturn is the father and origin of Mercurius, therefore the latter is called "Saturn's child". Quicksilver comes "from the heart of Saturn or is Saturn......Like the planetary spirit of Mercurius, the spirit of Saturnus is "very suited to this work".  [2]


[1] CW 9 i:39

[2] CW 13: 274-5

Golden Boy and Gherkin

Today on a  rare excursion to London, attending a conference, I saw this (above) with its inscription - This boy is in memory put up for the late FIRE of LONDON occasioned by the Sin of Gluttony 1666 and below - the 'Gherkin' tower, so-called because of its shape. Maybe it's an over-imaginative juxtaposition, but I can't help thinking the two monuments are related. But without doubt a certain seventeenth century Norwich physician and philosopher would have approved of Sir Norman Foster's quincuncial lozenge design in glass.

                                                                        

Wiki-links - Golden Boy of Pye Corner - London Gherkin

De Lapide Philosophorum

De Lapide Philosophorum from Alchymia by Andreas Libavius 

It was on a bright Spring morning in May 2011, when casually browsing through Adam Maclean's fascinating book, 'The Alchemical Mandala', that I noticed there were several striking similarities between Maclean's reproductions of  De Lapide Philosophorum  to the four statuettes of the Layer Monument. 

It's recorded that Christopher Layer's youngest son erected the Layer Monument in memory of his father (d. 1600) and mother, Barbara (d.1604). Because the first edition of Alchymia (1596) by the German chemist Andreas Libavius (c.1555 -1616) does not apparently include any illustrations whatsoever, in all probability it's from a later edition of Alchymia that the Layer Monument's symbolism is developed. Although there are considerable differences between the top quaternity of figures in  De Lapide Philosophorum to the quartet of statuettes of the Layer Monument nevertheless the two works share several corresponding motifs.  In addition to shared solar and lunar imagery there is an allusion to the 'sacred wedding' or hieros gamos, often depicted in alchemy as Sol et Luna, and represented by Pax and Gloria in the Layer Monument - an inferior or 'Ethiopian' pair, represented by Vanitas and Labor in the Layer Monument  -  a figure with blackened feet standing upon a Rotundum (the Rotundum being a frequent motif in alchemical depictions of Mercurius) and the holding of identical votive vegetation in both works. But what tips the balance against mere coincidence is the fact that the labels of Gloria and Labor occur in both works.

 There are  two variation illustrations in the chapter entitled  De Lapide Philosophorum. Through the juxtaposition of versions two and three new interpretative insights on the Layer monument can be acquired. Nor can one overlook the medium of both art-works. The intriguing development of an illustration entitled the Philosopher's Stone quite literally transformed into the medium of stone in the form of carved marble is worth consideration.

The observations of Carl Gustav Jung greatly assist towards interpretative insight upon the Layer monument's complex symbolism. The second of the three versions of Libavius' extraordinarily densely-laden symbolic image is reproduced in C. G. Jung's 'Psychology and Religion' (1944). Jung is content to add yet one more intriguing image to his lavishly illustrated volume, merely remarking of version 2 of  De Lapide Philosophorum (fig.142). 

In an explicato locorum signatorum, Libavius gives the following  "explanation" of the second of the three versions of this image.

RR: An Ethiopian man and woman,supporting two higher spheres. They sit on the big sphere and according represent the nigredo of the second operation in the second putrification.

All of this is reduced and transformed in the Layer Monument to the figures of Vanitas and Labor. The blackened feet of Vanitas standing upon a golden Rotundum may be an allusion to his original Ethiopian hue. But it also leaves little doubt that the Layer monument's lower pair of statuettes represents the inferior, Nigredo stage in the alchemical opus.

a - The king, clad in purple with a golden crown, has a golden lion beside him. He has a red lily in his hand, whereas the queen has a white lily. 

b - The queen, crowned with a silver crown, strokes a white or silver eagle standing beside her.

In the Layer Monument both Pax and Gloria have golden hair but no crowns. In version 3 of De Lapide Philosophorum  it's the Queen who holds a votive palm, which in the Layer Monument is held by the King. It's interesting to note in passing that Jung designates the palm as a symbol of the soul. 

The allotting to the King and Queen in version 2 of  De Lapide Philosophorum  to the 'Regal' creatures of Lion and Eagle can be identified as representing two aspects of the Tetramorph, the most developed of all quaternity symbols in western religious symbolism. They are also the two creatures which are  associated with the 'Fixed Cross' of astrology, namely Leo and Scorpio. Because the King and Queen in version 2 are associated with Leo and Scorpio who represent the elements of Fire and Water respectively, one can with confidence assert that Vanitas and Labor also represent  two of the ancient world  quaternity or four-fold division of the elements, that of Air and Earth. This is quite overt in their respective symbolism. (Vanitas is depicted making bubbles blowing air, Labor is seen digging earth).   

In the Layer Monument Pax is not only the Christian Prince of Peace, but also a much deeper-rooted archetype in the human psyche. Utterly Solar in his symbolism and associated with the element of Fire, as well as the zodiac sign of Leo, representing one quarter of the 'Fixed Cross' of astrology, Pax as an archetype symbolises the 'wise Ruler' whose historical counterparts include - Alexander the Great, King Cyrus and the better of the  Roman and Greek 'warrior' rulers' of antiquity. 

In fact each of the four statuettes of the Layer monument are collectively archetypal in their symbolism. Individually they are 'the Wise Ruler', 'the Great Mother', 'the Child/Trickster'  and 'the Old Man'. Together the four statuettes of the Layer Monument may  quite appropriately be defined as an alchemical mandala of the western tradition, this is because they not only represent Christian moral values but also archetypal components of the psyche and its unity. 

Since studying the symbolism associated with the Layer Monument and De Lapide Philosophorum one becomes aware one is not only commentating upon art, but in fact relating to symbols of complex psychological and spiritual depth.

Books consulted

C.G.Jung -  Psychology and Religion 1944 CW 13 RKP

Adam Maclean -The Alchemical Mandala  1989 Phanes 2nd edition 2002  

See also - De Lapide Philosophorum

Wiki - links  Tetramorph  -  Andreas Libavius