The Majestic Oak

The oak tree is featured in religion, literature and art as diverse as Greek mythology, the Judaic Old Testament, Roman literature, fairy-tales, numismatics, Sir Thomas Browne's botanical studies and Carl Jung's archetypal psychology.

Central to one of ancient Greece's most revered of oracles, the rustling leaves of the Dodona oak, and later, thin metal strips hung from its branches which tinkled in the breeze, were interpreted as the oracular voice of gods. In the Greek myth of Jason and the Argonauts, the Golden Fleece is found discovered on an oak tree in a grove sacred to Ares. 

The oak tree was sacred to Roman, Celtic, Teutonic and Druid religious beliefs and associated with the supreme gods of Zeus, Jupiter and Thor, each of whom held dominion over rain, thunder and lightning. It is symbolically associated with lightning and smoke with good reason. It attracts lightning because it roots  itself deep into the earth, has a high water content and is often solitary standing or the tallest in a forest. Each of these factors contribute to the oak tree attracting lightning. Many religious beliefs also associate the oak tree with smoke, perhaps because it sometimes smoulders long after being struck by lightning.

The ancient Celtic Druids worshipped and practised their sacred rites in oak groves, indeed the very word Druid derives from a Celtic word meaning 'knower of the oak tree'. Historical descriptions of Druids can be found in  Roman writers such as Julius Caesar in his 'Commentary on the Gallic Wars'  as well as in the writings of Cicero, Tacitus and Pliny the Elder. However, after the Roman Emperors Tiberius and Claudius brutally suppressed the Druid Orders all mention of oak-tree worshippers disappears from historical record by the 2nd century CE.

Oak trees feature in the Old Testament, notably when Absalom while riding his mule under a great oak has his head wedged between its branches and is suspended between heaven and earth. The elon tree, most often translated as 'oak' is mentioned in the Bible as the first tree encountered by Abram upon entering the promised land, and as the tree under which Deborah, the nurse of Rebecca, was buried. King Jeroboam meets an unnamed prophet who sits under an oak tree, and the prophet Isaiah speaks of 'oaks of righteousness.' [1]

In the fairy tale by the German Brothers Grimm 'The Spirit in the Bottle' (1814) a destitute scholar wanders in a forest where he encounters a dangerous-looking oak, many hundreds of years old. He hears a faint voice calling out from it, "Let me out, let me out!"  Asking where it is, the voice replies, "I am down here amongst the roots of the oak-tree. Let me out! Let me out!" The scholar loosens the earth under the tree, searches among its roots and finds a glass bottle in which Mercurius, the transformative spirit of alchemy is imprisoned.

During the Roman Republic a crown of oak leaves was given to those who had saved the life of a citizen in battle; it was called the "Civic Crown". A superb Roman era agate survives, which is described thus- 

'In one talon, the eagle grasps a palm branch as a symbol of victory, while in the other it holds an oak wreath. This corona civica  or ' civic crown' was an honour awarded to Augustus, granted only to a Roman who had saved the lives of his fellow citizens. This crown of oak leaves hung above the entrance of Augustus on the Palatine, a permanent reminder that he had rescued not just one, but the entire Roman world. [2] 

From the 16th century onwards the massive trees that were once abundant throughout Europe became rarer due to the construction and expansion of  naval fleets.  Britain was said to be a nation which was protected by a wooden wall, one which was made of oak. Indeed, the composer William Boyce in 1759 composed the tune 'Hearts of Oak' with lyrics by actor David Garrick. Boyce's melody remains the official march of the British Royal Navy.

A large-scale Naval Fleet however comes with no small environmental cost and each ship represents the clearing of several acres of ancient woodland. By the end of the 1700s the British Royal Navy had swelled to a fleet of three hundred ships and the construction of this number would have taken as an estimated 1.2 million oak trees.  Its been calculated that constructing a large, wooden warship such as a Royal Navy ship required around 2,000 to 4,000 mature oak trees, or even up to 6,000. Many of these trees were over 200 years old and were sourced from the woodlands of Europe. In essence, the large-scale National fleets of Spain and later the Dutch and British naval forces, were the primary cause of European deforestation. Today however, England has more ancient oaks than any other European nation. There are an estimated 115  oaks with a circumference of trunk over 9 metres in England and only 96 in the rest of Europe.

The oak tree's biological characteristics of longevity, strength and endurance have frequently been used to represent moral virtues. Because symbols are flexible the oak has been used to symbolize quite different national and individual aspirations. Its leaf can be seen on German coins from both the short-lived Third Reich and the subsequent enduring Republic.  

The late Renaissance natural historian and literary figure Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) took a keen interest in oak trees. In his miscellaneous tract, 'Observations on several plants mentioned in Scripture' he demonstrates a prodigious memory and familiarity with the Bible. Over 140 plants are recollected by him. World-wide there are many different species of oak tree. Of the Biblical oak tree he stated-

 

'Mention is made of Oaks in divers parts of Scripture, which though the Latin sometimes renders a Turpentine Tree, yet surely some kind of Oak may be understood thereby; but whether our common Oak as is commonly apprehended, you may well doubt; for the common Oak, which prospereth so well with us, delighteth not in hot regions. And that diligent Botanist Bellonius, who took such particular notice of the Plants of Syria and Judæa, observed not the vulgar Oak in those parts. [3] 

Browne knew of Absalom's encounter with an oak tree and of it being sacred to pre-Christian religions- 

'And therefore when it is said of Absalom, that his Mule went under the thick Boughs of a great Oak, and his Head caught hold of the Oak, and he was taken up between the Heaven and the Earth, that Oak might be some Ilex, or rather Esculus.....And when it is said that Ezechias broke down the Images, and cut down the Groves, they might much consist of Oaks, which were sacred unto Pagan Deities'. [4] 

Browne was one of the earliest of naturalists to recognise that of all plants, the oak supports the greatest diversity of life. More than 500 butterfly and moth species have larvae which feeds on oak leaves. Today its known that more than 100 animal species rely on acorns as a crucial food source. Oak acorns sustain field mice, squirrels, chipmunks and jays. Flycatchers, tawny owls and woodpeckers all build their nests in the oak's crevices; blackbirds and warblers feed off the caterpillars on its leaves. Browne succinctly noted of the Oak's diversity- 

'while almost every plant breeds its peculiar insect, most a Butterfly, moth or fly, wherein the Oak seems to contain the largest seminality',  

Browne was also aware of the oak tree's relationship to mistletoe. Mistletoe taps into the oak's vascular system to supplement its own nutrient intake, yet still performs photosynthesis. Browne's description of Druids gathering mistletoe is sourced from his reading of the Roman author Pliny's vast work Naturalis Historia. [5] 

'for the Magical vertues in this Plant, and conceived efficacy unto veneficial intentions, it seemeth a Pagan relique derived from the ancient Druides, the great admirers of the Oak, especially the Misseltoe that grew thereon; which according unto the particular of Pliny, they gathered with great solemnity. For after sacrifice the Priest in a white garment ascended the tree, cut down the Misseltoe with a golden hook, and received it in a white coat; the vertue whereof was to resist all poisons, and make fruitful any that used it. 

Grafting of mistletoe involves great patience and time. Browne knew that soil condition and geography determined the growth of missletoe  but like many others he was unsuccessful in his attempts to graft it.

'The like concerning the growth of Misseltoe, which dependeth not only of the species, or kind of Tree, but much also of the Soil. And therefore common in some places, not readily found in others, frequent in France, not so common in Spain, and scarce at all in the Territory of Ferrara: Nor easily to be found where it is most required upon Oaks, less on Trees continually verdant..... But this Parasitical plant suffers nothing to grow upon it, by any way of art; nor could we ever make it grow where nature had not planted it; as we have in vain attempted by inocculation and incision, upon its native or foreign stock'. 

In his commonplace notebooks Browne wrote of  the tenacity of acorns to germinate and flourish in unlikely places -

'Within a mile of this city of Norwich, an oak groweth upon the head of a pollard willow, taller than the stock, and about half a foot in diameter, probably by some acorn falling or fastening upon it. I could show you a branch of the same willow which shoots forth near the stock which beareth both willow and oak twigs and leaves upon it'. [6]

Allusion to trees in general occurs throughout Browne's 'The Garden of Cyrus or Network Plantations of the Ancients'.  The species of Hazel, Lime, Pine, Fir, Fig, Alder, Willow, Maple, Cypress and Sycamore are all mentioned. Appropriately for a Discourse whose theme is gèmination  Generation and growth the oak and its acorns are mentioned most. 

Early in The Garden of Cyrus artificial examples of the Quincunx pattern are considered. Laurels made from oak leaves are proposed as exemplary of the quincuncial pattern -

'The Triumphal Oval, and Civicall Crowns of Laurel, Oake, and Myrtle, when fully made, were pleated after this order'. 

After supplying his reader with artificial examples, the central chapter of Browne's Discourse focuses upon natural examples of the quincunx pattern, including branches of the oak tree -

'And after this manner doth lay the foundation of the circular branches of the Oak, which being five-cornered, in the tender annual sprouts, and manifesting upon incision the signature of a Starre, is after made circular, and swel’d into a round body'.

Browne's symbolism is precise and well-ordered. Trees in general are mentioned in both Urn Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) crucially, in close relationship to the thematic concerns of each respective discourse. The Oak tree in particular is a conjoining symbol which unites his two-in-one discourses. 

In Urn-Burial it is the decaying and dead aspect of trees which is featured, in particular as fuel for the funeral pyre. The Yew tree is named as frequently found in Graveyards. Fallen and fossilized trees are mentioned thus-

'Moore-logs, and Firre-trees found under-ground in many parts of England; the undated ruines of windes, flouds or earthquakes; and which in Flanders still shew from what quarter they fell, as generally lying in a North-East position'.

The oak tree is utilized primarily as a symbol of Time in Urn-Burial. Its with sombre stoicism that Browne declares -  

'Generations passe while some trees stand, and old Families last not three Oaks'.

Together, Time and Space are the metaphysical templates of Browne's literary mandala. In Urn-Burial the oak tree is a symbol of Time and decay, while in The Garden of Cyrus its the living growth and size in dimensional Space of the oak tree which is highlighted -

'That the biggest of Vegetables exceedeth the biggest of Animals, in full bulk, and all dimensions, admits exception in the Whale, which in length and above ground measure, will also contend with tall Oakes'.  

The oak tree's longevity, strength and endurance have invariably been used to symbolize moral and spiritual values in religious beliefs, as well as in art and literature. 

The Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung in his essay 'The Philosophical Tree' analyzes the rich symbolism of the tree in alchemical literature. Jung interpreted the symbolism of the tree as simultaneously representing the growth and development of the psyche, the individuation process, and the connection between the Underworld and spiritual heights. He noted of trees, and of the oak tree in particular - 

'Trees, like fishes in the water, represent the living contents of the unconscious....The mighty oak is proverbially the King of the forest... It is the prototype  of the self, a symbol of the source and goal of the individuation process. The oak stands for the still unconscious core of the personality, the plant symbolism indicating a state of deep unconsciousness  [7] 

Images:

*Top header -  'Old tree, young pigs' (56x66cm) by  British artist Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958) 

*  Photo of an oak tree at Dodona, in Epirus in northwestern Greece.

* Fairy tale illustration to 'The Spirit in the Bottle'.

*  Roman Agate of  Eagle with palm branch and oak laurel in its talons.

*  Left -1950 50 Pfenning Coin West Germany and Right- 1933 Third Reich One Mark coin

* Photo of 400 year old tree at Woodlands Park, Norwich.

 

*  Norwich School of artists John Crome's 'The Oak at Poringland' (1818-20) Tate Gallery

* Photo of oak leaves and acorns

* 400 year old at Earlham park/ UEA Porter's lodge, Norwich

Notes

[1]  Genesis 12 verse 6,  Genesis 18, Genesis 35 verse 8 , 1 Kings 13 and Isaiah 61 verse 3

[2] 'Moneta : Ancient Rome in twelve coins'  by Gareth Harney  pub. Vintage 2024

[3] Although several books by Pierre Belon (1517–1564) are listed as once in Browne's library, Belon's  'Observations on Several Singularities and Memorable Things Found in Greece, Asia, Judea, Egypt, Arabia, and Other Foreign Countries' (1553) is not. However, Browne must surely have consulted Belon's 'Observations  in order to distinguish between different species of Oak in Judea. 

[4] Thomas Browne Miscellaneous Tract 1    Observations on several plants mentioned in Scripture .

[5]  Browne's source here is Pliny's vast work Naturalis Historia book 16 : 95. 

Listed in 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue page 17 no. 13

[6] Miscellaneous  writings pub. Cambridge University Press 1946 ed. G.Keynes

[7] C.G. Jung Collected Works Volume 13 paragraph 194 

Doctor Browne and the elephant

Elephants are mentioned in each of Doctor Thomas Browne's major literary works. A little-known notebook description highlights his zoological interest in elephants, while his proto-archaeological speculations on bones in Urn-Burial along with his notebook entry on Fossil remains in Norfolk casts new light on the skeleton of a prehistoric elephant excavated at West Runton in 1995.

The newly qualified physician first declared an admiration of elephants in his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643) remarking - 'ruder heads stand amazed at those prodigious pieces of nature, Whales, Elephants, Dromedaries and Camels; these I confess are the Colossus and Majestick pieces of her hand'. Elsewhere the animal-loving doctor defends the elephant's appearance, objecting, 'I cannot tell by what Logick we call a Toad, a Bear, or an Elephant ugly'. [1]

In his subsequent publication, Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) Browne methodically refutes numerous folk-lore beliefs and superstitions, including the misapprehension that the elephant has no joints. Browne's encyclopaedic work of scientific journalism consists of seven books in total. Many of its individual chapters, in particular those on animals in book three, are among the most readable and entertaining of all the learned doctor's writings. Indeed, the Argentinean author Jorge Louis Borges (1899-1986) consulted book three of Pseudodoxia Epidemica extensively with its at turns erudite, pedantic and witty discussion on whether creatures such as the basilisk, salamander, unicorn, phoenix, gryphon and mermaid truly exist, when compiling his Book of Imaginary Creatures (1967).

Book three of Pseudodoxia titled Of divers popular and received Tenents concerning Animals, which examined, prove either false or dubious opens with a refutation of the belief that the elephant has no joints. Doctor Browne first calls upon his capacious and retentive memory, referencing the Roman historian Suetonius to inform his reader that-

‘Elephants have been instructed to walk on ropes, in public shows before the people’, as well as the historian's recording of  'that memorable show of Grammaticus wherein twelve Elephants danced unto the sound of music'. 

Following discussion of the mechanics of motion in two and four legged creatures, introducing the words 'cylindrical' and 'locomotion' into English language while doing so, and having argued of the necessity of joints from his anatomical studies, Browne credulously notes, 'some Elephants have not only written whole sentences,... but have also spoken'. He then proposes that because elephants possess the necessary organs for speech, namely lips, teeth and chops, they, ‘might not be taught to speak, or become imitators of speech like Birds’. [2]

A detail from Peter Rodulfo's As the elephant laughed 

Finally, and perhaps frustratingly to impatient readers, having consulted at great length two of his three determiners to acquire truth, namely, past authority and reason, Browne calls upon the primary source of his empirically-based science, 'occular observation', and remembers seeing an elephant in real life-

‘whereof not many years past, we have had the advantage in England, by an Elephant shewn in many parts thereof, not only in the posture of standing, but kneeling and lying down'. [3]

Browne's zoology, the study of animals, is exemplified in a little-known notebook description of an elephant in which he references his favourite zoologist of antiquity, Aristotle. Noting with a precise and extensive vocabulary the elephant's anatomy, age, emotions, welfare and diet he uses the sense of touch to describe its skin. The size and roundness of elephant dung reminds him of his favourite pastime, the game of bowls. Browne's notebook entry on the elephant is worthy of  full quotation.

'The trunck is lithe, tortil, flexible, extensible, contractile, butt when hee shrinks it up as in Anger, it becommeth short and as stiff and hard as a stake. 

The 2 nostrills are plaine, and there is a hard tip at the upper end of the extremity of his trunck which helps to hold the faster. 

Hee sleepes not with his trunck extended and hanging at length, butt bended & somewhat rolled about or neere his mouth, for the better security thereof from flies or anything that might gett into it. His tongue is short not large, & seemes as it were tongue tyed, so that hee cannot putt out the tongue. However when yong it makes a shift to suck, for it sucketh with the mouth not with the trunck. Hath very thinne & ill decernible lipps. 

The teeth are very large 4 in number. The two large teeth somewhat reflecting upward: these are for his armes of defense and offence and help him, when hee kneeles or ariseth. The females as Aristotle sayeth, have them straight or bending downward, which afford them the better help and support when they are great with yongue. 

Hayres under his chinne like a beard, some long black hayres about the ridge of his head and neck; about the bottom of his tayle which are bigge and harsh & stiffe like sticks. 2 Bunches like papps in the forepart of the breast by the arm pitts, and as Aristotle sayeth juxta pectus potius quam in pectore. Five kind of hoofes in each foot exceeding hard, but they pare them not. Hee riseth like a horse with his foreleggs first, not like a cowe. 

Hee breakes wind often backward; coughs sometimes, snorts not, vomits not, sweates much about the pappes upon travell. Sleepes about 5 howers in a night: hee lyeth upon strawe and in very cold wether they cover him up with it at night. Being butt 8 yeares old they allowed him a pecke & a quarter of oates every morning and evening besides haye and bread when they showed him, wch came to 3 or 4 penny loaves a daye. Dungs in roundish lumps about the bignesse of bowlls. 

He will take water sometimes & swimme, whereby hee refreseth and suppleyth his hard drye skinne and will suck up water in his trunck and spirt it about his body, and so moystens his skinne, wch is rugged and hard and as it were channel'd, and feels like rough tanned hides. [4] 

Elephants are mentioned in Browne's discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Appropriate to its themes of Time and Death allusion is made in Urn-Burial to the elephant's graveyard and its ability for 'sepulture'. In The Garden of Cyrus the potency of the Quincunx pattern when employed in brick-wise formation (2:1:2) in ancient military strategy is such that the archetypal configuration effectively, 'defeated the mischief intended by the elephants'. The elephant may thus be considered as a 'conjoyning' symbol which unites the two discourses highly polarised themes, imagery and respective truth. 

Just as Urn-Burial features Browne's interest in archaeology and The Garden of Cyrus with its mention of bees and butterflies, fish, birds, snakes and whales his interest in zoology, so too his study of elephants was both zoological and archaeological, reflecting his enquiries in the divided worlds of the living and the dead.

The philosophical discourse Urn-Burial (1658) was initially inspired by an archaeological find, as its author informs his reader -

'In a Field of old Walsingham, not many months past, were digged up between forty and fifty Urns, deposited in a dry and sandy soil, not a yard deep, nor far from one another'. 

It is however not urns but bones which are alluded to most in Urn-Burial (over fifty times) including a remarkable passage which anticipates and influences archaeological interpretative insights to the present day. 

'It is no impossible Physiognomy to conjecture at fleshy appendencies; and after what shape the muscles and carnous parts might hang in their full consistences. A full spread Cariola shews a well-shaped horse behind, handsome formed sculls, give some analogie of fleshy resemblance. A criticall view of bones makes a good distinction of sexes....... Other parts make out their comproportions, and inferences upon whole or parts. And since the dimensions of the head measure the whole body, and the figure thereof gives conjecture of the principall faculties; Physiognomy outlives our selves, and ends not in our graves'. [5]

Browne's advocation of a forensic-like analysis of bones, of how they can be indicative of 'fleshy resemblance' in gender, ancestry and proportion, anticipates modern-day osteology (the study of bones) as well as modern-day illustrative realization of archaeological sites and artefacts. His proto-archaeological speculations acquire significance in light of the discovery and subsequent excavation of a near complete mammoth skeleton at West Runton on the Norfolk coast in 1995. 

Its worthwhile remembering that much of the Norfolk coastline was once part of a prehistoric forest bed which was formed between 780,000 to 450,000 years ago. Known as the geological era of the Cromerian Stage, during the last ice-age or Pleistocene, the Cromerian Interglacial is the benchmark that all European countries use when studying their own geological deposits. 

Browne's early account of coastal erosion and speculative analysis in Fossil Remains in Norfolk is significant in relation to archaeological discovery at West Runton. His description of 'one side of a lower jaw containing very large teeth petrified, far exceeding the teeth of the biggest ox' could be any number of prehistoric creatures including the Auroch, an extinct species of cattle, the last of which died in the early 17th century. 

'This bone was found, about 2 year past by Winterton, on the sea shore in Norfolk. The cliff had been much broken by high tides & the rage of the sea, many hundred loads falling down as it often doth upon this coast, the cliffs being not rock butt earth. Upon the same coast, butt at some miles distance, divers great bones are said to have been found, & I have seen one side of a lower jaw containing very large teeth petrified, far exceeding the teeth of the biggest ox. It was found after a great flood near to the cliff, some thousand loads of earth being broken down by the rage of the sea. That it came not out of the sea it might bee conjectured because it was found so far from it, & from the colour, for if out of the sea it would have been whiter. When the outward crust is taken of, it answers the graine of the bones of whales & other cetaceous animals, comparing it with a piece of whales scull which I have by mee'. [6]

The West Runton skeleton is part of the elephantidae family, which includes both elephants and mammoths. The expert ostologist and archaeological illustrator Ms. J. Curl helpfully explains the sometimes complicated classification which exists between elephants and mammoths thus -

"The West Runton Mammoth (c.800,000 BCE) was called an elephant originally, and was an ancestor to the Woolly Mammoth (c.50,000 BCE to 15,000 BCE here in UK). Both terms are correct and confusing, especially for those working on them. The West Runton Mammoth was mainly a warm phase beast and more likely to be like an elephant, but that individual  was close to a colder phase, so he was probably much hairier than most elephants today'.

Ms. J. Curl cleaning the molar teeth of the West Runton mammoth 1995

The West Runton mammoth skeleton is the best example of the species Mammuthus trogontherii to be unearthed so far, being 85% complete. Previous finds include two partial skeletons found in Germany and Russia, both of which were only about 10 to 15% complete. The mammoth was male, stood some 4 metres (13 ft) at the shoulder and would have weighed about 10 tonnes (11 short tons). This is twice the weight of the modern African elephant Loxodonta africana. [7]

Its recorded that at sometime or another Browne acquired an elephant's leg-bone for his anatomical studies and the largest of all land animals continued to interest him late in his life. His solitary work of fiction, Museum Clausum (circa 1673) a bizarre catalogue of imaginary, rumoured and lost books, pictures and rarities includes the landscape painting of - 

'A Snow Piece, of Land and Trees covered with Snow and Ice, and Mountains of Ice floating in the Sea, with Bears, Seals, Foxes and variety of rare Fowls upon them'. 

Also in Browne's surreal inventory Museum Clausum (the Closed Museum) perhaps inspired from an antique coin once in his collector's cabinet, there's the amusing thumb-nail sketch of-

'An Elephant dancing upon the Ropes with a Negro Dwarf upon his Back'. [9] 

Julius Caesar's coin issued in 49 BCE to commemorate his victory over Pompey.

See also

*  Browne's Zoology -  Spiders - Ostrich - Pelican - Vulture

* Thomas Browne's writings are on-line at the University of Chicago site maintained by James Eason including On the elephant and Museum Clausum.

 * Peter Rodulfo's 'As the elephant laughed'. A panorama of evolution

Notes

[1] Religio Medici Part 1: 15 and 16.

[2] Suetonius The Twelve Caesars trans. Robert Graves Penguin (Nero para. 11 and Galba para. 6)

[3]  Book 3 chapter 1 Pseudodoxia Epidemica ed. Robin Robbins pub. OUP 1981

[4] British Museum MS Sloane 1848 reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[5] Urn-Burial Chapter 3

[6] British Museum Sloane MS 1882 reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[7]  Ms. J. Curl to whom the author is indebted for her professional knowledge in relation to Browne.

[8] Larkin, Nigel. "The West Runton Elephant" Norfolk Museums & Archaeology Service.

[9] Miscellaneous Tract 13  reproduced in Miscellaneous writings ed. Keynes 1946

[10] Typically Browne has embellished an original image with his own imaginative addition, placing 'a Negro Dwarf' upon the back of a tight-rope walking elephant. Modern numismatic scholarship now believes that Caesar's coin which was minted in 49 BCE to celebrate his defeat of his political rival Pompey depicts an elephant trampling and crushing a snake underfoot.  Looking closely at this coin (above) it clearly does depict a snake, which is often likened symbolically to a treacherous enemy, and the true statement of Julius Caesar's coin. A tightrope walking elephant is simply too frivolous a subject for a dictator to identify with !

Books Consulted

*Jorge Luis Borges -The Book of Imaginary Creatures (1967) pub. Penguin 1974 

*Suetonius The Twelve Caesars trans. Robert Graves pub. Penguin 1976

* Pseudodoxia Epidemica ed. Robin Robbins pub. OUP 1981

* Miscellaneous writings  of Sir Thomas Browne  ed. Keynes pub. Faber and Faber 1946

Images 

From top to bottom -

*  Illustration - Weston Runton female mammoth with offspring by Ms. J. Curl.

* Painting - A detail from Peter Rodulfo's 'As the elephant laughed' (2012).

*  Artistic realization of the West Runton elephant by Ms. J. Curl.

*  Photo - Ms. J. Curl cleaning the West Runton mammoth 1995. Photo credit ITV News.

* Photo:  Roman coin reverse.

Dr. Browne's 'readie way to read the characters of Morpheus'.

                                                           
Thomas Browne's short tract On Dreams is exemplary of the seventeenth century physician-philosopher's deep learning and dedication to his medical profession. Furthermore, On Dreams  reveals Browne to be a pioneering psychologist, not least for anticipating concepts associated with the psychology of Carl Gustav Jung.

Its worthwhile reminding ourselves of the nature of dreams and the historical antecedents of their interpretation. Dreams can have a wide variety of moods and feelings, frightening or anxious, exciting and adventurous, sometimes with a magical content or empowering, sometimes with a sexual element and most often simply puzzling. Dreams can give a creative or inspiring thought, and in the past they've been viewed as a conduit of God-given revelation and prophecy. 

The ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia left evidence of dream interpretation dating back to at least 2100 BCE. In one of the world's oldest literary works The Epic of Gilgamesh the hero Gilgamesh escapes the vengeance of the gods by paying attention to dreams which warn and show him how to overcome his enemy.  The Greek physician Hippocrates (469–399 BCE) had a simple dream theory: during the day, the soul receives images; during the night, it produces images, similarly, the Greek historian Herodotus in his Histories, wrote, "The visions that occur to us in dreams are, more often than not, the things we have been concerned about during the day".

Thomas Browne (1605-82) demonstrates his familiarity with Hippocrates' theory to the causes of dreams stating in accordance to the ancient Greek physician, 'the thoughts or actions or the day are acted over and echoed in the night'. Browne himself had an intimate relationship to the world of dreams. Living in an age of grim living conditions and little entertainment, dreaming was a welcome diversion in seventeenth century England. He confessed of his enjoyment of dreaming in  Religio Medici (1643) thus-

'There is surely a nearer apprehension of any thing that delights us in our dreams, than in our waked senses........I thank God for my happy dreams, as I do for my good rest, for there is a satisfaction in them unto reasonable desires, and such as can be content with a fit of happiness; and surely it is not a melancholy conceit to think we are all asleep in this world, and that the conceits of this life are as mere dreams to those of the next, as the Phantasms of the night, to the conceit of the day'. [1]

Dreams were rich nourishment for Browne's imagination, not least because he was able to lucid dream, that is, to be conscious of oneself actually dreaming, and thus able to take an active instead of a passive role in the events occurring in a dream, effectively controlling the action of a dream. He elucidated on  his rare gift in Religio Medici thus -

'yet in one dream I can compose a whole Comedy, behold the action, apprehend the jests, and laugh myself awake at the conceits thereof; were my memory as faithful as my reason is then fruitful, I would never study but in my dreams, and this time also would I choose for my devotions, but our grosser memories have then so little hold of our abstracted understandings, that they forget the story, and can only relate to our awaked souls, a confused and broken tale of that that hath passed'. [2]

On Dreams opens with fleeting allusion to night and sleep, themes which, together with dreams inspired some of the greatest passages of Browne's literary art. Citing the Old Testament book of Genesis and its story of Jacob's dream, Joseph's interpretation of the Egyptian pharaoh's dreams and Nebuchadnezzar's demand not only for the interpretation of his dream but of his dream itself. In common with other Renaissance thinkers Browne viewed dreams as God-given communications and their interpretation sanctioned in the Bible. 

As late as the seventeenth century the little-understood psychic phenomena of the dream was believed to be of either divine or diabolical origin. Browne's remark that, 'We have little doubt there be demoniacal dreams' seems  to be an observation based upon personal, first-hand experience, and he proposed-

'Why may there not be Angelical ? If there be Guardian spirits, they may not be unactively about us in sleep, but may sometimes order our dreams, and many strange hints, instigations, or discoveries which are so amazing unto us, may arise from such foundations'.

And in fact a belief in Guardian angels as well as witches was integral to Thomas Browne's spiritual hierarchy. Its unsurprising therefore that the Christian in Browne is concerned  in On Dreams about the possibility of sinning in one's dreams. In his short tract he also condemns those who have paid too close attention to their dreams at the expense of common sense, stating, 

'Yet he that should order his affairs by dreams, or make the night a rule unto the day, might be ridiculously deluded'.

On Dreams includes examples of Browne's 'dimensional imagery' in which the very large and very small are juxtaposed, noting that in dreams -

'the phantastical objects seem greater than they are, and being beheld in the vaporous state of sleep, enlarge their dimensions unto us; whereby it may prove easier to dream of Giants than pygmies'.

Identical 'dimensional imagery' also occurs in the late work Christian Morals.

'without which, though Giants in Wealth and Dignity, we are but Dwarfs and Pygmies in Humanity, and may hold a pitiful rank in that triple division of mankind into Heroes, Men and Beasts'.  (C.M. 3:14)

In the painting The Gentleman's Dream or Disillusion with the World (1655) by the Spanish Baroque-era artist Antonio de Peruda (c.1611-1678) a courtier sleeps and dreams beside a table displaying various vanitas objects. A guardian angel unfurls a scroll with the words, "Eternally it stings, swiftly it flies and it kills", inscribed upon it, a waspish allusion to the sting of Time.

Browne references both ancient and modern philosophers in On Dreams including the Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who was a big influence upon him as he informs the reader of his Religio Medici - 

'I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras' 

Pythagorean thought is a fundamental creative influence in the discourse The Garden of Cyrus. [3]

In addition to Pythagoras, the Italian physician, mathematician and general polymath Jerome Cardan  is also mentioned in the tract. Jerome Cardan (1501-76) was highly influential in various disciplines, writing over 200 works on science. His interests included medicine, biology, engineering, chemistry, astrology and astronomy and he's credited with inventing several mechanical devices including the combination lock and the Cardan shaft with its universal joints which allow for the transmission of rotary motion at various angles and used in car-motors to the present day.  He was often short of money and kept himself solvent by being an accomplished gambler and chess player. Cardan had a reoccurring dream which ordered him to write De subtilitate rerum (1550) a book which Browne was critical of, assessing Cardan in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) thus -

'We had almost forgot Jeronymus Cardanus that famous Physician of Milan, a great Enquirer of Truth, but too greedy a Receiver of it. He hath left many excellent Discourses, Medical, Natural, and Astrological; the most suspicious are those two he wrote by admonition in a dream, that is De Subtilitate & Varietate Rerum. Assuredly this learned man hath taken many things on trust, and although examined some, hath let slip many others. He is of singular use unto a prudent reader but to him that desireth hoties, or to replenish his head with varieties, like many others before related, either in the original or confirmation, he may become no small occasion of error'. [4]

However, Browne's judgement of Jerome Cardan didn't prevent him from acquiring sometime in 1663 or shortly after (he often purchased books upon notification of their publication by book-dealers) an edition of Jerome Cardan's complete works which included Somniorum Synesiorum, omnis generis insomnia explicantes, libri IIII (Synesian dreams, dreams of all kinds set forth, in four books). [5]

Jerome Cardan's work on the interpretation of dreams is partly inspired by Synesius of Cyrene (c.370-c.413 CE) a Greek bishop of ancient Libya and author of  De insomniis (On dreams). Cardan divided dreams into four categories based on their causes: digestive dreams caused by food and drink; humoural caused by imbalances in the four humours; anamnestic caused by passions or changes in emotion; and finally prophetic dreams of a supernatural or divine origin. Jerome Cardan viewed the first three categories as natural and ordinary bodily processes. Most of this work however, is devoted to a discussion of prophetic dreams which he views from a philosophical perspective.

Jerome Cardan is one of several independent-minded figures from Renaissance intellectual history whom Browne was highly critical of, yet read closely. Other notable candidates of similar critical influence upon Browne include Cardan's countryman, the polymath Giambattista della Porta (1538-1615) the Belgian scientist Van Helmont (1577-1644) the Swiss physician Paracelsus (1494-1541) and the German scholar of comparative religion Athanasius Kircher (1602-1680). 

Browne sometimes wrote with his most recent reading in mind. From his mention of the Italian polymath and physician Jerome Cardan twice in On Dreams its possible to tentatively date On Dreams as written circa 1663 from two facts. According to the 1711 Auction Sales Catalogue an edition of Jerome Cardan's Opera (Complete works) dated 1663 is listed as once in Browne'd library. [5]. Coincidentally, almost half of his eldest son  Edward Browne's dissertation for his bachelor of medicine degree, on the use of dreams to the physician, was written in 1663.[6] Its possible that Browne may have composed On Dreams in order to assist his son. In any event the short tract On Dreams isn't dissimilar in either its literary style or subject-matter to  A Letter to a Friend  (circa 1656) in which dreams as experienced by the dying are commented upon. As such On Dreams may be read as an appendage to A Letter to a Friend, Browne's major medical writing.

A fascinating relationship exists between Thomas Browne to the Swiss psychologist  Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961). For example, both men were physicians who took their psychiatric responsibilities seriously, both studied comparative religion and alchemical literature in depth and both had a big  interest in their own and others' dreams. I've written at length about this fascinating relationship  elsewhere on this blog. [7] 

C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963) just like Browne's Religio Medici (1643) is an autobiographical account and spiritual testament which includes many philosophical digressions. The biggest difference between the two autobiographies being whilst Religio Medici was penned before its author embarked upon a medical career, C.G. Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections was written after a long medical career, shortly before the author's death. It includes recollections of some of the many dreams which Jung had, including of digging up the bones of prehistoric animals, of kneeling to hand a girl an umbrella, of a tree transformed by frost, of his father reading a fish-skin bound Bible among others. According to Jung-

'The dream is a little hidden door in the innermost and most secret recesses of the psyche, opening into that cosmic night which was psyche long before there was any ego consciousness....All consciousness separates; but in dreams we put on the likeness of the more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. [8]

In On Dreams Browne declares- 'We owe unto dreams that Galen was a physician, Dion an historian, and that the world hath seen some notable pieces of Cardan' to which one might add  that we owe unto dreams the fact that the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung embarked upon a long study of alchemy following a dream.

Jung's dream which heralded his encounter with alchemy occurred in 1926 when he dreamt he was travelling through the Lombardy plain in Northern Italy. Upon viewing a large manor house located near Verona he entered its courtyard. Suddenly its gates slammed shut and he thought to himself, 'Now, we are caught in the seventeenth century'. Only much later did he come to realize that his dream alluded to his many years of studying alchemy, the golden age of alchemy being the seventeenth century.

Amazingly, Memories, Dreams, Reflections includes an endorsement of Browne as a psychologist. Jung's autobiography is prefaced by a verse chosen by his secretary Aniela Jaffe to describe the psychologist, but the author of the verse, who the English romantic poet Samuel Coleridge eulogizes upon is Thomas Browne, not C.G. Jung. This verse is notable for its early usage of the word 'consciousness' which the Oxford English Dictionary attributes to the poet William Wordsworth, Coleridge's sometime mentor as the first to use and which in all probability was 'borrowed' from him. Coleridge's verse on Browne focuses upon the self-analytical and mind-expanding qualities of the physician-philosopher.

He looked at his own Soul
With a Telescope. What seemed
all irregular he saw and
shewed to be beautiful
Constellations: and he added
to the Consciousness hidden
worlds within worlds.

Thomas Browne's anticipation of a Jungian interpretation of dreams is boldly declared in On Dreams -

Many dreams are made out by sagacious exposition from the signature of their subjects; carrying their interpretation in their fundamental sense & mysterie of similitude, whereby he that understands upon what natural fundamental every notional depends, may by symbolical adaptation hold a readie way to read the characters of Morpheus.

Browne's proposal of 'symbolical adaptation' as 'a readie way to read the characters of Morpheus' (the god of sleep is known as 'Fashioner' in Ancient Greek: μορφή meaning 'form, shape') requires elaboration.

Its worth remembering first that the word 'symbol'  derives from the Greek σύμβολον symbolon, meaning "token, watchword" from σύν syn "together" and βάλλω bállō " "I throw, put". The meaning of symbol as "something which stands for something else" was first recorded  in Edmund Spenser's epic poem The Faerie Queene (1596). 

According to C.G Jung - 'Symbols are never simple - only signs and allegories are simple. The symbol always covers a complicated situation which is so far beyond the grasp of language that it cannot be expressed at all in any unambiguous manner. [ 9]

'If symbols mean anything at all, they are tendencies which pursue a definite but not yet recognisable goal and consequently can express themselves only in analogies.' [10]

The Renaissance study of nature included the study of human nature. It was the radical 'Luther of Medicine' the Swiss physician-alchemist Paracelsus who first encouraged and urged the physician to take dreams and seriously, declaring-

"The interpretation of dreams is a great art. Dreams are not without meaning wherever they may come from - from fantasy, from the elements, or from another inspiration". [11]

Orthodox Christian theology did not however always possess a clear-cut view or answer to the new spiritual and psychological concerns experienced by many during the Renaissance, an age of great change. The effects of urbanization for example increased interaction between widely differing social, cultural, moral and religious perspectives and increased awareness of sexuality. 

From their close understanding of the human condition and dissatisfied with Christian dogma alchemist-physicians  as diverse as Paracelsus, John Dee, Van Helmont, Jerome Cardan and Thomas Browne either augmented concepts originating from the western esoteric traditions or coined home-grown neologisms and symbols in order to describe their understanding of the psyche.  Each of these aforenamed alchemist-physicians took their own dreams far more seriously than most in contemporary society today; each recognized their dream-lives to be of great importance to their self-development or individuation process in Jungian terms. From alchemist-physicians analysis of their dreams there emerged the beginnings of the modern-day science of psychology. Their rudimentary and tentative understanding of the self and unconscious psyche  several of whom C.G. Jung found confirmation of his psychology, in particular Gerard Dorn, were the fruits of the Renaissance spirit of enquiry into nature, which includes human nature. As C.G.Jung explains-

'the language of the alchemists is at first sight very different from our psychological terminology and way of thinking. But if we treat their symbols in the same way as we treat modern fantasies, they yield a meaning - even in the Middle Ages confessed alchemists interpreted their symbols in a moral and philosophical sense, their "philosophy" was, indeed, nothing but projected psychology'. [12]

Thomas Browne's fascination with symbols is writ large throughout his oeuvre. Allusion to symbolism involving the alphabets of various languages, numbers, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mercurial characters, kabbalistic signs and geometric symbols as well as metaphors, allegories, anagrams and  riddles can be found in his writings, not least in his highly hermetic discourse  The Garden of  Cyrus (1658) a literary work densely packed with symbolism. Not only is the ubiquity of the number five in art and nature prominent in The Garden of Cyrus but also its many closely-associated extensions including the V shape and the Latin numeral for 5, which by mirror doubling becomes the figure X, significant  to Christians as the first letter of the name of Christ in Greek, the ten commandments as well as the Pythagorean tetraktys, which by multiplication (X) becomes the reticulated network, as seen illustrated on the discourse's frontispiece. (Below)

The literary critic Peter Green recognized- 'there is nothing vague or woolly about Browne's mysticism...Every symbol is interrelated with the over-all pattern'. [13]

Crucially, in relation to Jungian psychology, Browne not only employs one of the earliest usages of the very word 'archetype' in The Garden of Cyrus  but even attempts to delineate the archetype of the 'wise ruler' through utilizing highly-original proper name symbolism, alluding to Solomon, Moses, Alexander the Great, Augustus and of course the titular hero of the discourse, Cyrus. Browne's proper-name symbolism also alludes to the archetypal figure of the ‘Great Mother' as a symbol of fertility and fruitfulness with mention of Sarah, Isis, Juno, Cleopatra and Venus. But if ever there were a sly, Royalist supporter's opposition to Cromwell's rule of England (1650-1658), its surely in Browne's repeated citing of examples of the 'Wise ruler' from history in  The Garden of Cyrus.

The religious mystic and symbol go together hand in glove. For most Christian mystics the inexhaustible symbolism of the Cross was sufficient for expression of their spiritual thought. The Elizabethan mathematician and hermetic philosopher John Dee (1527-1608) however devised his very own mystical symbol, the Monas Hieroglyphica a complex, metaphysical 'explanation' of the cosmos. Dee's Monas symbol became a printer's colophon which was avidly reproduced by various alchemystical philosophers in their publications. John Dee's eldest son Arthur Dee became a friend of Browne's upon his return from Russia and retirement to what was at the time, England's second city in terms of prosperity and population, Norwich.

Peter French  speculates- 'Little is known of this son of Dee's; one cannot help but wonder however, how much he may have influenced Browne, who was one of the seventeenth century's greatest literary exponents of the type of occult philosophy in which both the Dee's were immersed'.[14]

On Dreams is not Browne's only literary work in which the psychological is prominent. His two closely-related discourses of 1658 Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are a portrait of the human condition and psyche, depicting humanity as simultaneously irrational and rational, fearful of death, yet forever with the future in mind, serious and merry, enduring pain and illness as well as enjoying health and pleasure. Imagery involving Light and Darkness permeates the diptych discourses, as does the dominant themes of Time (Urn-Burial) and Space (The Garden of Cyrus) the basic framework of  the Mandala. Most often a circular visual image, but conceivable as a literary structure, in Jungian psychology the meditative image of the mandala symbolically represents the dreamer's search for completeness and self-unity; its function is to assist with healing and to help transform ordinary minds into enlightened ones. Plexiformed in their polarity, themes and imagery, Browne's diptych discourses are capable of achieving such a transformation to the receptive mind.  By focusing his reader's attention to the discourses primary symbols of Urn and Quincunx, Thomas  Browne  -

'by concentrating, almost like a hypnotist, on this pair of unfamiliar symbols, paradoxically releases the reader's mind into an infinite number of associative levels of awareness, without preconception to give shape and substance to quite literally cosmic generalizations...............Mystical symbolism is woven throughout the texture of Browne's work and adds, often subconsciously, to its associative power of impact. [15]

C.G.Jung, recognizing the enduring continuity of symbolism in the collective unconscious psyche throughout long stretches of time perceptively observes-

'The symbolic statements of the old alchemists issue from the same unconscious as modern dreams and are just as much the voice of nature'. [16] 

Browne concludes his short tract On Dreams refuting the belief that children don't dream under six months old, and that men don't dream in some countries by supplying a footnote upon the difference between false and true dreams. Alluding to the Ivory gate and the polished horn gate mentioned by  Homer in his Odyssey, in which Penelope the hero's wife says of dreams-

"Ah my friend," seasoned Penelope dissented
"dreams are hard to unravel, wayward, drifting things-
not all we glimpse in them will come to pass...
Two gates there are for our evanescent dreams,
one is made of ivory, the other made of horn.
Those that pass through the ivory cleanly carved
are will-o'-the-wisps, their message bears no fruit.
The dreams that pass through the gates of polished horn
are fraught with truth, for the dreamer who can see them. [17]

Conclusion

In addition to being a superb introduction to Browne's literary style, On Dreams includes a number of highly original speculations on the psyche's relationship to dreams, 'the Theatre of Ourselves', as the physician-philosopher memorably defines the psyche. 

Link to full text of  On Dreams

Books consulted

* Patrides C. A. ed. and with an introduction The Major Works of Sir Thomas Browne pub. Penguin  1977 includes On Dreams
* Finch J. S - A Catalogue of the Libraries of Sir Thomas Browne and Dr Edward Browne, his son. A Facsimile Reproduction with an Introduction, Notes and Index.  E. J .Brill    1986
* Jung C. G.  Memories, Dreams, Reflections trans. R & C Winston London 1979
* Jung C.G. Psychology and Religion Vol. 11 Collected works pub. RKP 1958
* Green, P. Sir Thomas Browne  pub. 1959 Longmans, Green & Co (Writers and Work, No.108).
* The Odyssey Homer translated by Robert Fagles 1996 Viking Penguin

Notes

[1] Religio Medici Part 2  Section 11
[2] Ibid.
[3] R.M. Part 1:12
[4] Pseudodoxia Epidemica Bk 1:18 no.13
[5] Sales Catalogue p.19 no 96  Opera Omnia 10 vol. Lyon 1663
[6] I am indebted to Ms. A. Wyatt for information about Edward Browne's bachelor of medicine dissertation and indeed on all matters relating to Thomas Browne's eldest son, Edward Browne (1644-1708).
[7]  Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne
[8]  Glossary  of  Memories, Dreams, Reflections.
[9] Carl Jung Complete Works  Vol:11 paragraph 385
[10] CW 14: paragraph 667
[11] Paracelsus: Selected Writings edited by Jolande Jacobi pub. Princeton University Press 1951
[12] CW 14: paragraph 737
[13] Green, P. Sir Thomas Browne pub. 1959 Longmans, Green & Co (Writers and Work, No.108)
[14] John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus, by Peter J. French Pub. Routledge and Kegan Paul, London 1972
[15] Green, P. Sir Thomas Browne  pub. 1959 Longmans, Green & Co (Writers and Work, No.108)
[16] Collected Works vol. 11: paragraph 105
[17] Book 19 lines 560-565 The Odyssey Homer by Robert Fagles pub. 1996 Viking Penguin

Paintings

'Before Waking'  40 x 50 cm. (2015) by Peter Rodulfo.









The Knight's Dream by Antonio de Peruda. (1655)









Henri Rousseau Le Rêve (The Dream) 1909. Rousseau's last painting.

'Dreaming Fisherman' by Peter Rodulfo

See  also-

Link to Peter Rodulfo's art 

See also -

Rodulfo's quadriptych of Loving-Kindness

Rodulfo's 'As the elephant laughed'. A panorama of evolution

Paracelsus on the interpretation of dreams

Paracelsus and Sir Thomas Browne

Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne

North Sea Magic Realism: The art of Guy Richardson

'In seventy or eighty years a Man may have a deep Gust of the World, Know what it is, what it can afford, and what ’tis to have been a Man'. [1]

Guy Richardson (1933 - 2021) was a British artist and sculptor who exhibited his art for over six decades. He was also the senior member of the North Sea Magic Realism art-movement.

Early in his long and varied life, Guy attended Dartmouth Naval College and later studied at Chelsea School of Art for his National Diploma in Design, along with fellow-artist Prunella Clough and the sculptor Elizabeth Frink. He attended UEA as a mature student reading European Art History. For many years Guy combined art with puppetry including a one-man show of Orpheus in the Underworld which was performed at the National Theatre in London. Richardson's influence upon his contemporaries is reflected in the British puppeteer and environmental artist Meg Amsden's  (b. 1948) reminiscence -

'There were so many artists around that I knew and worked with that it was possible to learn things. With a little touring dance and education company we went into schools and did shows and through that I met someone called Guy Richardson, who did Punch and Judy shows on Yarmouth beach.' 

Guy showed Meg how to make masks for dance productions and, almost immediately, she started making puppets too. Amsden recollects on her apprenticeship with Richardson-

'Guy had a way of working that was experimental. All the time we were trying things out,” she says. “I think you learn by doing that. I have the sort of mind that likes problem solving so that worked well. I worked with him for four of five years altogether but gradually started setting up my own ideas too.' [2]

Richardson has held exhibitions of his art at Covent Garden and Hampstead in London, at Norwich, and Halesworth and Southwold in Suffolk. Three examples of his medallic work are currently held at the British Museum. 

Its beyond the confines of this post to recollect in detail Guy's long and extensive biography, besides, as C.G. Jung reminds us-  

'The personal life of the artist is at most a help or a hindrance, but is never essential to his creative task. He may go the way of the Philistine, a good citizen, a fool, or a criminal. His personal career may be interesting and inevitable, but it does not explain his art'. [3] 

Working mostly in ceramics, primarily in grogged clay, Richardson's pieces are painted or sponged with underglaze paints before biscuit firing, creating sculptures which are at turns humorous and erotic, often featuring people in unusual situations. His amusing and intriguing sculptures echo the humour and salaciousness of 'What the Butler Saw' peep-shows with a Jack-in-the-box inventiveness. With an extensive knowledge of world art, Richardson's 'Back-stage' (top of post) depicts the behind-the-scenes operations of stage-hands whilst an opera singer performs to an audience. His 'Shark-wrestler' (above) is influenced by the artist Rene Magritte, whilst his 'Bluebeard's Larder' (below) is inspired by Charles Perrault's sinister fairy-tale.

Richardson's art possesses all the sophistication of Czech animator Jan Svankmajer or the Brothers Quay with their imaginative automatons, while retaining his own quite unique vision.

The psychologist C.G. Jung reminds us that- 'Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory qualities. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other he is an impersonal creative process. As a human being he may be sound or morbid, and his personal psychology can and should be explained in personal terms. But he can be understood as an artist only in terms of his creative achievement'. [4]

Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell both acknowledge Richardson's influence upon  their own personal artistic development. Rodulfo recollects - 

'I first met Guy in 1980. At the time I was exhibiting at Norwich Castle Museum. Guy had  seen my work there and got in touch  with me so as to see more of my art. In due course Guy showed me his work which greatly impressed me. For some time I had been making ever more encrusted collages, and seeing Guy's work gave me the courage and inspiration to take my collages a big step forwards, in the form of three-dimensional constructions and assemblages,which in turn led on to free standing sculptures'. 

Mark Burrell, a Lowestoft neighbour of Richardson, states-

'I first saw Guy's work over 30 years ago when I was lucky enough to see a one man show by him. I was utterly spell bound by the sheer imagination of his 3D pieces, many were ornate boxes with spy-holes to peer into; within these he created great depth and all kind of imaginings. His themes over the years are many and varied, but his frank, honest and quirky depiction of human sexuality, playful and uncensored make me smile and think. 30 years later I still get a feeling of excitement when I pop round to see him and his unique work.'

Guy Richardson exhibited with Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell at the Tripp Gallery, London, in November 2017, attending the opening preview of the first collective North Sea Magical Realism exhibition. 

Notes

[1] Sir Thomas Browne Christian Morals Part 3:22

[2] The Puppet Master: Interview with Meg Amsden East Anglian Daily Times 8th July  2013

[3] CW 15:157

[4]  CW 15:162

                        Photo of Guy Richardson circa 1980