Its always exciting when New Adventures Dance Company are booked toperform at the Theatre Royal, Norwich; the return of leading British choreographer Matthew Bourne's ballet The Red Shoes was no exception.
First performed at Sadler's Wells Theatre, London on December 6th, 2016 with a set and costume designs by Bourne's long-time collaborator, Lez Brotherston, Matthew Bourne's ballet The Red Shoes is based broadly on the 1948 film The Red Shoes directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, itself being loosely based upon Hans Christian Andersen's fairy-tale
The generous programme notes for the New Adventures production includes background information to the cult-status British ballet film The Red Shoes and the film-score music of Bernard Hermann (1911-75) composer of highly atmospheric music for Alfred Hitchcock's cinematic masterpieces Vertigo (1958) North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho (1960). Bourne has carefully selected several pieces ofHermann's music notably from Fahrenheit 451 which, accompanying innovative dance, gesture and mime, greatly enhance the 'story-telling without words' narrative of his ballet.
In interview Matthew Bourne stated, - "the image of the red shoes that, once put on, will not allow the wearer to stop dancing has long been a potent one for creative minds, from Powell and Pressburger to Kate Bush to Emma Rice. I have loved the film since I was a teenager with its depiction of a group of people all passionate abut creating something magical and beautiful. The film's genius was to take a highly theatrical world and turn it into a highly cinematic and at times, surreal piece of film-making. My challenge has been to capture some of that surreal, sensuous quality within the more natural theatre setting" [1].
According to Bourne - "The main message of The Red Shoes is that nothing matters but art. As Michael Powell said: "The Red Shoes told us to go and die for art." Whilst acknowledging the exaggeration here, I believe it was a piece that asked us to take art seriously as a life-changing force; something that gives intense joy but also asks for and requires sacrifices. It is the love story of two young artists: one a dancer, Victoria Page; and one, a composer, Julian Craster, and the fight between that love and the lure of the highest artistic achievement. [2]
"I'm also exploring how the fairy-tale world of ballet and the stories it tells can actually blend into the real-life tale of love, ambition, artistic and personal fulfillment, until the two are barely distinguishable". [3]
Its as a tight-working ensemble more than featuring any particular star that the New Adventures dance company operate best, though on the evening principal dancer Ashley Shaw in the role of rising star Victoria Page was confident as a star in her own right. As ever the lighting and special effects were spectacular too, especially the sudden arrival of the locomotion train.
The extraordinary choreographic talents of Matthew Bourne (b. 1960) and his latest ballet The Red Shoes (2016) expands the New Adventures repertoire to no less than 12 full-length productions. In 2016 Bourne was awarded an OBE and in 2017 he won the award of Best Theatre Choreographer and the show itself won Best Entertainment at the 2017 Olivier Awards. The New Adventures dance company collectively have garnered over 50 International and National awards.
I've now had the pleasure of seeing several Matthew Bourne's ballets performed at Theatre Royal, Norwich, including- Edward Scissorhands (1995), Highland Fling (2005) and Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance (2012). I could not help but notice that according to the evening's programme notes there has been some kind of major reshuffle in the company; of the 24 dancers, almost half (11) are listed as joining the company as recently as 2017. However, judging by the ecstatic response and standing ovation on the night from the discerning Norwich audience that The Red Shoes seems guaranteed to be a popular, long-lasting addition to New Adventures already highly original repertoire.
Notes
[1-3] Programme notes Theatre Royal Norwich Tuesday 18 -Saturday 22 February 2020
See also - Sleeping Beauty: A Gothic Romance
The influence of western esoteric concepts upon the science and creative imagination of Thomas Browne is evident throughout his 1658 discourse The Garden of Cyrus, not least in the preamble of its central, third chapter.
Its while adjusting the focus of his quincuncial quest from the artificial world of art and design to nature and botanical 'ocular observation' that the physician-philosopher names three sources of western esotericism of special interest to him, namely, Pythagoras, comparative religion and the kabbalah. It would however, be misleading to claim that this third chapter is preoccupied exclusively with esoteric topics. The 'Natural' chapter of the discourse predominately features Browne's sharp-eyed botanical observations, naming over 140 species of plant in total. Nevertheless its also in the opening paragraphs of this third and central chapter that Browne asserts his belief in esoteric concepts involving, 'the Pythagorical music of the spheres', 'the seven-fold Pipe of Pan', and 'the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell', declaring-
Could we satisfy ourselves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed Stars of heaven; Could we have any light, why the stellary part of the first mass, separated into this order, that the Girdle of Orion should ever maintain its line, and the two Stars in Charles’s Wain never leave pointing at the Pole-Star, we might abate the Pythagoricall Music of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan; and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.
Immediately following this light-hearted challenge, there is a fine example of the Hermetic doctrine of correspondences. Descending in subject-mater from astronomy to 'bodies in the earth', Browne draws his reader's attention to similarities between patterns formed by star-constellations to those seen in mineral stones.
The belief that all in the heavens above, the macrocosm is mirrored in life on earth below, including man as microcosm, is encapsulated in the maxim 'As above, so below' which is expounded in the so-called Emerald Tablet. Also known as the Smaragdine Tablet, or Tabula Smaragdina, the Emerald Tablet is a text which was held by Hermetic philosophers and alchemists alike as the corner-stone of their art. Attributed to the mythic sage Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet was thought to originate from the antediluvian cradle of civilization, ancient Egypt and to predate the Christian era; but in fact was written in the 2/3rd CE. The opening verse of the Emerald Tablet announces -
Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below...... It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth
As ever Browne couches a simple proposition, in this case the maxim 'As above so below' in ornate, processional and labyrinthine prose.
But not to look so high as Heaven or the single Quincunx of the Hyades upon the head of Taurus, the Triangle, and remarkable Crusero about the foot of the Centaur; observable rudiments there are hereof in subterraneous concretions, and bodies in the Earth; in the Gypsum or Talcum Rhomboides, in the Favaginites or honey-comb-stone, in the Asteria and Astroites, and in the crucigerous stone of S. Iago of Gallicia.
In what is a highly-compressed text, replete with proper-name symbolism and 'astral imagery', various astronomical constellations are named, including the Southern Triangle and Cross, the Centaur, Orion the hunter, Ursa Major or the Great Bear and the star-cluster of the Hyades in Taurus. The discourse as a whole is framed by cosmic imagery, opening with the Creation and concluding with the Apocalypse.
The three esoteric concepts named in the opening of the third chapter of the Discourse, 'the Pythagoricall Music of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell' are each rewarding to elaborate upon, not least for identifying Browne's considerable understanding and appreciation of such esoteric concepts.
The Music of the Spheres
Revered as a god for almost one thousand years until the suppression of his School and teachings, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 580 - c. 500 BCE) is credited with origin of the concept known as 'the Music of the Spheres'.
In his half-mystical, half mathematical and numerological concept of the proportional movement of the sun, moon and planets Pythagoras proposed the planetary spheres were related to each other by whole-number ratios of pure musical intervals, creating musical harmony. Legend records the ancient Greek guru could even hear 'the music of the spheres' whilst in a self-induced trance. An early commentator on Pythagoras, Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 250 CE - c.325 CE) informs in his Life of Pythagoras that-
'Pythagoras....extending his ears, fixed his intellect in the sublime symphonies of the world, he alone hearing and understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of the spheres, and the stars that are moved through them, and which produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by mortal sounds'. [1]
The Music of the Spheres is alluded to in Plato's Myth of Er and by the Roman author Cicero in The Dream of Scipio an account elaborated upon later in the highly influential cosmology of Macrobius who lived circa 400 CE. The grandson of Scipio whilst travelling through the cosmos with his military grandfather remarks-
And, as I gazed on these things with amazement, when I recovered myself: "What," I asked, "what is this sound that fills my ears, so loud and sweet?" "This," he replied, "is that sound, which divided in intervals, unequal, indeed, yet still exactly measured in their fixed proportion, is produced by the impetus and movement of the spheres themselves, and blending sharp tones with grave, therewith makes changing symphonies in unvarying harmony.....Now the revolutions of those eight spheres, of which two have the same power, produce seven sounds with well-marked intervals; and this number, generally speaking, is the mystic bond of all things in the universe. And learned men by imitating this with stringed instruments and melodies have opened for themselves the way back to this place, even as other men of noble nature, who have followed god-like aims in their life as men. [2]
A belief in the music of the spheres features in Browne's psychological self-portrait Religio Medici (1643) in which he poetically declares-
'For there is a music where-ever there is a harmony, order or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. [3]
The music of the spheres is sometimes heard whilst the adept or alchemystical philosopher is engaged upon a 'soul-journey' and several ancient world soul-journeys are mentioned in Urn-Burial, the diptych companion to The Garden of Cyrus including The Dream of Scipio. That Browne was familiar with the relationship between cosmic soul-journeying and harmonical music is evident from a passage from Urn-Burial
They made use of Musick to excite or quiet the affections of their friends, according to different harmonies. But the secret and symbolical hint was the harmonical nature of the soul; which delivered from the body, went again to enjoy the primitive harmony of heaven, from whence it first descended; which according to its progresse traced by antiquity, came down by Cancer, and ascended by Capricornus. [4]
Thomas Browne did not need to rely exclusively on ancient world sources for accounts of a 'Soul-journey'. Edited by Kircher's devoted pupil and secretary, Gaspar Schott's Iter Ecstaticum Kirceranium (1660) is one of the strangest of books in Browne's library. Schott's Iter Ecstaticum describes how, Kircher, after listening to three lute-players is led by the spirit Cosmiel through a cosmic ascent and is transported in an ecstatic journey through the planetary spheres. [5]
Browne's diptych discourses are themselves thematically structured upon a soul-journey. Together they progress from the dark, earthbound Grave meditations of Urn-Burial to the heavenly delights and discernment of eternal design in The Garden of Cyrus, a discourse which is saturated with imagery of Light and Stars.
Confident in his Christian belief in the Resurrection Browne hints of the Discourses relationship to each other in its Dedicatory Epistle thus-
'Since the delightful World comes after death, and Paradise succeeds the Grave'.
The seven-fold pipe of Pan
It's quite possible when mentioning 'the seven-fold Pipe of Pan', that Browne had a specific illustration in mind. Throughout his life he kept abreast of the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher's latest publications, including, as previously mentioned, an account of his 'Soul-journey' Iter Ecstaticum Kirceranium (1660). Kircher's greatest publication, the vast three volume work known as Oedipus Egypticus (Rome 1652-54)is also listed as once in Browne's library. Kircher's often erroneous, yet ground-breaking work of comparative religion, includes a copper-plate engraving of the Bembine Tablet of Isis. The Rosetta stone of its age, and believed to be a source of Egyptian wisdom, its mentioned twice in The Garden of Cyrus.
Kircher's Oedipus Egypticus also includes a folio-sized illustration of Pan which itemizes the attributes of the god of Universal Nature. The Pythagorean relationship between music and the cosmos is highlighted in Pan's 'seven-fold Pipe' which is equated with the seven planetary spheres (Above). [6]
In the artist Rinat Baibekov's painting Pan (top of post) the Nature god is seen about to play upon his Pipes in order to evoke Universal and Cosmic Harmony. A multitude of creatures playfully gnaw at the invulnerable god's protective armour. Baibekov supplies poetry penned by himself to accompany his painting -
Shepherds, hunters, peasants, who live far from vain cities are the hidden talismans of magic whose name is All, is PAN god of nature, Inventor of spell-working Pipes whose sound enchants nymphs. Nature's powers are infinite. For millennia she dreams, With Panpipe sounds awakens, Ten times more powerful returns the Spring.
In a painting of meticulous detail and rich tonality, Baibekov's Pan features a theme which is encountered in several of his paintings, that of polyoptics or many eyes. With a number of eyes peering through shadows in Baibekov's Pan the viewer becomes conscious of being viewed. According to the psychologist C.G. Jung multiple or 'all-seeing eyes' is associated with ‘multiple consciousness’ that is, the various quasi-conscious states which exist within the unconscious psyche. [7]
The mystery and awe often associated with an encounter with Pan is vividly expressed by the Greek panpipe player Gheorghe Zamfir in his evocative soundtrack for film director Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975). Weir's film is an atmospheric and fictitious narration of the unexplained disappearance of several schoolgirls whilst picnicking at Hanging Rock at Victoria, Australia.
The Danish composer Carl Nielsen's large-scale symphonic poem Pan and Syrinx (1917)has exciting rhythms and orchestral colourations which narrate the Greek myth of the nymph Syrinx and her tragic encounter with Pan.
Yet another example of the hermetic maxim 'As above, so below' occurs in the third chapter of The Garden of Cyrus. Browne had a great interest in books by the polymath Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615) including Villa (1592) in which Della Porta endows the quincunx pattern with archetypal potency. In a quite literal example of 'As above, so below' Browne mentions the fact that the Roman Emperor Augustus is recorded as having moles on this body which corresponded to those in the constellation Ursa Major, also known as The Plough or Charles' wayne. Citing this correspondence as an example of Della Porta's 'Celestial physiognomy' Browne informs his reader -
That Augustus had native notes on his body and belly, after the order and number in the Starre of Charles wayne, will not seem strange unto astral Physiognomy, which accordingly considereth moles in the body of man, or Physicall Observators, who from the position of moles in the face, reduce them to rule and correspondency in other parts. [8]
The strange cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie booke of Heaven.
Given Browne's lifelong fascination with the symbolism of numbers, letters, hieroglyphs, along with anagrams, acrostics, riddles and all manner of unusual, hidden or 'occult' knowledge, its fairly unsurprising that a copy of Jacque Gafferell's Unheard-of Curiosities and its 'strange cryptography' is listed as once in his library. It was from his reading of Gaffarell's book that Browne is credited with introducing the word 'cryptography' into the English language.
In his phenomenally popular Unheard-of CuriositiesJacques Gafferell (1601-1681) a French scholar of Hebrew, the kabbalah and astrology, proposed an alternative to the Babylonian-Greek Zodiac. Gaffarell proposed that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet can be traced in the night-sky stars.
First published in Paris in 1629, Unheard-of Curiosities when translated into English in 1650was in the vanguard of a flood of esoteric literature which poured forth from the printing-presses of England throughout the 1650's decade. The demand for esoteric literature during this decade, a demand which has never since been paralleled, was due to several factors including a relaxation of licensing of printing-presses and censorship regulations under the Protectorate of Cromwell. Many major esoteric works were either translated or first published during the 1650's decade including Agrippa's 3 books of Occult Philosophy, Elias Ashmole's vast compendium of British alchemical authors, Theatrum Brittanicum (1652) and Della Porta's Natural Magic (1658). These books catered for the general Endzeitpsychosis and mood of Millenarian expectationengendered by the execution of King Charles I and widespread social apprehension towards the Cromwellian Proto-Republic. The very conclusion of Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus however, reassures the English reader experiencing social and political instability that -
'All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again',
Browne's Garden of Cyrus (1658) is neither immune nor isolated from the enthusiastic trend of interest, printing and publication of esoteric literature which thrived during the 1650's in England. 'Though overlooked by all', that is, until modern-day understanding of the vital influence which Hermetic philosophy wielded upon science and art throughout the Renaissance, Browne's 1658 discourse The Garden of Cyrus is the supreme example of Hermetic philosophy in seventeenth century English literature.
Jacques Gaffarell's 'kabbalah of the stars' is one of a number of Renaissance era esoteric schemata which imaginatively blends ancient world wisdom with a personal, mystical vision. Not unlike Gafferell's 'strange cryptography' or Della Porta's celestial physiognomy or even John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica Thomas Browne's Quincunx is also an amalgam of ancient world and home-grown esoteric schemata.
Originating from the teachings of Pythagoras (the Quincunx pattern can be seen at the heart of the Pythagorean symbol of the Tetractys a triangle of ten dots) and from Della Porta's advocation in Villa, the Quincunx becomes in Browne's mystical vision, an all-embracing, metaphysical Weltanschauung which unites the physician-philosopher's spiritual and scientific beliefs. Its repeatedly delineated throughout a literary work which has perplexing all but the most determined reader.
With words utterly applicable to the hermetic content of The Garden of psychologist C.G. Jung noted -
Intellectual responsibility seems always to have been the alchemists weak spot... The less respect they showed for the bowed shoulders of the sweating reader, the greater was their debt to the unconscious...The alchemists were so steeped in their inner experiences, that their whole concern was to devise fitting images and expressions regardless whether they were intelligible or not. They performed the inestimable service of having constructed a phenomenology of the unconscious long before the advent of psychology..The alchemists did not really know what they were writing about. Whether we know today seems to me not altogether sure. [9]
The American poet and literary critic John Irwin (b. 1940 - died December 20th 2019) noted - 'the idea that there is a necessary (because original) correspondence among numbers, letters and geometric shapes, is a belief found in esoteric alchemy and the cabala'. Irwin perceptively states of the symbolic importance of Browne's Quincunx that-
The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world, i.e. mathematics, language, geometry joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes. [10]
The word 'elegant' is encountered several times in The Garden of Cyrus. Its an apt definition of the discourse as a whole. In its third, central chapter the reader is informed that - Studious Observators may discover more analogies in the orderly book of nature, and cannot escape the Elegancy of her hand in other correspondencies.
A similar encouragement occurs in the apotheosis of the 'highly hermetic' discourse [11] in its fifth and final chapter where Browne declares -
A large field is yet left unto sharper discerners to enlarge upon this Order'.
Notes
[1] from 'Music, Mysticism and Magic: A Sourcebook' edited by Joscelyn Godwin pub. Arkana 1987
[2] Ibid. [3] R.M. Part 2 Section 9
[4] Urn-Burial chapter 4 The polarized zodiac signs Cancer and Capricorn respectively as the exit and entrance to heaven occurs in Macrobius, ‘The Dream of Scipio, I:12 where its stated, ‘the soul came down by Cancer to enter the body at conception and ascended by Capricornus at death’.
[5] Gaspar Schott Iter Ecstaticum Kirceranium is listed in 1711 Sales auction Catalogue of Browne's library page 30 no. 52
[6] Oedipus Egypticus 1711 Sales Catalogue page 8 no. 91
[7] Rinat Baibekhov's Pan Dimensions 62 cm. x 82 cm. Medium acrylic on paper, mounted on board and framed. 2010. Available for Sale.
[8] The Garden of Cyrus chapter 3. The historian Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars wrote of the Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BCE- 13 CE) - 'It is said that his body was covered with spots and that he had birthmarks scattered over his breast and belly, corresponding in form, order and number with the stars of the Bear in the heavens'. Paragraph 80.
Della Porta's Coelestis Physiogranonia is listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's library page 41 no. 41
[9] Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volume 16 para 497
[10] The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story. John T. Irwin pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996
[11] Writing in 2014 Prof. Peter Forshaw of the University of Amsterdam stated 'we find Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) commenting on the, 'strange Cryptography of Gaffarel in his Starry-Book of Heaven', in his highly Hermetic 'The Garden of Cyrus'. (1658)'
Books consulted
* Thomas Browne: Selected Writings edited and with an introduction by Kevin Killeen pub.Oxford University Press 2014
* Music, Mysticism and Magic: A Sourcebook edited by Joscelyn Godwin pub. Arkana 1987
* Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England Penelope Gouk pub. Yale University Press 1999
* The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story John T. Irwin pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996
This post dedicated to the Brownean scholar Ms. Anna Wyatt.
Listed as once in the library of Thomas Browne (1605-82) Beehives of Universal Mathematical Philosophy by the Italian mathematician and astronomer Mario Bettini (1582-1657) is a compendium of mathematics, physics and optics. Each chapter of Apiaria Universae Philosophiae Mathematicae (its Latin title) is a self-contained 'Beehive' in which a proposition or topic of early modern science is discussed including Euclidean geometry, optics, acoustics, the camera obscura, mathematical discussion of the flight of projectiles, the art of navigation and the measurement of time. Some of the many studies and experiments in Bettini's Aparia are considered to be innovative contributions to the early scientific revolution. [1]
Bettini's Aparia went through a number of editions from its first publication in 1642. Thomas Browne's edition is dated 1656, just two years before the publication of his discourse The Garden of Cyrus. If he acquired his edition of Bettini's 'Beehives' in 1656, then potentially it influenced either consciously or unconsciously, his penning The Garden of Cyrus. Either way, Bettini's Aparia and Browne's The Garden of Cyrus are thematically united, both supplying evidence to their reader of how the principles of geometry pervade the world. In Browne's case this involves countless examples of the 'mathematics of nature' via the geometry of the quincunx pattern.
Although the bulk of Browne's scientific writings are in his encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica, many of the topics covered by Bettini in Aparia also feature in Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus. For example, in the second proposition or 'Beehive' in Bettini's 'Beehives of Universal Mathematical Philosophy' the Jesuit scientist examines the mathematics of the spider-web -
The spider and its web-making ability feature twice in Browne's Garden of Cyrus, firstly in his observing - 'that the woof of the neat Retiarie Spider, which seems to weave without transversion, and by the union of right lines to make out a continued surface.' and secondly - 'And no mean Observations hereof there is in the Mathematics of the neatest Retiary Spider, which concluding in forty four Circles, from five Semi-diameters beginneth that elegant texture'. [2]
Bees
Browne also shared with Bettini an interest in bees. From the time of the ancient Greek philosopher Pappus of Alexandria to the Renaissance-era various mathematicians and philosophers credited bees as Heaven-instructed mathematicians capable of 'geometrical forethought' and in possession of knowledge transcendent to humanity.
Bee's important contributions to civilization consist of honey, a rare source of sweetness and wax, useful for many aspects of human life including candles for light. Honey and wax were both valuable contributions to the advancement of civilization until the advent of gas and electric lighting and the discovery of other sources of sugar. Evidence of human beekeeping, known as apiculture, can be found in Hindu, Hittite, Greek and ancient Egyptian civilizations and as such bees have fascinated poet, philosopher and scientist alike.
From the Roman poet Virgil's verse on apiculture in his fourth Georgic to Bernard Mandeville's inverted theory of the relationship between morality and economics in TheFable of the Bees (1719) to the mysticism of Maurice Maeterlinck's Life of the Bee (1900) bees are frequently associated with activity, diligence, and an industrious work-ethic order. The collective nature of the beehive has been used as evidence supporting both communal and monarchical forms of government.
Thomas Browne makes a beeline towards advocating the wisdom of the 'curious mathematics' of bees in his Religio Medici when proposing -
'Indeed what reason may not go to School to the wisdom of Bees, Ants, and Spiders ? What wise hand teacheth them to do what reason cannot teach us?..... in these narrow Engines there is more curious Mathematics, and the civility of these little Citizens, more neatly set forth the wisdom of their Maker; [3] Centuries before the Czech author Franz Kafka (1883-1924) described the horror of Gregor Samsa's transformation into a giant beetle in his short story Die Verwandlung (1915) Thomas Browne in Religio Medici (1643) imagined himself as a bee in flight - 'when homeward I shall drive Rich with the spoils of nature to my hive, There will I sit, like that industrious fly, Buzzing thy praises'.....[4]
Browne's mystical awe in contemplation of the 'curious mathematics' of the bee in Religio Medici transforms into sharp-eyed 'ocular observation' of nature in The Garden of Cyrus in which the geometry of the beehive is closely examined- 'The sexangular Cells in the Honeycombs of Bees, are disposeth after this order, much there is not of wonder in the confused Houses of Pismires, though much in their busy life and actions, more in the edificial Palaces of Bees and Monarchical spirits; who make their combs six-corner’d, declining a circle, whereof many stand not close together, and completely fill the area of the place; But rather affecting a six-sided figure, whereby every cell affords a common side unto six more, and also a fit receptacle for the Bee it self, which gathering into a Cylindrical Figure, aptly enters its sexangular house, more nearly approaching a circular Figure, then either doth the Square or Triangle. And the Combs themselves so regularly contrived, that their mutual intersections make three Lozenges at the bottom of every Cell; which severally regarded make three Rows of neat Rhomboidal Figures, connected at the angles, and so continue three several chains throughout the whole comb'. [5] Its difficult to imagine the sheer profusion of natural life which existed in Browne's day. Bird and insect populations were considerably denser than today. Scientific evidence indicates there's been a 33% decline among the 130 plus species of pollinating insects in the past 13 years alone. This decline is closely related to world food security and even, potentially, to the extinction of present-day civilization. In modern times the Russian mathematician and esotericist, P.D. Ouspensky (1878-1947) speculated of bees-
'Having begun to alter their being, their life and their form, bees and ants, taken as individuals, severed their connection with the laws of Nature, ceased to express these laws individually and began to express them only collectively. And then Nature raised her magic wand, and they became small insects, incapable of doing Nature any harm'.
'Ants and bees alike both call for our admiration by the wonderful completeness of their organisation, and at the same time repel and frighten us, and provoke a feeling of undefinable aversion by the invariably cold reasoning which dominates their life and by the absolute impossibility for an individual to escape from the wheel of life of the ant-hill or beehive. We are terrified at the thought we might resemble them'. [6] Optics In Bettini's Aparia the optical illusion of replicating the image of one foot-soldier into a total of twelve foot-soldiers, an illusion highly advantageous as strategy in military affairs, is demonstrated below.
A superb example of Browne's sharp sighted 'ocular observation' occurs in the learned doctor's declaration -
'He that would exactly discern the shape of a Bees mouth, need observing eyes, and good augmenting glasses; wherein is discoverable one of the neatest pieces in nature, and must have a more piercing eye then mine'. [7]
Thomas Browne's interest in optics is celebrated in French artists Anne and Patrick Poirier's 'geometric garden' of twenty interconnecting sculptures in granite and two large-scale marble pieces, one of a brain, the other an eye were installed in 2007 close to the physician's 17th century home at Hay Hill, Norwich. The Italian marble block, approximately 1.5 metre square has on its obverse an eye and the word 'Memorabilia' on its reverse.
Of the many facets of optics such as reflection, refraction, magnification and perspective, it seems as if the study and understanding of the workings of the camera obscura was the 'holy grail' of the 17th century European scientific revolution. Mario Bettini describes the workings of the camera obscura in his Aparia, and a rough description of its workings also occurs in The Garden of Cyrus.
'wherein the pictures from objects are represented, answerable to the paper, or wall in the dark chamber; after the decussation of the rays at the hole of the hornycoat, and their refraction upon the Christalline humour, answering the foramen of the window, and the convex or burning-glasses, which refract the rays that enter it'.
The subject of acoustics is explored in the third volume of Bettini's Aparia ; a topic also included in The Garden of Cyrus -
'A like rule is observed in the reflection of the vocal and sonorous line in Echoes, which cannot therefore be heard in all stations. But happening in woody plantations, by waters, and able to return some words; if reached by a pleasant and well-dividing voice, there may be heard the softest notes in nature'. [9]
An authoritative Browne scholar perceptively notes of the geometric and mathematical content of The Garden of Cyrus -
'In long stretches of chapters 3 and 4 of Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus, the job of preserving the ubiquity of decussation (X) in nature is mathematical, the tapering cylindricality of trees, Archimedes on conic shapes, squaring the circle, and pyramids of light through the aperture of the eye. If The Garden of Cyrus is an almost mathematical work, suffused in the Euclidean pleasures of number and form, Browne also dwells in the near tactility and texture of his geometrical vocabulary, 'helicall or spirall roundles, volutas, conicall sections, circular Pyramids, and fustrums of Archimedes'. [10]
It was during the early scientific revolution (generally considered to begin with Nicolaus Copernicus's theological-challenging heliocentric universe, 'On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres' in 1543 and culminating in the abstract mathematics and physics of Isaac Newton's Principia in 1687) that the study of optics, along with astronomy and botany among other subjects became accessible to educated and leisured enquirers, in particular from the ranks of priest and physician, Mario Bettini and Thomas Browne's respective professions.
Jesuits such as Bettini made many contributions to the development of science and have been described as "the single most important contributor to experimental physics in the seventeenth century." By the eighteenth century the Jesuits had "contributed to the development of pendulum clocks, pantographs, barometers, reflecting telescopes and microscopes and to scientific fields as varied as magnetism, optics and electricity. They observed, often before anyone else, the coloured bands of Jupiter, the Andromeda nebula and Saturn’s rings. They theorized about the circulation of the blood, the theoretical possibility of flight, the way the moon effected the tides, and the wave-like nature of light.
Above all other Jesuit scientists however it was books by the polymath Athanasius Kircher (1601-80) which were avidly collected by Browne. A near exact contemporary to Browne, Kircher has been described as 'the supreme representative of Hermeticism in post-Reformation Europe' and was a favourite read of the physician-philosopher, as the contents of his library reveals. Browne often wrote with his most recent reading in mind; its hardly coincidental therefore that the antiquarian artefact known as the Bembine Tablet of Isis is mentioned not once, but twice, in The Garden of Cyrus for Browne had recently acquired Kircher's vast work of comparative religion Oedipus Aegypticus (Rome 1650-1655) in which the Bembine Tablet, the Rosetta Stone of its age, is reproduced and 'interpreted' by Kircher. Although frequently misapprehending the true meaning of the antiquities, Egyptian hieroglyphs and world religion myths he encountered through the Jesuit Missionary reports, Kircher nevertheless paved the way for future study in comparative religion. [11]
Although Browne often purchased books swiftly upon their publication there's no easy way of ascertaining whether or not he acquired an edition of Bettini’s Aparia in the year of 1656 and even though Browne's The Garden of Cyrus (1658) shares subject-matter with Bettini's Aparia,it also ranges into topics as diverse as - Architecture, Biblical scholarship, Egyptology, comparative religion, mythology, gardening and plantations in antiquity, geometry, the Archimedean solids, sculpture, numismatics, games and sports including backgammon, knuckle-stones, chess, archery and skittles as well as paving-stones, battle-formations, optics, the camera obscura, perspective, acoustics, music therapy, zoology, ornithology, the kabbalah, astrology, astronomy and not least, botany, including speculations upon the related topics of germination, generation, longevity and heredity. All these topics are used by Browne in order to supply his reader with evidence of the archetypal quincunx pattern's eternal existence.
In essence the subjects of mathematics and geometry were viewed in tandem during the seventeenth century, from both a practical, utilitarian perspective as well as from an esoteric view-point. Discoveries of mathematical laws and geometrical principles, 'the higher geometry of nature' were interpreted by early scientific enquirers, all of whom were religious-minded, as evidence of the wisdom of God, 'the supreme geometrician' in Browne's personal, mystical vision in The Garden of Cyrus whilst Bettini's Aparia is in essence a Counter-Reformation attempt to harness the rapid development of science to Church teaching and authority.
Bettini's Aparia is related not only in its subject-matter but also in its frontispiece art-work to Browne's discourse. New study of the frontispiece to Bettini's Aparia by the Bolognese artist Francesco Curti entitledThe Garden of Mathematical Sciences reveals it to exhibit the self-same fusion of scientific enquiry and esoteric symbolism as encountered in Browne's Garden of Cyrus. Curti's early colour engraving as such may be considered a worthy 'alternative' candidate to the frontispiece of Browne's The Garden of Cyrus.This relationship between Browne's textual discourse to Curti's visual artwork is rewarding to explore in depth.
The Garden of Mathematical Sciences
The colour engraving and frontispiece to Bettini's Aparia entitled The Garden of Mathematical Sciences (above) by the Bolognese artist Francesco Curti (1603-1670) conjures a garden in which mathematics is associated with nature. In what is a highly symmetrical and artificial composition combining art with nature, Curti's engraving depicts a Villa courtyard with an extensive background landscape. In its foreground stand ten antique vases, each of which has optical phenomena etched upon it, a scientific instrument growing from it as if a flower, and a stem with a geometric shape attached to it. Curti's ornate vases represent the vigorous growth of mathematical science during the early scientific revolution in which understanding of geometry and mathematics advanced understanding in subjects as diverse as architecture, navigation, art-perspective and optics. [12]
Centre-stage in Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences there is a sculptured stone basin supported by two entwined water-nymphs or Naiads, female spirits once believed to preside over fountains, wells, streams and freshwater. A peacock alights upon the water basin's sculptured ornamentation with one foot upon a sphere its other mysteriously grasping a staff with a single eye at its tip. Water streams from its fanned feathers, creating a perpetual fountain. Two hedged gardens, rough pasture,bees in flight, a geometrical spider-web, two mystical statua and the figure of Mercurius holding an armillary sphere while standing upon a pyramid of six beehives can also be seen.
A comparative study of Curti's engraving to Browne's discourse is assisted by the fact that The Garden of Cyrus is itself a highly visual work in its abundance of visual imagery; both 'Garden' art-works may loosely be defined as possessing characteristics associated with Mannerist art.
The art-historian John Shearman noted that characteristics of Mannerist art included - Hidden classical references, refinements, interlacing of forms and unexpected and departures from common usage. The Hungarian art-historian Arnold Hauser noted that Mannerist art delighted in symbols and hidden meanings and that it catered for an essentially international cultured class, was a refined and exclusive style, with an intellectual and even surrealistic outlook. He also noted that Mannerist art was inclined towards esoteric concepts in its symbolism. In words easily applicable to either 'Garden' art-work Hauser defined the qualities and excesses of Mannerist art thus -
'At one time it is the deepening and spiritualizing of religious experience and a vision of a new spiritual content in life; at another, an exaggerated intellectualism, consciously and deliberately deforming reality, with a tinge of the bizarre and the abstruse.' [13]
Thus, although differing in medium, both 'Garden' art-works with their utilization of multiplicity and variety, juxtaposition of art and nature, along with their fusion of scientific enquiry to esoteric symbolism, easily conform to the artistic style and objectives of Mannerist art.However, such is the stylistic contrast between Browne's two philosophical discourses that while the stoicism of Urn-Burial with its survey of human grief, passion and bereavement, couched in oratorical prose is utterly Baroque in theme and style; its diptych companion, The Garden of Cyrus with its procession of examples from art and nature involving great variety and multiplicity and many esoteric allusions is exemplary of Mannerist artistic traits.
In Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences the superimposed symbols of fountain and peacock are worthwhile looking at closely.
Fountains feature prominently in gardens from the Renaissance era onwards. The functional aspect of the fountain, to provide drinking-water, was superseded as a purely decorative and entertainment feature in gardens. In addition to creating health-inducing negative ions, fountains also camouflage conversation from prying ears in public, urban spaces. Many of Rome's famous fountains were constructed during the seventeenth century including Bernini's fountain of the Four Rivers, the Trevi Fountain and the so-called Bee Fountain.
Contemporary to the construction of such large-scale public fountains Jacob Dobrzenski (1623-97) a Professor of mathematics and medicine of Nigro Ponte, Ferrara, published a book in 1657 with the intriguing title of, 'New and More Pleasing Philosophy on the Wonderful Spirit of Fountains' (Nova et amenior de admirando fontium genio philosophia).
15th c. illustration from De Sphera, Modeni, Italy.
The alchemical symbolism of the fountain was developed through Bernard of Treviso's storyof a King who is rejuvenated after bathing in a fountain. Trevsio's story was included in the 17th century anthology known as the Theatrum Chemicum. A Fountain of Love is also mentioned on several occasions by the philosophical alchemist Gerard Dorn in Speculativa Philosophia included in the first volume of the Theatrum Chemicum, a copy of which was once in Thomas Browne's library. [14]
'Approach the fountain here, Body, so that you may drink your fill with your Mind and not thirst any more for Vanities. O admirable efficacy of the fountain, which makes one from the two and brings peace between enemies ! The fountain of Love can make Mind from Spirit and Feeling Soul, but here it makes one man from Mind and Body. [15] Alchemical literature and iconography frequently alludes to a fountain of Youth in which the magical powers of its waters restore and rejuvenate; like the philosophical bath the mercurial character of thefons mercuralis in which mercury is transformed means it is dualistic, being poisonous as well as healing, apt symbolism of the underlying unity of the trickster god of alchemy.
In his late work Mysterium Coniunctionis - An inquiry into the synthesis and separation of psychic opposites (1963) C.G.Jung likens the everlasting fountain to psychic processes, thus -
The ever-flowing fountain expresses a continual flow of interest towards the unconscious, a kind of constant attention or"religio"which might also be called devotion.....If attention is directed towards the unconscious, the unconscious will yield up its contents, and these in turn will fructify the conscious like a fountain of living water. [16]
The myth of how the peacock got its many 'eyes' and how it became a bird sacred to the goddess Juno is recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a source-book of inspiration to Renaissance painter, poet and sculptor alike. The Roman poet relates how the hundred eyes in the head of Argus took their rest two at a time while the others kept watch on guard. Wherever Argus stood he was looking at Io, and had Io in front of him even when his back was turned. Zeus ordered Hermes to assassinate Argus. The goddess Juno had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, into a peacock's tail. [17]
The subject of Juno and the hundred eyes of Argus became a popular theme during the seventeenth century. European artists including Rubens, Velasquez and many others were inspired by the Greek myth. [18]
Avian symbolism often features in alchemical iconography in which the raven, swan, pelican, dove, owl and peacock are frequently encountered. Several symbolic attributes are associated with the peacock, these include it being, like the phoenix, a solar bird from its wheel-like fanned display of feathers, as a symbol of rebirth and immortality from its supposed incorruptible flesh, as a symbol of multiplication from the many 'eyes' upon its fanned feathers, while the optical effect of iridescence produced by its feathers is likened to the numinous experience of the alchemist engaged in experiment.
Symbols can endure paradox. Whilst the peacock, like the phoenix is a solar symbol from the way in which it spreads its tail in the shape of a wheel, the many 'eyes' upon its fanned feathers are analogous to the starry night sky.
C.G. Jung notes - 'The peacock is an old emblem of rebirth and resurrection, quite frequently found on Christian sarcophagi' [19] a fact which Thomas Browne noted in Urn-Burial when writing of early Christian funeral iconography depicting, 'the mystical figures of peacocks, doves and cocks'.
Jung also states- 'The caudo pavonis announces the end of the work, just as Iris, its synonym, is the messenger of God. The exquisite display of colour's in the peacock's fan heralds the imminent synthesis of all qualities and elements, which are united in the "rotundity" of the philosophical stone'. [20] Jung likened the iridescence of peacock's feathers to alchemical experimentation stating - 'The chemical causes of the cauda pavonis are probably the iridescent skin on molten metals and the vivid colours of certain compounds of mercury'. [21] The optical effect of iridescence on silk may have been known to Thomas Browne when very young for his father was a wealthy silk merchant. In Pseudodoxia Epidemica he notes- 'And from such salary irradiations may those wondrous varieties arise, which are observable in Animals, as Mallards heads, and Peacocks feathers, receiving intention or alteration according as they are presented unto the light'.[22]
The 19th century mythologist De Gubernatis stated-
'The serene and starry sky and the sun are peacocks. The deep-blue firmament shining with a thousand brilliant eyes, and the sun rich with the colours of the rainbow, present the appearance of a peacock in all the splendour of its eye-spangled feathers. .....It is commonly said of the peacock that it has an angel's feathers, a devil's voice, and a thief's walk'. [23] On a mundane level the many eyes of the peacock's tail may be interpreted as symbolizing the watchfulness of the observer during the alchemical opus while at a higher level poly optics symbolizes the alchemical stage of Multiplication. Crucially, in Jung’s view the motif of the all-seeing 'eyes' of the peacock - polyophtalmia (many eyes) - is associated with ‘multiple consciousness’ that is, with the various quasi-conscious states which exist in the unconscious. Multiple eyes symbolize what Jung calls 'multiple luminosities' of the unconscious. Particularly, polyophthalmia ‘indicates the observing consciousness is the observing agent of the psyche. Polyopthalmia can also symbolically illuminate the concept of foreknowledge, that is, not about knowing something in advance (‘fore’) but rather instead about being able to observe what is already in existence through a simultaneous multiplicity of perspectives. Thus, the many eyes of the displayed tail feathers of the peacock can be said to symbolize a non-linear multiplicity of perspectives. [24 ]
In the richly coloured and detailed engraving for Salomon Trismosin's Splendor Solis by Jörg Breu the Elder (1480-1537) a peacock is depicted encased within an alchemical vessel (above).
The peacock's fanned feather display exhibits the short-lived nature of all manifestation, since its forms appear and vanish as swiftly as the peacock displays and furls its tail. Indeed, to the present-day the sudden appearance of a rainbow (the peacock's close symbolic relation) caused by the optical effect of light refracted through water, retains a fragment of a once potent numinosity to those seeing it occur in nature. Although the goddess Juno is named in The Garden of Cyrus, the bird sacred to her, the peacock is not; however, geese, ducks, cormorant, bittern, owls, swallows along with butterflies, bees,beavers, rattlesnakes, lambs and carp as well as elephants and whales are mentioned in the discourse.
Browne was in fact a keen bird-fancier, keeping at one time or another a cormorant, owl, bittern, golden eagle and even an ostrich so he may well have approved of a peacock on a frontispiece for his discourse, stating in the dedicatory epistle of The Garden of Cyrus, ‘noble spirits contented not themselves with Trees, but by the attendance of Aviaries, Fish Ponds, and all variety of Animals’.
In many ways the symbols of peacock and fountain in Curti's engraving are near-identical in their symbolic meaning, that of a numinous and revivifying phenomena accompanying the alchemist and/or early scientist in their quest. The appearance of the cauda pavonis of the peacock is considered to be a dramatic indicator of success in the opus while the fountain is similarly associated with flourishing and growth in the alchemical opus.
In essence Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences captures the moment of revelation. As such it depicts a 'Light-bulb' moment as experienced by the alchemist/scientist whilst engaged in experiment in the laboratory. The light-bulb did not of course exist during the 17th century, and a more natural, if at first, seemingly paradoxical imagery is employed by Curti to express the short-lived psychic experience of revelation.
In modern times the 'Light-bulb moment' can be traced in origin to a character in Max Fleischer's early Betty Boop cartoons (1935-1937). Grampy is an eccentric inventor who entertains his guests by building self-playing musical instruments out of household gadgets. Whenever presented with an unexpected new problem, Grampy puts on his thinking cap, a mortarboard with a light-bulb on top. When the light-bulb lights up Grampy is able to solve his problem and build a new gadget to solve the problem.
The two mid-seventeenth century 'Garden' art-works text and image are related to each other not only in title, chronology and subject-matter, but also, crucially, in their self-same fusion of scientific enquiry with esoteric symbolism. Juxtaposed to its depiction of scientific instruments in Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences allusions to Pythagorean number symbolism can be seen; the self-same fusion of nascent scientific enquiry to esoteric symbolism permeates Browne's mystical vision of the inter-connection of art and nature in TheGarden of Cyrus.
The Renaissance was an era in which the 'Re-birth' or 'rediscovery' of various forms of knowledge occurred. Its useful to realise that this included the 'rediscovery' of esoteric writings such as the Corpus Hermeticum by so-called Gnostic authors, as well as 're-discovered' texts, foremost of which was the discourse known as the Timaeus by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Second only to the many myths included in the Judaeo-Christian Bible, Plato's discourse the Timaeus was the most frequently consulted hand-book which influenced and inspired hermetic philosopher and alchemist alike during the Renaissance. In what is his most Pythagorean work, Plato's Timaeus recounts how the demiurge created the world in the geometric form of a globe. The round figure is proposed to be the most perfect one, because it comprehends all other figures and is therefore the most omnimorphic of all figures, each point on its surface being equidistant from its centre. The sphere is featured above all other shapes in the frontispiece engraving TheGarden of Mathematical Sciences with no less than ten spheres in total around each of the two enclosed gardens of Curti's Neoplatonic landscape view from a courtyard villa. In his highly influentialOration on the Dignity of Man (De hominis dignitate) of 1486 the Renaissance humanist scholar Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) famously justified the importance of the human quest for knowledge within a Neoplatonic framework. Pico della Mirandola is also credited with re-introducing the 'mystical mathematics' of Pythagoras to Renaissance Europe. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras was worshipped and venerated as a god for almost one thousand years before institutions teaching his ideas were closed down at the Fall of the Roman empire. Pythagoras taught that -
'By number, a way is had, to the searching out and understanding of everything able to be known'. Pythagoreans believed the number ten to be the number of totality and perfection containing within it all other numbers. It was depicted in Pythagorean teachings in the form of the tetractys a pyramid of dots (1+2+3+4) representing universal principles.
Pythagorean numerology and Platonic shapes abound in Curti's illustration TheGarden of Mathematical Sciences. The sphere is featured in repeated groupings of ten as well as ten bees in quincunx formation and in ten vases in a 2 x 5 arrangement in its foreground. The number of chapters in Browne's diptych discourses total ten and the figure X along with citations from Plato's Timaeus loom large throughout the pages of The Garden of Cyrus from its very opening to its Platonic meditation upon the figure X as a symbol of the soul.
Radiating from the centre of the tetkratys pattern the hexagon can be seen, believed by Bettini, among others, to be 'proof' of the transcendent mathematical ability of bees in their construction of hexagonal honeycomb cells. The quincunx pattern (four corner dots of a square with one at the centre as upon dice) celebrated for its ubiquity in art and nature in Browne's Garden of Cyrus can also be discerned at the centre of the tetkratys.
Although the figure of quincunx is mentioned in classical antiquity it was during the Renaissance that the idea of it being a pattern which transcends the realm of the artificial originates. The idea can be found in book 4 of the Italian Renaissance scholar Giambattista Della Porta's agricultural encyclopedia Villa (1583-1592) in which Della Porta (1535-1615) asserts that the quincunx pattern in addition to featuring in gardens and plantations, 'is to be found in each and every single thing in nature'. An illustration of the quincunx pattern was 'lifted' from Della Porta's agricultural encyclopaedia Villa by Thomas Browne for the frontispiece of his 'Garden' discourse (below)
Magnification of Curti's frontispiece reveals the very same quincunx pattern occurs in the hedge panels surrounding the gardens of Curti's imaginary Villa, in the formation of bees in flight, as well as the double 2 + 1 + 2 arrangement of the ornates vases in its courtyard foreground. In conclusion, Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences features two quite different approaches and interpretations of number which co-existed during the 17th century before going their separate ways. It alludes to Pythagorean numerology as well as promoting the new 'observational' sciences of optics and astronomy. Its therefore a strong candidate as an alternative frontispiece to Browne’s 'Garden' discourse as these two quite different interpretations of number, that of Pythagorean number symbolism and a utilitarian, early scientific approach to number occurs in Curti's Garden of Mathematical Sciences (circa 1660) as well as in Browne's 1658 discourse The Garden of Cyrus .
Notes
[1] Mario Bettini's book is listed in the 1711 Sales Catalogue of Thomas Browne's library on p. 28 no. 16under Folio by its half-title Fucaria & Auctaria ad Apiaria Philosophiae Mathematicae 1656. [2] The Garden of Cyrus chapter 2 [3] Religio Medici Part 1:13 [4] Religio Medici Part 1:15 [5] The Garden of Cyrus
[6] A New Model of the Universe: Principles of the psychological method in its application to problems of Science, Religion an Art. by P.D. Ouspensky RKP 1931 [7] The Garden of Cyrus [8] Optic books in Browne's library include - Alhazen - Opticae Thesaurus Libri X, Basle 1572 Francois d'Aguillon - Opticorum Libri 6, Antwerp 1613 Johannes Kepler - Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena, Frankfurt 1604 Athanasius Kircher - Ars Magna Lucis & Umbrae, Rome 1646 Christoph Scheiner - Rosa Ursina sive Sol, Bracciano, 1630 [9] The Garden of Cyrus [10] Thomas Browne Selected Writings ed. Kevin Killeen OUP 2014 [11] Oedipus Aegyptiacus 1711 Sales Catalogue page 8 no. 91 [12] Francesco Curti colour image courtesy of Getty Images, with thanks for fair usage. This image has been available online since December 31st 2016. The full size of Francesco's Curti's colour engraving is approximately 30 x 40 cm. There are in fact two different versions of the frontispiece for The Garden of Mathematical Sciences. Early editions include a frontispiece by Matthiae Galasso/Matthias Galassus while later editions feature Francesco Curti's colour engraving.
Link The bee is considered to be the most important living creature on the planet Recommended listening Alchemical literature of the sixteenth and seventh centuries frequently alludes to the transformative power of music, most notably in Michael Maier's Atalanta Fugiens (1617). The twentieth century musical genre of Jazz - an art-form which thrives upon experiment and which has the meditative and melancholic music genre of the 'blues', almost equivalent to the Nigredo stage of the alchemical opus - is a worthy contender for representing certain prerequisites and templates of alchemy, the musician in the studio or in performance expressing inner experience as much as the alchemist in his laboratory engaged in the alchemical opus.
A highly-stylized cry of the peacock can be heard in the legendary tenor saxophonist Stan Getz's interpretation of pianist/composer Jimmy Rowles The Peacocks (1975)
John Coltrane (1926-67) and Stan Getz (1927-1991) were the two tenor saxophonists who dominated 20th century Jazz. Like chalk and cheese to each other, each possessed a unique technique and interpretative skill, as their respective performances and recordings demonstrate. If Stan Getz's The Peacocks may be considered as expressive of the nigredo stage of alchemy, John Coltrane's rendering of The Night has a Thousand Eyes is an albedo fountain of musical notes.
The English composer William Alwyn (1905-1985) in his autobiography Winged Chariot states of his 5th symphony Hydriotaphia (1973) 'Browne's wonderful prose sets the mood of each section and is an expression of my personal indebtedness to a great man whose writings have been a life-long source of solace and inspiration'. Alwyn's Naiades (1971) a Fantasy Sonata for flute and Harp aurally depicts the water-nymphs of antiquity, as seen supporting a water-basin in Curti's colour engraving.
