Mark Burrell's 'The Homing Ground' - All aboard the British transcendent locomotion.

Mark Burrell’s painting The Homing Ground sees the artist giving full expression to his technical and draughtsmanship skills, at a peak in imagination, and delighting in 'home-grown’ imagery which fairly crackles with cognitive dissonances. 

Painted in 1993, when the artist sometimes devoted 3 or 4 months to complete a single canvas, often in painstaking detail, its inspiration was sparked when Burrell, while travelling on a train returning to Lowestoft, read a magazine article on the world’s oldest clock. However, not unlike when Dorothy realizes she's no longer in Kansas City, we're far, far away from Lowestoft when viewing this dream-like landscape.  

Measuring 36 x 25 inches and painted on board in the artist’s favoured medium of alkyd resin oils, The Homing Ground features a landscape in which a bizarre train consisting mostly of a staircase and wall trundles along a railway-track. At the bottom of the staircase an elderly gentleman sits in an arm-chair reading a newspaper. An androgynous-looking youth holding a candelabra sits half-way upstairs. An angel stands at the very top of the staircase. At the helm of this peculiar house or rail-carriage without either windows or roof, there’s a disproportionately large face contoured like a mask. On the left in the background there can be seen a landscape which has a junction, hinting of a landscape networked in rail-track. In the distant background a boy can be seen running towards, not from, a spooky-looking house. 

The background to The Homing Ground is fringed by a dark, wild woods, creating a tension by alluding to hidden, unknown contents. As often in Burrell's art, the sky is wholly alive and dramatically lit. Together sky and background provide a magical backdrop for the viewer to focus upon the main action. Meanwhile the passengers of Burrell's transcendent locomotion chug along oblivious to their oncoming destination, a quite literally, yawning tunnel. 

           

Burrell’s art encourages the viewer to look closely and look again. Its always best to see his paintings in the original and if given half the chance to do so, grab it ! Digital photography cannot be relied upon to faithfully reproduce the richness of an oil-painting in either detail, colouration or dimension. For example, it is only when attentive that one notices the gentleman sitting in an arm-chair reading a newspaper consists only of a head, and is body-less, seemingly sustained by various tubes feeding his skeletal frame.  

Interpretations are numerous, and ought to be always taken in a 'soft and flexible’ manner, without dogmatic insistence. Burrell’s gent who is sustained by tubes and wires could allude to either modern-day's relationship to medical science or prophetic of the close attachment millions now have to the computer network in their everyday lives. 

Another interesting association occurs in the depiction of a stair-case in The Homing-Ground. Like railway tracks, stairs are a construct which assist in transporting people to another space and dimension. One is encouraged in such an interpretation upon seeing at the top of Burrell's 'stairway to heaven' an angel who adds a spiritual mood to the scene. Ethereal and translucent she stands at the helm of Burrell’s transcendent locomotion sprinkling cut roses upon the track. Her presence reminds the viewer that every-day life is not always centred upon the material, or even always visible to the senses, and though often unacknowledged or denied, may include an unknown quantity of spiritual protection.   

The rail-track, along with its more archaic variants, the road and the river, may be viewed as a symbol of  life's journey and of Time, a prominent theme in The Homing-Ground.

One of the most frequently encountered of all artistic 'double symbols' in Renaissance and esoteric art used to symbolize Time occurs in representations of Youth and Aged. Technically known as Puer et Senex they are evident here in the form of a bald, and therefore presumably old man reading a newspaper, and a youthful character sitting on stairs wistfully holding a candelabra. 

Time-wise historically, the steam-engine and railway were important British technological inventions of the 19th century, and key components of the Industrial Revolution. By 1850 there was a network of over 7000 miles of rail-track covering the length and breath of England. The steam locomotion, along with rail-track, transformed every British town, city and village. Indeed, for those living at North Sea coastal towns such as Lowestoft, before the train, it was quicker and often more comfortable to travel via sea to English coastal towns or continental, main-land Europe than to London. The arrival of the railway in the mid-nineteenth century changed livelihoods too. It enabled the produce of fishing-towns to be transported swiftly to London and other urban centres. Fishing-towns such as Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft also became accessible destinations for holidays, health tourism and entertainment by a growing urban population with leisure-time.

The British love-affair with trains in the past and today can be seen in the popularity of Hornby model trains and children's animated characters such as Ivor the Engine and Thomas the Tank.

A fine example of Burrell's eye for exquisite detail and colouration can be seen in the tail-light of his transcendent locomotion. This extraordinary detail could almost stand alone and framed as a single work or art, being near Vermeer-like in its realization of light and detail. 

  

In an art-work delighting in cognitive dissonances, that is imagery which provokes unease and ambiguity through conjoined and improbable objects which never the less seemingly exist; the background of The Homing-Ground features a house which has a human face superimposed upon it and whose yawning mouth is also a tunnel. A bath with a sail is perched upon its chimney-top. The image is arresting, humorous and disturbing and also a superb example of the artist’s ability to create highly-original 'home-grown' imagery which induces cognitive dissonance. Such paradoxical and thought-provoking imagery is a hallmark of Burrell’s imaginative art.

As a symbol the tunnel has a number of  meanings. As a portal to the unknown it alludes to humanity’s deepest fear, namely death, but  also to transformation and change, as well as the narrow anatomical passage-way to birth. Tunnels are also a feature of sea-side fun-fairs including the Tunnel of Love and the Ghost-train, as well as the roller-coaster. 

Another example of cognitive dissonance occurs in the form of the home. The home is the one stable point in most lives. Nomadic life-styles apart it is usually a static location, providing stability in our daily comings and goings in the world around us, yet here it is seen, caravan-like, in motion and yet still seemingly in some kind of domestic tranquillity.

Incidentally, I cannot resist mention in a moment of roller-coaster association, of the historical figure of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) who was recently elected as honorary 'Great Grandfather’ of the art-movement known as North Sea Magical Realism, of which Mark Burrell is a leading member..

Thomas Browne not only introduced the words ‘locomotion’ and ‘network’ (as an artificial concept) into the English language, but also believed in the existence of angels [1]. Holding such seemingly contrary beliefs, namely scientific and religious, appears incompatible to modern-day sensibilities, but in Browne’s era it was possible to possess both an imaginative scientific mind which anticipated ‘locomotion’, as well as believing in the existence of angels. And in fact there’s no small similarity in the fantasy imagery of Burrell’s The Homing-Ground to an illustration originating in Sir Thomas Browne’s era. 

In an frontispiece illustration to a German 1618 manifesto believed to be by the elusive Rosicrucian fraternity, there can be seen another form of improbable transport  inducing a cognitive dissonance upon the viewer. A castle on wheels. Its improbability is heightened by two disproportionately large objects, a sword wielded by a giant arm, and an over-sized trumpet. Both Burrell's art and Theophilus Schweighardt's illustration are the products of deeply original imaginative minds. [2]

Long resident at England’s most easterly town, Lowestoft, there’s something quintessentially British about Burrell’s art, in humour, as well as its Spencer-like draughtsmanship and portraiture. Burrell himself berates those who mistakenly describe his favourite artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) as a parochial, Little Englander figure, (in all probability from a lack of familiarity with one of 20th century Britain's greatest painters) while totally misjudging the artistic stature of one who was ‘an outstanding draughtsman’ in Burrell’s view, amongst other accomplishments of Spencer’s art. [3]

Like Stanley Spencer, Burrell is an artist who does not shy from travelling less-travelled, often darker paths in his artistic observations upon human nature. This uncompromising ability to examine less-pleasant aspects of human nature can initially produce an uncomfortable viewing experience; and it is only when one acknowledges that life is not always sweetness and light, and that there remain taboo aspects of the human psyche that one begins to appreciate Burrell’s artistic integrity as he unflinchingly tackles the subject-matter of his art.

In many ways Burrell’s humorous yet perplexing painting, which is not without a philosophical element, may be considered as having a kinship to imaginative worlds similar to those of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass or those portrayed in the pythonesque animation of Terry Gilliam (b. 1940). Indeed, after seeing the film The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnasssus’ (2010) Burrell lauded Gilliam’s fantasy as ‘mesmerising’.

In summary, Burrell’s The Homing-Ground has a number of themes, these include Time and the human condition, childhood innocence and the sacred, along with death and the unknown. These are all enhanced and heightened in emotional intensity through the artist’s distinctive mood-inducing tonal palette, most often involving a palette somewhat reminiscent of the dark and vivid tones of a Gothic stained-glass window, but uniquely Burrell's.

Painted over twenty years ago, The Homing-Ground may be viewed as a coming-of-age art-work, marking the artist's early maturity as he explores and successfully develops, a personal artistic language in style, home-grown symbolism and thematic concerns. Burrell continues to develop further. The Homing-Ground remains a significant work in a fascinating and expansive portfolio. 

Notes

[1] Part 1 paragraph 33 of Religio Medici has a whole paragraph discussing Angels. It includes a footnote which states- Thereby is meant our good angel appointed us from our nativity.’

[2] The Rosicrucian Enlightenment  Dame Frances Yates pub. RKP 1972

[3]  Stanley Spencer at Burghclere George Behrend pub. Macdonald and Co. 1965

See Also

Mark Burrell -North Sea Magical Realist artist extraordinaire

Mark Burrelll -Wikipedia entry

Mark Burrell discusses his artistic development in a video. 

Vulcan in Art and Alchemy

Today (August 23rd) is the date of the festival of Vulcanalia, held in honor of the Roman god of fire and furnace in the ancient Roman world. Centuries later, during the Renaissance, Vulcan became both a popular subject for painters and synonymous with the art of alchemy, but before discussing the Roman god's symbolism in art and alchemy, its useful to remind ourselves of the original myth of Vulcan in the pantheon of Roman gods.

Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno. As the son of the king and queen of the gods, he should have been handsome, but was ugly as a baby. His mother, Juno was horrified by him. She hurled the tiny baby off the top of Mount Olympus. Vulcan fell down from the sky for a whole day and night, eventually landing in the sea. One of his legs broke when he hit the water and never developed properly. He sank to the depths of the ocean, where the sea-nymph Thetis found him and took him to her underwater grotto, raising him as her own son.

Vulcan had a happy childhood playing with dolphins. When his adopted mother Thetis attended a dinner party held on Mount Olympus wearing a beautiful necklace of silver and sapphires which Vulcan had made for her, Juno asked where she could get such a necklace. Thetis became flustered, which caused Juno to become suspicious; and, at last, she discovered the truth, the baby she had rejected had now grown into a talented blacksmith.

Juno was furious and demanded that Vulcan return home, a demand that he refused. However, he sent her a beautifully constructed chair made of silver and gold. Juno was delighted with this gift but as soon as she sat in it her weight triggered hidden metal bands which sprung forth to hold her fast. The more she struggled the more firmly the mechanical throne gripped her. Juno sat fuming, trapped in Vulcan's chair for three days, unable to sleep or eat. Jupiter  finally promised  Vulcan that if he released Juno he would give him a wife, Venus the goddess of love and beauty. Vulcan agreed, married Venus and later built a smithy under Mount Etna on the island of Sicily. It was said that whenever Venus was unfaithful, Vulcan grew angry and beat the red-hot metal with such a force that sparks and smoke rose up from the top of the mountain, creating a volcanic eruption. [1]

During the Renaissance, the subject of Vulcan working at his forge, delivering Achilles armour to Thetis or ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars, were all popular subjects for artists including Velasquez, Tintoretto, Piero  di Cosimo and Rubens, among others, indeed, the Northern Mannerist artist Joachim Wtewael (1566 –1638) painted the dramatic moment of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan in no less than three differing versions.(below)

Artists interest in the myth of the lovers Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan can be interpreted on at least two levels. Firstly, as a commentary upon taboos topics such as sexuality, temptation and adultery in the growing urban population of Europe and secondly, as symbolic of the 'fixing' and union of opposites in the 'Great  Work' of alchemy.

It was also during the Renaissance that the physician Paracelsus (1491-1540) introduced the mythological figure of Vulcan as the patron deity of alchemy. To the alchemist/physician Vulcan was synonymous with both the manipulation of fire, heating and distilling of nature's properties for medicine, and the transforming power and creative potential locked within the greater, invisible Man slumbering within; Paracelsus declared-

Alchemy is an art and Vulcan (the governor of fire) is the artist in it. He who is Vulcan has the power of the art ... All things have been created in an unfinished state, nothing is finished, but Vulcan must bring all things to their completion. Everything is at first created in its prima materia, its original stuff; whereupon Vulcan comes, and develops it into its final substance ... God created iron but not that which is to be made of it. He enjoined fire, and Vulcan, who is the lord of fire, to do the rest ... From this it follows that iron must be cleansed of its dross before it can be forged. This process is alchemy; its founder is the smith Vulcan. What is accomplished by fire is alchemy - whether in the furnace or in the kitchen stove. And he who governs fire is Vulcan, even if he be a cook or a man who tends the stove.

Elsewhere Paracelsus writes,

Alchemy is a necessary, indispensable art ... It is an art, and Vulcan is its artist. He who is a Vulcan has mastered this art; he who is not a Vulcan can make no headway in it. [2]

The British natural philosopher Francis Bacon however, was skeptical of the claims made by Paracelsian alchemists, indignantly exclaiming in his The Advancement of Learning (1605) -

Abandoning Minerva and wisdom they play court to the sooty smith Vulcan and his pots and pans.

Nevertheless, Paracelsian alchemists including the foremost promoter of Paracelsian alchemy Gerard Dorn, the early Belgian scientist Jan Baptist van Helmont, and Arthur Dee, the eldest son of the magus John Dee, all acknowledged the Roman god of forge and furnace as symbolic of their art. Arthur Dee in his Arca Arcarnum  mysteriously stated -

'Though I am constrained to die and be buried nevertheless Vulcan carefully gives me birth'.

The Paracelsian ‘deity’ associated with alchemy features no less than three times in Sir Thomas Browne’s hermetic discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658). Firstly, in the very opening sentence of the discourse -

That Vulcan gave arrows unto Apollo and Diana according to gentile theology in the work of the fourth day may pass for no blind apprehension of the creation of the Sun and Moon.

Secondly, within the context of Classical  myth in which Vulcan constructs and casts an invisible network ensnaring the lovers Venus and Mars caught in bed inflagrante delicato  -

As for that famous network of Vulcan, which enclosed Mars and Venus, and caused that inextinguishable laugh in heaven; since the gods themselves could not discern it, we shall not pry into it. Although why Vulcan bound them, Neptune loosed them, and Apollo should first discover them, might afford no vulgar mythology.

Lastly,  at the apotheosis of his literary-alchemical opus, Browne specifies the three factors necessary for determining truth, namely authority, reason and experience;  Vulcan  here representing the "higher man" who, not unlike the Gnostic, "Man of Light," uses his craftsmanship and skills to aid, enlighten and liberate the Spiritual Man within.

Flat and Flexible truths are beat out by every hammer, but Vulcan and his whole forge sweat to work out  Achilles his armour.

In his late work Christian Morals  which was written as a parental 'advisio' for his grown-up children, Sir Thomas Browne alludes a further three times to Vulcan, and just as the Belgian scientist Van Helmont (1580-1644) before him defined alchemy as Vulcan's art.  In a passage which perceptively describes the human psyche as 'the theatre of ourselves', Browne somewhat critically stated-

'Vulcan's Art doth nothing doth nothing in this internal militia; wherein not the armour of Achilles, but the armature of St. Paul, gives the glorious day,

In modern times the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung interpreted Vulcan as one who:

kindles the fiery wheel of the essence in the soul when it 'breaks off' from God; whence come desire and sin, which are the "wrath of God." [3]

The alchemists adoption of the mythical figure of Vulcan may be interpreted on several levels. At the lowest scale of interpretation Vulcan represents the cunning amoral demi-urge who blindly gains power over Nature without integrity; this mundane level anticipates the nascent Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries. The activities of  extracting coal from mines to fuel colossal furnaces to manufacture steel and iron on a gigantic scale, and the subsequent development of the railroad and train throughout Europe and North America are distinctly Vulcan-like activities; as is the general "busyness" of the Protestant work-ethic of industrialised Western society also strongly reflected in this archetypal figure.

The transformative power of Vulcan the "higher man" and anthropos figure of the alchemists has today devolved into the negative aspects of a demi-urge figure; none other than modern technological man, who, divorced from God, forges his own destiny, independent of Religion, Divine Love or theological considerations, towards a brave new world or utopia. This is reflected in the fact that today the name of Vulcan is best known as either the name of a bomber plane or as the extra-terrestrial semi-human species as represented by Mr. Spock in the American science-fiction TV and film series 'Star-Trek'.

At a higher level of interpretation however, Vulcan is transformed to become an inspired visionary who is capable of releasing Mankind from the bonds of unknowingness and darkness; which is how alchemists such as Paracelsus and followers such as Van Helmont, Arthur Dee and Sir Thomas Browne interpreted the symbolism of Vulcan.

Author’s note

This article was originally written for Wikipedia in 2003 and subsequently duplicated in various places elsewhere on-line before its eventual deletion.
I assert the right to be identified as the original author of this short essay.
Other on-line writings encountered on thus subject of Vulcan and his relationship to alchemy are mirror duplication from the Wikipedia original, and the product of copy and paste scholarship.

As Sir Thomas Browne once stated -

'Men are still content to plume themselves in other’s feathers’.[4]

Art-work (top) Vulcan at forge by Chris  Appel
Next -  One of three canvases painted by the Northern Mannerist artist, Joachim Wtewael of Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan
Last- Tintoretto - Venus and Mars surprised by Vulcan

Notes

[1] Abridged from Wikipedia
[2]  Paracelsus Selected writings ed. Jolandi Jacobi Princeton 1951
[3] CW 12 215
[4] Christian Morals Part II Section 9  pub. post. 1716