Visual Arts and Healing, Chapter 1, part 1

CHAPTER 1
ART, ALCHEMY AND HEALING

Alchemy may seem like an anachronism to most people, a failed “science” from the Middle Ages that got sidetracked into esoteric and occult dead ends. Few people know that alchemy thrives today, albeit somewhat clandestinely. Chemistry did arise out of the practice of alchemy, although there is a difference between the two.
Both use chemicals, solvents, and distillation techniques. With alchemy, the big difference is the attitude of the practitioner of the art. Alchemy is not just concerned with the transformation of physical substances; it is also concerned with the inner transformation of the alchemist himself. Thus, the alchemist’s attitude at the time of his experiment, his state of mind and mental preparation, seriously affects the process. “Alchemy is a total science of energy transformation.”(Sworder 21)
Fig. 1 Temple of the Philosopher, pen & ink, 18” X 24”,
By John Halliday

Alchemy’s origins go back to the times of the ancient Egyptians. There were also ancient Greek alchemists, Arab alchemists, Chinese alchemists, as well as the more commonly known medieval and Renaissance alchemists. Gnostic doctrines became the basis of alchemical theory, shortly before the time of Christ. Gnosis means knowledge, especially the direct apperception of knowledge from a deity itself. While Gnosticism had its many variants and even contradictory tenets, a basic premise of Gnosticism was that spirit, like slivers

Fig. 2 Black Sun, pen & ink, 18” X 24” , John Halliday

of light, has been trapped in matter. Some, like the Cathars in the Languedoc area of southern France, believed that matter itself was evil, a product of a twisted, evil entity called the Demiurge. Others believed that matter, while not intrinsically evil, is a trap, and that spirit can be liberated from matter. By the same token, dead matter can be animated by spirit.

Terrence McKenna was a psychedelic modern day pioneer who was “a type of alchemist who can make the Soul tangible… (he says), Alchemy was the belief that spirit somehow resided at the heart of matter. The alchemists were the heirs to the great Hellenistic religious systems that are generally tagged as “Gnostic.” The central idea

Fig. 3 Temple of the Glyph Pen & ink, 24” X 18”, John Halliday

of Gnosticism is that the material which “soul and true being” is composed of is trapped through a series of cosmic misfortunes in a low-level universe that is alien to it. And the alchemists literalized these ideas to suggest that the spirit could somehow be distilled or coaxed from the dense matrix of matter…alchemy – the belief that there is spirit in matter – was a survival of older, shamanic strata of belief that involved gaining the alliance of a plant (McKenna 246). Shamanism in Peru is like European alchemy “in that it utilizes psychic involvement in matter, but European alchemy became entrapped in a fascination with metals and purified elements” (McKenna 125).

Carl Jung was fascinated by the idea of alchemy, and wrote a great deal of work explicating his theories of a psychological alchemy, where one transforms oneself through psychological and spiritual work and insights, without ever stepping into a laboratory. Jung thought that was the only real purpose of alchemy – for personal transformation. A basic tenet of alchemy is that there are four main elements -

Fig. 4 Earth Alchemy , Pen & ink, 24” X 18”, John Halliday

Fire , Water , Earth and Air . All substances partake of varying
proportions of these four elements, in terms of their humidity or moisture, dryness, heat,heaviness or lightness, and fluidity. There are the four directions, the four seasons, the four main colors of alchemical transformation (black, white, yellow and red, in that order) and the four stages of alchemical transformation: the nigredo (black), the albedo (white), the citrinitas (yellow), and the rubedo (red).
“In alchemy, everything is composed of three parts: Sulfur (soul or individualized essence), Mercury (life force), and Salt (physical body)... When working with plants, the physical body of the plant itself is the salt, its essential oils are the sulfur, and alcohol (and occasionally water) is mercury. Thus, the aspiring alchemist seeks to separate these parts and recombine them, giving rise to the word used by Paracelsus, spagyrics (Appendix B). Spagyrics is Greek for “separate and combine” and is the term given to plant work, or the Lesser Circulation” (Stavish 18).

Fig. 5 Faust, etching by Rembrandt, 1652. The Complete Etchings of Rembrandt. NY: Dover Publishing, Inc., 1988. 270.

In art, alchemy has a long history. Various alchemical operations are sometimes shown in ancient Egyptian and Greek paintings. There are many beautiful and curious paintings and woodcuts and such from the medieval era in Europe, illustrating alchemical truths (understood by those who knew, not the general rabble). Well known artists, such as Pieter Brueghal (Dulle Griet) and Hieronymous Bosch (The Garden of Earthly Delights, Paradise and Hell), were illustrating alchemical truths in their paintings, which others (the majority) construed to be visions of heaven and hell. Rembrandt did an etching of Dr. Faustus, a legendary alchemist who sold his soul to the devil for greater knowledge (Fig. 5).

Fig. 6 Melancholia, engraving by Albrecht Durer., 1514. The World of Durer. New York: Time-Life, 1967. 115. Labeling by John Halliday

There is an engraving by Albrecht Durer, called Melancholia, which has a lot of alchemical symbolism. Outwardly, it appears to be a picture about melancholia, or depression. But it goes a bit deeper than that. The angel occupying the main focus of the picture is a symbolic representation of Citrinitas, the third stage in the Great Work, the yellowing. The polyhedral rock beside her (or him?) is the sought after Philosopher’s Stone. Visible behind the Stone is a crucible, used in the metallic Great Work. Also pictured
are other tools of the alchemist: tongs,
hammer, a compass (not the magnetic type), bellows, and scales. Leaning against the
small building is a seven-runged ladder, representing the seven metals in alchemy –
• Gold dominated by Sol ☉ ☼
• Silver dominated by Luna ☽
• Copper dominated by Venus ♀
• Iron dominated by Mars ♂
• Tin dominated by Jupiter ♃
• Mercury (Quicksilver) dominated by Mercury ☿
• Lead dominated by Saturn ♄ (Wikipedia)
and the seven planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. A dragon, representing the prima material, flies away with the “Melancholia” sign, and a dog, signifying faithfulness in the Great Work, is asleep at the angel, or hermaphrodite’s, feet.

Fig. 7 Hypercubic Church, pen & ink drawing by John Halliday, 18” X 24”

Isaac Newton, the great scientist who, among other
things, invented calculus (despite Leibniz’s claim to the contrary), made important discoveries about light and gravity, was also a life long alchemist.
He was deeply involved in the Great Work, and as Michael White states in Isaac Newton: the Last Sorcerer, it was Newton’s experiments in alchemy that eventually led to his discoveries in gravity and light.

Fig. 8, Old Alchemy, pen & ink, 18” X 24”, John Halliday

The sacred wedding or hieros gamos of art and alchemy did not really occur until the advent of the Surrealists in the early years after World War I, when its parent, Dada, began fading in influence. Surrealism’s leading light, Andre Breton, embraced alchemy with a vengeance, and soon it was influencing the art of such painters as Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington.

Max Ernst’s strange book of collages (made from 19th century wood engravings from such sources as catalogs and medical texts), Une Semaine de Bonte, (“A Week of Kindness”), illustrates the influence of alchemy in his art. It is divided into seven chapters, named after the days of the week and reminiscent of the seven alchemical planets (the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn). Each chapter features a certain element, (the alchemical air, fire, water, etc.). Each chapter features a certain archetype or visual leitmotif: in the first chapter, it is “Le Lion de Belfort”; every collage features a lion figure. The second chapter, “L’eau” or water, features nubile young women and swirling, flooding waters (to Jung, indicative of the unconscious).

Fig. 9 Collage by Max Ernst. Une Semaine de Bonte. NY: Dover Publishing Inc., 1976. 44. ).

The third chapter, “La Cour du Dragon”, or The Dragon’s Heart, features various reptilian monsters, indicative of the prima materia of alchemy, usually represented by serpents, dragons or toads, and so forth.
The Surrealists were associated with several unusual psychic events. Ernst swore that once in Cologne he had seen a “phenomen[on] of levitation,” whereby some hats and overcoats had magically moved to another distant rack without human intervention.

Fig. 10 Self Portrait with a Plucked Eye, oil by Victor Brauner, 1931.

Victor Brauner, another alchemically influenced surrealist, painted pictures of himself with his left eye torn out or pierced by an object for years. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy when, on August 27, 1938 he held a party. Oscar Dominguez, another surrealistic credited with inventing decalcomania, argued with Esteban Frances and threw a drink at him. He hit Brauner in the eye by accident, thereby
permanently blinding him in that eye (Fig. 10).

“Increasing references to alchemy (by Ernst and Andre Breton) were prompted in part by the publication of Fulcanelli’s Mysteres des Cathedrals (1926), with its explanations of alchemical manuscripts and symbols hidden within the sculptural details of Notre Dame cathedral and other buildings in and around Paris” (Warlick 94). Fulcanelli’s language is dense and hard to unravel, in accordance with the alchemist’s vow to obscure things for the general public, writing in a “green language,” or “the language of the birds,” which only adepts could decipher.
Fig. 11, Prima Materia, Pen & ink, 24” X 18”, John Halliday

It is obvious, after even a brief reading, that he was a man of great intelligence and erudition (see the model of a Gothic cathedral, Fig. 12 – 15).Gothic cathedral construction by John Halliday

Louis Pauwels, co-author of Morning of the Magicians, claims to have met a real alchemist in 1953. The stranger had some choice words for alchemy: “Matter is every
thing; contact with matter, working with matter, working with the hands…Are you fond of gardening? That’s a good start, alchemy is like gardening. Do you like fishing? Alchemy has something in common with fishing… Alchemy cannot be taught….A great work is never wrong as regards basic principles. But the knowledge of those principles and the road that led to this knowledge must remain secret (Pauwels 63).



Fig. 16 The Chair, Daghda Tuatha de Danaan, oil by Leonora Carrington. Leonora Carrington: Surrealism, Alchemy and Art, By Susan L. Aberth. Burlington, VT: Lund Humphries, 2004. 84.


















Fig. 17 AB EO QUAD, oil by Leonora Carrington,Ibid.

Another Surrealist artist who was much taken with alchemy’s symbology was Leonora Carrington, scion of a wealthy English industrialist family (she was Max Ernst’s lover when she was only 19 years old). She absorbed much of Ernst’s interest in alchemy, as well as elements of his visual style.

One common leitmotif in her paintings was a type of radiant “egg,” which resembles some of the generalized shapes of a flask or alembic used in the alchemist’s lab. It also symbolized the Philosophic Egg, or the Philosopher’s Stone. “The egg is the macrocosm and the microcosm, the dividing line between the Great and Small…In the painting The Chair, Daghda Tuatha de Danaan (Fig. 16) we are witnessing a marriage, between the Daghda and the Great Goddess, between the white rose and the red (symbolized by the red room), between opposites (black and white) – an alchemical joining” (Aberth 82 ).

In the painting “AB EO QUAD” (Fig. 17), we have symbols of the Eucharist – “Here alchemy has a direct correlation to the transubstantiation that occurs in the Catholic mass… an embroidered fire screen bears a fragment from the Asensus Nigrum, an obscure alchemical text from 1351…Everywhere large moths (perhaps butterflies) are hatching from their cocoons and fluttering about, an allusion to processes of transformation and metamorphosis” (Aberth 93).

Fig. 18 Untitled (Medici Boy) construction by Joseph Cornell, 1942-52.


Joseph Cornell, an American, made fantastic little assemblages with found materials in boxes, with a decidedly surrealistic bent. There is a mystical, hermetic feel to many of these pieces, which in turn suggest a familiarity with alchemy. Indeed, one book written about him is Dime Store Alchemist, by Charles Simic. Several
critics have called Cornell an alchemist of the arts.

In an interesting online article by Jay Weidner, Stanley Kubrick’s landmark 1967 film 2001: A Space Odyssey is examined for its alchemical content. Deemed especially relevant is the role of the black monolith in the film. “Monolith come from the Greek Mon and Lith. "Mon" means 'one' and "lith" means 'stone'. So the monolith is a direct reference to 'one stone'. This film then, is about the one stone, or the single stone. And in this case, Kubrick has made sure that the stone is black. In alchemy all things that exist come from the black stone, or the 'prima materia'. The black stone is the stone of transformation, and even more important to this argument is the stone of projection. This is the Philosopher's Stone.


Fig. 19 Still from 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley Kubrick.

This is the object that can change, or transmute mankind, according to alchemical lore. It is rare and, when it makes an appearance, it transforms the seeker. There is little doubt that the black monolith in 2001 is the Philosopher's Stone.” And again: “As said before there are four great realms within the Tree of Life (Fig. 21). Kubrick reflects these realms with each of the four chapters in 2001. The first (titled “The Dawn of Man”) is the earthly realm, represented by Malkuth, which is the sephireh located at the very bottom of the Tree of Life. This is the realm of the kingdom, or of mankind.