#solaris starry stage | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

esoteric-images · 7 years ago

Photo

A profoundly complex alchemical allegory. A symbolic depiction of Great Work of the alchemists.

the image is divided in two. The upper part depicts a heavenly realm. A bright sky blue background, with a semicircular solar disc in the centre; being the top half of the central mandala. yellow at the edges, with sunbeams radiating outwards; and white in the middle. Inside the white part of this sundisc, there are several winged angelic baby heads (you might be tempted to call them cherubs, but the proper name for angelic babies is ‘putti’. a cherub is something completely different, but its usage is so widespread it can be forgiven.) twenty nine of them. Three yellow ovals encapsulate three symbols of the Holy Trinity inside the sundisc. Topmost, the Tetragrammaton, representing the Father; and a lamb and dove representing the Son and Holy Spirit respectively. The upper part of the image is divided from the bottom with a red line.

At the centre is a mandala (containing seven circles inside one another) connecting the upper and lower parts of the image. The outermost circle of this mandala, light blue, contains (on the top half) the twelve symbols of the Zodiac, and the bottom half contains the symbols for the five classical planets (excluding the Sun and Moon): Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus and Mercury. The next circle in, light beige, contains three Latin phrases: ‘ANNVS VENTORVM’. ‘ANNVS SOLARIS’. and ‘ANNVS STELLATVS’; which i believe mean, respectively, ‘year of the winds’, ‘year of the sun’ and ‘year of the stars’. The next circle in, yellow, says: ‘mercurius philosophorum’, ‘mercurius corporeum’ and ‘mercurius vulgaris’; divided by three mercury symbols. they each mean (i believe) ‘mercury of the philosophers’, ‘bodily mercury (or, the body of mercury)’ and ‘common mercury’. The next circle in, orange, says: ‘sulphur fixum’, ‘sulphur aethorum’ and ‘sulphur combustibile’; divided by three sulphur symbols, meaning (again, i dont speak latin) ‘fixed sulphur’, ‘etheric sulphur’ and ‘combustible sulphur’. The next circle in, red; is too blurry to read. seems to be about salt, and each phrase is divided by the alchemical symbol for salt. The next circle, light purple, says: ‘ignis quatuor ad opus reperuntur (?)’; (again, very blurry) i believe this means something like ‘four kinds of fire are necessary for this work’ The central circle is of a deep blue, with a white equilateral triangle in the middle. there are two smaller white triangles either side of this, one with the point up and one with the point down; and another symbol beneath this that i cant make out. Within the central triangle is a symbol, which looks like the symbol for mercury, but with a dot in the centre of its circle (perhaps signifying a union of mercurius and sol?) It reminds me of the Monas Hieroglyphica of John Dee. i’m not sure how old this image is, but i think it probably predates Dee. Below this mandala, is another semicircle; containing five images of symbolic birds: a Crow, a Swan; or Goose, a Cockatrice; or Basilisk, an Alchemical Pelican, and a Phoenix. perhaps signifying the four primary stages of the alchemical work (Negredo, Albedo, Citrinas and rubedo) plus another? Completing this lower semicircle is an arc depicting a starry night sky; and this whole thing is flanked by clouds below it.

Now, the lower half is where it gets crazy. old alchemical and allegorical images are without a doubt the forerunners of surrealist art. Who knows what strange substances those alchemists were cooking up which inspired them to make these images.

(also, i should note now that the right and left sides in iconographical compositions always have significance; but i personally have always struggled with the concepts of right and left. turn around and whats left is right and whats right is left; very confusing. from now on, ill go by which side it is to the viewer) Also, i’ll note now that the masculine side of the image seems to be on the left and the feminine on the right; very confusing.

In the centre, we see a man stood on a hill with 19 trees on it. Each tree contains an alchemical symbol. i’ll be honest with you, i dont know my alchemical symbols as well as i should. The man wears a dress, white on one side and black on the other; covered in stars, and he holds also a starry axe on each side. Perhaps he represents the mystical hermaphrodite. At his feet, stands two lions; conjoined with one head, and spewing water. To the right of him (or, to his left) a spring gushes forth water, and on the other side of him there is a fire burning.

There are two figures either side of him, on the right a woman, and on the left a man; both naked. Each of them has one arm attached to a golden chain coming down from the heavens.

On the left (or to the central figure’s right) is a bright and dry looking landscape. There stands the aforementioned figure of a man. naked, with a sun and moon on his chest, and a star covering his genitals. His face is almost the same as the central figures face, except that his hair is slightly more auburn. Beside him stands a lion rampant, bearing a sundisc towards the man. at its feet is another disc, with a star on it. There is another ‘stardisc’ at one of the mans feet. Below them both is a bird like an eagle, labelled ‘phoenix’, bearing two discs in its outstretched wings. one depicting a blazing fire, and the other a cloud against a blue sky.

On the right (or to the central figure’s left) the landscape is darker, as if at evening; and a stream runs past the woman’s feet. The woman is blonde, and has a sun and a moon on her chest, and another moon covering her genitals. From the sun on her chest shines a beam of white light towards the hill. In her chained hand she holds a bunch of grapes, and in the other she holds a ‘moondisc’ Beside her there is a man in a red tunic; with the head of a stag, reaching out his hand towards her to receive the moondisc. In his antlers, there are stars. Below them both there is another eagle-like bird, this one labelled ‘aquila’, which is latin for eagle. Again, it bears two disks in either wing. one of a merman blowing a horn; and the other of some trees.

i wont try and interpret the deep symbolism here, as there are few who can; but the main symbolism symbolism appears to be of unifying opposites. Man and Woman, Fire and Water, as part of the Great Work.

If anyone would like to tell me where this image is from, i would appreciate it.

#alchemy

1 note · View note