“Beginning: Exaltation” bears the armorial cabala in the general sense of a path of wisdom, not any reference to the explicitly Jewish mystical technique. A fire-breathing chimera is encircled by a Latin alchemical A-to-Z and zodiacal foursomes. Framed by the Paracelsian tria prima of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury, a Raven, Peacock, and Phoenix rise toward the Sun — the Philosopher’s Stone of union with the Divine.
Featured on PDR in the collection A Hall of Mirrors: Cabala, Spiegel Der Kunst Und Natur, In Alchymia (1615)
Featuring four alchemical engravings by Raphael Custos — much reproduced since Carl Jung included the third as “The Mountain of the Adepts” in Psychology and Alchemy (1968) — Cabala’s leading symbol is the looking glass, which the author offers as a tool for penetrating the mysteries of alchemy and divinity. The century spanning from 1550 to 1650 saw the publication of hundreds of books with “Speculum”, “Spiegel”, and “Mirror” in their titles, a testament to the technology’s immense power over the European imagination. As Urszula Szulakowska describes, a belief emerged during this period that “pictures drawn according to the single-point perspective system could become a type of magical mirror”. To help its readers commune with God, the “celestial looking glass”, Cabala offers three graphical “mirrors”…
Also appearing in the collection…
Beginning: Exaltation
Artist
Date
1615
From
Cabala, Spiegel der Kunst unnd Natur: in Alchymia
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- Archival inks on high grade art paper
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