Week 26: 11th – 17th March
Given that my interests have been focused on ritual and esoteric practices within art and theory, I have become increasingly aware of the use of alchemical symbolism as a methodology for interpreting art. Scholars such as Madelaine Bergman, and Laurinda Dixon have used these methods since the 1970s, in order to understand particular iconographies of art and culture from the pre-modern world to the present day (Wamberg, p.11).
The relationship between alchemy and art can be categorised in a number of ways, including, but not limited to; images by or of alchemists and their environments, religious or mythological motifs and symbolism, or images which use principles of alchemy as a metaphor for other processes (Wamberg, p.13).
Alchemical methodologies
From the 16th century, artists began to reappropriate alchemical references through material, concept and process. In this way, alchemical symbolism can be used as a methodology by which to interpret both historical and contemporary art practice (Wamberg, p.13). The accepted definition of alchemical practice within art stretches to include the general transmutation of materials, as with the movement Arte Povera, where ‘base’ materials were transformed to create new works.
The art historian James Elkins, although sceptical about alchemy as a method of interpretation, has nevertheless likened it to the creative process, with particular reference to the act of painting. Furthermore, the history of photography, as developed from the daguerreotype process, has sparked interest with some experimental photographers such as Sigmar Polke, Susan Derges and Anne Hammond, who have explored the notion of spiritual transformation through chemical reactions (Wamberg, p.97). However, although these practices have been interpreted as alchemical, I feel these interpretations are too general to categorise them as such in relation to my enquiry, which focuses on a combination of material and conceptual methods.
Symbolic communication
Specifically, my interest in alchemical readings of art explores how alchemy can be used as a metaphor for relational exchanges within a community. This can be realised in a number of ways, for example, through the use and artistic interpretation of esoteric symbols written as a coded language (or treatise), the meaning of which is only available to those familiar with it. This process then mirrors the discrete visual and gestural communication of cultures throughout history, and highlights the relationship of signs to objects, ideas, materials and emotons, through the use of allegory and metaphor (Wamberg, p.85).
Particular artists who reflect alchemical concerns and readings in their work, either specified or interpreted, include Yves Klein, Joseph Beuys, Andre Breton, Rebecca Horn, Georges Bataille, and Marcel Duchamp, to name a few. Alchemical readings are multifarious, incorporating philosophies of nature, religious analogies and gender reversal. Such inspiration is derived from medieval treatises which place alchemy within the pre-modern worldview of a closed universal system, whereby nature’s tendency towards perfection is aided by the alchemist.
Psychoanalysis
C.G.Jung also described the discovery of the unconscious human psyche in alchemical terms, interpreting its symbolism as being representative of the process of self-individuation. These theories, and their subsequent commodification into populist psychology, were of great influence to the artists of the early to mid-twentieth century (Wamberg, p.174).
Artist-magus
Perhaps the most notorious artistic interpretation of Jungian alchemical psychology was by Joseph Beuys, who assumed the role of shamanistic healer of society akin to that of the Paracelsian magus. Born in Germany, just after the First World War, Beuys hoped ‘he could redeem his entire culture by means of an artistic ritual in which debris was changed into an object of such significant spiritual elevation that it triggered a sympathetic response in the surrounding environment, transmuting it to a higher level of consciousness’ (Wamberg, p.179).
Unfortunately, this ‘act of atonement’ was viewed as ambiguous at best, and Beuys was accused of having fascist tendencies. However, although the Paracelsian text is problematic to say the least, it seems that alchemy as a material and conceptual metaphor may hold some interesting possibilities in the development of a body of work which addresses the nature of the sign in communication and ritual.
Further reading:
Art and Alchemy, edited by Jacob Wamberg, Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, 2006
Alchemy in Contemporary Art by Urszula Szulakowska: Ashgate, Surrey, UK & Burlington, USA, 2011
