Sébastian Vrancx (1573 – 1647) was a Flemish Baroque painter who is mainly known for his battle scene paintings. However, he was also an artist who painted a number of other curious paintings, and below is just one set from the series of his paintings on the theme of the allegory of the seasons. Early medieval manuscripts (such as books of hours) often referred to and depicted this theme, and it gained the most popularity around the early 17th century.
“Alchemy is not merely an art or science to teach metallic transmutation, so much as a true and solid science that teaches how to know the centre of all things, which in the divine language is called the Spirit of Life” (Stanislas Klossowski de Rola).
Before alchemy became the modern practice of “consciousness” transmutation, it was an occult art through which people tried to know the secrets of nature and, in the process, discover the “philosopher’s stone” that would grant them immortality or turn ordinary metals into gold. It was a very complicated and obscure process that involved many uneasy steps and sometimes years of work. The six paintings below completed by six different artists can be divided into two camps – (i) those that portray alchemy as a practice of charlatans or the ignorant that leads to poverty, and (ii) those that portray alchemy as a serious and noble intellectual pursuit that laid the foundations of modern chemistry.
Thoughts on Papyrus 