Andrea da Murano. St. Vincent Ferrer Polyptych. 1475-78.
There is a longstanding Christian tradition of analogy between Divine Love's transformation of the believer's soul and fire's alchemical transformation of base elements into refined ones. In the history of Christian devotional life, the woundedness of the self has often been seen as the opening for God to enter, and the dissolution of the self has been seen as the preface to God's recreation of that self. Similarly in alchemy, the destruction of materials precedes their transmutation. In the polyptych, the theme of woundedness is manifest in three of the four saints: Roch, Peter Martyr, and Sebastian. And of course, fire is the attribute of the fourth, St. Vincent Ferrer. Because of the way alchemical and devotional tradition enfolded each other, it is possible to read Christian devotional motifs in alchemical terms, as Iulia Millesima does with this polyptych in the following passage: www.labyrinthdesigners.org/alchemy-art/andrea-da-murano-a...
Andrea da Murano. St. Vincent Ferrer Polyptych. 1475-78.
There is a longstanding Christian tradition of analogy between Divine Love's transformation of the believer's soul and fire's alchemical transformation of base elements into refined ones. In the history of Christian devotional life, the woundedness of the self has often been seen as the opening for God to enter, and the dissolution of the self has been seen as the preface to God's recreation of that self. Similarly in alchemy, the destruction of materials precedes their transmutation. In the polyptych, the theme of woundedness is manifest in three of the four saints: Roch, Peter Martyr, and Sebastian. And of course, fire is the attribute of the fourth, St. Vincent Ferrer. Because of the way alchemical and devotional tradition enfolded each other, it is possible to read Christian devotional motifs in alchemical terms, as Iulia Millesima does with this polyptych in the following passage: www.labyrinthdesigners.org/alchemy-art/andrea-da-murano-a...