Hello dear community, at the beginning I would like to welcome you all to my new post and hope you had a day that has been full of positive experiences! In this post, I would like to talk a little about alchemy and hope you are able to expand your knowledge.
Here are pictures of artworks that are supposed to represent animals and for the old alchemists animals had an important meaning and were often used to convey messages and so the different animals had their own meanings and it can also be considered as a form of encrypted communication and recipes were recorded in the form of animals in artworks. Each animal was assigned different metals or alchemical work steps and so it was, for example, the snake which was associated with transformation and Arsenicum and to record the recipes, a sequence of several animals were often used that were performing different actions. The nigredo, which also means blackening, was associated with the black raven which had turned into a white dove and the green lion was a metaphor for vitriol which was of great importance for alchemical processes and in old works the lion just swallows the sun and this is also considered a metaphor for the artificial production of gold and it is similar with mythical creatures such as the phoenix that once burns to rise rejuvenated from its ashes and this process was also considered the production of gold or the philosopher's stone. The eagle was also symbolically considered a sign of the transformation of metals and often various events were connected to each other, such as the fish that is currently swimming in the water or the deer that visits the forest and it is not always clear what the alchemist wanted to express and has often posed puzzles which people had to solve and if you captured these results, you came to certain steps that you had to make. Some messages were also packed in the form of fairy tales and so it were talking animals that delivered well-hidden messages in the form of fables and the eggs of the animals also had an important meaning and were often linked to creative aspects and those who wanted to understand the chaos better, should solve these puzzles. There are numerous old works of art in which animals can be seen and with the help of animals they have definitely found a good way to keep their knowledge secret and record the recipes in such a way that not everyone could read them.
Thank you for the visit and I hope you could learn something new about alchemy! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.