Scattered throughout Sir Thomas Browne's collected writings there can be found various remarks and observations relating to aesthetics and the visual arts. Furthermore, a familiarity with the social circles frequented by Browne provides clues to identifying paintings which he personally may have seen.

Browne's life-time encompassed the 'Golden Age' of Dutch Art. It was an era in which painters of the genius of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) Rembrandt (1606-1669) and Johannes Vermeer (1635-1675) flourished. Browne's life-time also witnessed a decline in Anglo-Dutch relations as the newly-established and independent Republic developed its own trading and commerce. No less than three naval wars between the Dutch and English occurred in his life-time, the last resulting in a tragedy for his family.

With its extensive coast-line the county of Norfolk, along with the city of Norwich have a close geographical and cultural proximity to the Netherlands. It should not therefore be too surprising that paintings by Dutch master artists were acquired by Norfolk and Norwich gentry throughout the seventeenth century.  A clue to Browne himself owning a Dutch painting occurs in a footnote in his little-explored commonplace notebooks

'Being in the country a few miles from Norwich, I observed a handsome bower of honeysuckle over the door of a cottage of a right good man; which bower I fancied to speak as follows' ........

There follows a Latin poem in which Browne in a rare example of his poetic skills gives voice to honeysuckle. The verse concludes with a footnote -

'Alluding to the fable in Ovid of Baucis and Philemon entertaining Jupiter and Mercury in their cottage; whereof hangs in my parlour from a draught of Rubens'. [1]

Peter Paul Rubens painting of the gods Jupiter and Mercurius visiting the house of Philemon and Baucis (c.1630) depicts the fable as told by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses of Baucis and Philemon who unwittingly entertain the gods Jupiter and Mercury in their cottage. The charitable act of hospitality, encouraged by all world religions for humanity towards strangers is endorsed in Christianity thus- ' Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. [2]

Its interesting to think that this painting may have been a constant reminder to Browne to live as far as possible in an hospitable way, no easy aspiration in an era which encompassing the English Civil war (1642-51) was often inhospitable in extreme.

Its quite possible that Browne’s painting may have originated from the studio of Rubens rather than by the hand of Rubens himself. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) made much use of sub-contracted artists as well as those of his own large workshop. Painters of the calibre of Van Dyke often studied in master-artist's work-shops.

It has been calculated that an estimated 1.3 million Dutch pictures were painted from 1640 -1660 alone, many of which originated from master-artist's work-shops. This volume of production meant that prices were fairly low, except for the best known artists.

Van Dyke became the chief assistant to Rubens, the dominant master of Antwerp, and the whole of Northern Europe. Ruben's influence on the young Van Dyke was immense; indeed, Rubens referred to the nineteen-year-old van Dyck as "the best of my pupils". When Van Dyke arrived in England to establish a successful career, he found, as the German composer Handel almost a century later, that while the English were wealthy and appreciative patrons of the arts, nonetheless they lacked many of the skills associated with nurturing and developing the arts.

In Browne's psychological self-portrait Religio Medici written after completing his medical studies in the Dutch University city of Leiden in 1629,  the recently qualified doctor wittily confesses  -

'I can look a whole day with delight upon a handsome picture, though it be but of an Horse'. [3]

Browne’s candid admission to delighting in contemplation of a painting exemplifies his refined appreciation of beauty, a  psychological feature of his which is often overlooked by critics and biographers. However, the rigours of establishing a medical practise in order to provide for his ever-growing family, along with his pursuing interests such as conducting ‘elaboratory’ experiments, bird-keeping, antiquarian studies, letter-writing and reading, along with living conditions in 17th century England in general, could hardly have permitted the learned doctor with the leisure-time to contemplate a painting a whole day. Such an expressed sentiment is more wishful thinking than any opportunity for doing so, yet also suggest Browne possessed a strong inclination to contemplate artistic beauty.

It's also in Religio Medici that one of the most popular of all Browne’s many quotes, now frequently cited as an internet meme can be found -

Nature hath made one world, and Art another. In brief, all things are artificial, for nature is the Art of God. [4]

Although the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of  Sir Thomas Browne and his son Edward’s libraries announces that, ‘Books of Painting and Sculpture’ are to be auctioned, no such books are listed in the Auction Catalogue. The 1711 Auction Sales Catalogue has been described as indispensable for understanding and appreciating Browne’s vast and omnivorous reading, book-collecting and erudition. However, the fifty-odd pages of the facsimile document, along with an introduction and indexing by Princeton professor of English literature Jeremiah Finch (1910-2005) was not published until as late as 1986.

Without a reliable record of art-books once owned by Browne one is left with only fleeting allusions to artists and art-books in his writings. In  Pseudodoxia Epidemica  for example, he tantalizingly alludes to owning a famous edition of  Michelangelo stating -

But this absurdity that eminent Artist Michael Angelo hath avoided, in the Pictures of the Cumean and Persian Sibyls, as they stand described from the printed sculptures of Adam Mantuanus. [5]

The bulk of Browne's art-criticism can be found  in his encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646). Its fifth book, entitled,‘Of many things questionable as they are commonly described in Pictures’ includes criticism upon the veracity of depictions of mermaids, gryphons, unicorns and basilisks, as well as speculations upon colour and the causes of blackness in nature.

Defining painters as, 'the visible representers of things, and such as by the learned sense of the eye, endeavour to inform the understanding’. [6] Browne laments in his quest to ascertain truth, ‘nor is the hand of the Painter more restrainable than the pen of the Poet'. [7]

The  essence of Browne's art aesthetics occurs in his stating-

Art being but the imitator or secondary representor, it must not vary from the verity of the example; or describe things otherwise than they truly are or have been. For hereby introducing false Idea's of things it perverts and deforms the face and symmetry of truth. [8]

No less than three chapters of the encyclopaedia Pseudodoxia Epidemica are devoted to the cause of Blackness. Firstly, in consideration of skin colour, the cause of so much irrational hatred, prejudice and suffering throughout centuries, then in relation to colour. Browne arrives at the conclusion that black is equal in beauty to any other colour.

Browne's deep interest in colour is evident in his regretting, ‘we remain imperfect in the general Theory of colours', whilst also speculating - 

Thus although a man understood the general nature of colours, yet were it no easy Problem to resolve, Why Grass is green? Why Garlick, Molyes, and Porrets have white roots, deep green leaves, and black seeds? Why several docks and sorts of Rhubarb with yellow roots, send forth purple flowers? Why also from Lactary or milky plants which have a white and lacteous juyce dispersed through every part, there arise flowers blew and yellow ? ...Why shall the marvel of Peru produce its flowers of different colours, and that not once, or constantly, but every day, and variously? Why Tulips of one colour produce some of another, and running through almost all, should still escape a blew? And lastly, Why some men, yea and they a mighty and considerable part of mankind, should first acquire and still retain the gloss and tincture of blackness ? [9]

Browne's sensitivity toward colour can be seen in the following extracts. Firstly, in notes taken from his 'elaboratory' experiments -

'And this is also apparent in Chymical preparations. So Cinnabar becomes red by the acid exhalation of sulphur, which otherwise presents a pure and niveous white. So spirits of Salt upon a blue paper make an orient red. So Tartar or vitriol upon an infusion of violets affords a delightful crimson. Thus it is wonderful what variety of colours the spirits of Saltpeter, and especially, if they be kept in a glass while they pierce the sides thereof; I say, what Orient greens they will project: from the like spirits in the earth the plants thereof perhaps acquire their verdure. And from such salary irradiations may those wondrous varieties arise, which are observable in Animals, as Mallards heads, and Peacocks feathers, receiving intention or alteration according as they are presented unto the light. [10]

Secondly, in a detailed description of a bird written for the ornithologist Christopher Merritt.

The head neck throat of a violet colour, the back upper parts of the wing of a russet yellow, the fore part of the wing azure succeeded downward by a greenish blue, the lower parts of the wing outwardly of a brown, inwardly of a merry blue, the belly a light faint blue, the back toward the tail of a purple blue, the tail eleven feathers of a greenish colour, the extremities of the outward feathers thereof white, with a eye of green. Garrulus Argentoratensis [11]

Finally, in a humorous description involving the colour green. Once more from his little-explored Commonplace notebooks-

The picture of Signor Verdero in a proper habit. A suit of a mandrake or nightshade Green. A cloak of a Thistle colour faced with Holly green. A Burdock green hat with an hat-band of poppy leaf vert, set with emeralds and Beryls and a plume of parrot green feathers. Stockings of an Ivy green with sage coloured garters. A Rue coloured sash or girdle with Brake green fringe. Pantoffles of cabbage colour laced with sea Holly or eryngo green. Ribbons all about of fig laurel and Box green. [12]

Visual imagery is integral to Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus (1658) in which a rapid procession of objects, patterns and botanical observations exemplary of the quincunx pattern are paraded before the reader. Browne's extraordinary free-ranging imagination cites evidence of the number five and quincunx pattern in art, nature and mystically in  diverse fields such as -

Biblical scholarship, Egyptology, comparative religion in particular the Bembine Tablet of Isis, mythology, ancient world gardening and plantations, geometry, including the Archimedean solids, sculpture, coins, architecture, paving-stones, battle-formations, optics including the camera obscura, zoology, ornithology, the kabbalah, astrology, astronomy and not least, botany,  including many 'occular' descriptions of cinque-foiled flowers and speculations which anticipate modern-day studies in genetics, germination, generation and heredity.

Quite appropriately, and in stark polarity to the serious and gloomy melancholy of Urn-Burial, The Garden of Cyrus is the playful and cheerful half of the literary diptych and as such mentions past-time games including Backgammon, Chess, Skittles, Knuckle Stone and Archery while remote out-of-orbit topics to orthodox learning touched upon in the discourse include - the healing power of music, 'celestial physiognomy', and 'the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starry Book of Heaven'.

Late in his life, circa 1675, Browne wrote the extraordinary tract Musaeum Clausum (The Closed Museum) an inventory of imagined, lost or rumoured books, pictures and objects, all of which are succinctly described in no more than a few sentences. The sub-section entitled Rarities in Pictures  features paintings which are either set in exotic locations such as moonlight, the polar regions or underwater or  else depicting historical events such as Hannibal crossing the alps with elephants.

Artists have responded well to Browne's visual imagery. The British artist Paul Nash (1889-1946) contributed no less than 32 illustrations for a new edition of Browne's discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus in 1932.


More recently, the two leading artists of North Sea Magical Realism, Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell  have each realized items taken from the gallery of Rarities in Pictures in Browne's  Museum Clausum.


13. An Elephant dancing upon the Ropes with a Negro Dwarf upon his Back. by Peter Rodulfo (above)

16. Draughts of Passionate Looks; .....Of Oedipus when he first came to know that he had killed his Father, and married his own Mother. by Mark Burrell (below).


Among Browne's many friends were the Bacon family who resided on the Norfolk/Suffolk border at Gillingham. Browne, by all accounts, socialized with the Bacon's to such an extent that in his dedicatory epistle to The Garden of Cyrus to Nicholas Bacon he was able to declare -

'You have wisely ordered your vegetable delights, beyond the reach of exception'.

A warning-note of the wide-ranging subject-matter to be encountered in the discourse is also sounded in the epistle -

'That in this Garden Discourse, we range into extraneous things, and many parts of Art and Nature, we follow herein the example of old and new Plantations, wherein noble spirits contented not themselves with Trees, but by the attendance of Aviaries, Fish Ponds, and all variety of Animals, they made their gardens the Epitome of the earth, and some resemblance of the secular shows of old'.

Royalist supporters kept a low profile during the days of Cromwell's Protectorate of England, occupying their time in harmless pursuits such as antiquities or gardening, while in the wider world England found itself in conflict with the newly-emerging Dutch Republic's economic power and global trade.

The conflict of the Anglo-Dutch wars and British resentment towards the new European power, in words strikingly prescient for present-day political events, such as British prejudice and hostility towards the European Project, and its near-obsession with ‘sovereignty’, are perceptively articulated by the art-historian Simon Schama, who noted of the Dutch Statesman Johan De Witt (1625 -1672) a chief negotiator for the peace treaty of the Second Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67).

‘British enmity, on the other hand, he knew to be chronic and rooted in the very nature of the Republic’s existence, or at least  its prosperity. The problem, he supposed in common with many of his compatriots, was that, in matters of trade, the British were poor losers. Unable to match the Dutch in resourcefulness, industry, or technical ingenuity, they were prepared to bludgeon their way to wealth by the assertion of deliberately bellicose principles and by interfering with the freedom of trade. Peevish envy had turned them into a gang of unscrupulous ruffians who would stop at nothing to burglarize the Dutch warehouse, pretending all the time that some cherished issue of sovereignty had been infringed. [13]

Sir Thomas Browne had particular reason to regret the war between the Dutch Republic and England. It was sometime during 1667 that the Browne family received news from the Admiralty that midshipman Thomas Browne (b.1646) who participated in the Naval sea-battle of Lowestoft in 1665  had been reported as lost and his whereabouts unknown, in all probability losing his life at sea following a naval battle.

Its quite possible that Browne once viewed The Supper at Emmaus by the artist Cornelis Engelsz (1575–1650). A combination of still-life and Biblical scene, it was painted when the artist was aged 37 and at full maturity and was probably acquired by Sir Nathaniel Bacon, the grandfather of Nicholas Bacon, during his European tour in 1613.

The Supper at Emmaus (c.1612) has three figures in its foreground who indulge in earthly pleasures, symbolised by the details of the fish, game, meat, vegetables, bread, wine flagon and dairy produce, all of which are painted with meticulous detail. In the background in an adjacent room the figure of Christ is seen breaking bread with two disciples. The viewer is simultaneously reminded of earthly pleasures and The Last Supper.

Another painting which Browne may have had the opportunity to view occurs through his association with Robert Paston (1631-1683) a scientist, politician and a member of Norfolk's gentry. In correspondence to the Norwich physician-philosopher, Robert Paston informed Browne of his alchemical experiments, doubtless to an eager ear-

I have at Oxnead seen this salt change black as ink, I must, at the lowest, have an excellent aurum potable, and if the signs we are to judge in Sendivogius’ description be true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man has that which will dissolve gold as warm water doth ice, you have that which gold was first made in the earth. [14]

Its entirely possible that upon hearing this news Sir Thomas Browne could have made the short journey ten miles north of Norwich to Oxnead. He had done so before in 1668 when informed by Robert Paston of the unearthing of urns at nearby Buxton, part of the Paston's Estate.

The Paston Treasure (c.1675) was commissioned by the Paston family to record their collection of treasures. It was painted by an unknown Dutch artist who travelled to Norfolk for the commission.

The central message of  what is a sophisticated work of art, complete with its rich vanitas symbolism, depiction of collectable art-objects, musical instruments and exotic fruit from around the world, seems to be that the human figures in the painting, both girl and boy, are caught in the very moment of disruption from their respective activities, thus highlighting the uncertainty of this world. A parrot has alighted upon the page of the music-book which the young girl holds, thus preventing her from reading music and singing. Similarly, a pet monkey has sprung onto the shoulder of a startled negro servant, hindering him from his duty of pouring a flagon which he holds in one hand. It's more usual to see such imagery in the humour and morality of 'topsy-turvy' homes depicted by Jan Steen (1626-79).

The importance of The Paston Treasure lies in the international scope and interest of the objects which it portrays, reflecting both exotic nature and the skills of man, as well as the continents of  Africa, the New World of America and China. It has been described as a microcosm of the known world in the 17th century.

The Paston Treasure is the subject of a forthcoming book by senior research scientist, conservator and art-historian, Spike Bucklow. In his ground-breaking book The Alchemy of Paint: Art, Science and Secrets from the Middle Ages (2010) Bucklow highlights how, during the Middle Ages there existed a deep and intimate relationship between rare substances, pigments for painting, colour and the artist, which has now long been lost.

Paradoxically, as much a chemist as alchemist, Browne also took a deep interest in the properties of substances from nature. In Pseudodoxia he writes of a spermaceti whale stranded upon Norfolk's shallow beaches, noting of the extracted ambergris,  'it mixeth well with painting Colours, though hardly drieth at all. [15] A similar interest in materials useful for the painter can be seen in Browne's correspondence to his eldest son Edward, in which he advises, 'Enquire after smalt, a stone whereof they make blueing for painting and starch.' [16] A further interest in art materials occcurs in his requesting to Edward, 'I wish you would bring over some of the red marking stone for drawing, if any very good'. [17]

Smalt was an important pigment in European oil painting, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It was popular because of its low cost and its manufacture became a specialty of the Dutch and Flemish during the 17th century. Smalt's origins lie in the blue pigment used by the ancient Egyptians, known as ‘Egyptian blue’ and  Cobalt blue used in colouring glass.

But perhaps the most solid contribution made by Browne to the visual arts occurs in his introducing new words into English language. The word 'caricature' being perhaps the most impressive of the art-related words which Browne is credited with first usage according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Other art-related neologisms introduced into English language by Browne include the words 'circumference' - 'colouring' - 'cylindrical' - 'illustrative'- 'irradiancy' - 'pictorial' - 'rectangularly' - 'reticulate' and 'rhombodial'.

All of which suggests Browne's interest and contribution to the visual arts may be far greater than previously imagined.

Notes

[1] Keynes : Collected works of Browne  Faber and Faber1964
[2] Hebrews 2:13
[3] R.M. Part 2:12
[4] R.M.  Part 1:16
[5] Pseudodoxia Epidemica  Book 1 chapter 9
[5] P.E. Book 5 chapter 11
[6] P.E. Book 1 chapter 9
[7] P.E. Book 5 chapter 19
[8] Ibid.
[9] P.E. Book 6 chapter 9
[10] P.E. Book 6 chapter 13
[11] The miscellaneous writings of Sir Thomas Browne.Faber and Faber 1936
[12] Commonplace notebooks Faber and Faber 1964
[13] The Embarrassment of Riches Simon Schama Fontana 1989
[14] Correspondence dated September 10th 1674 in Vol. 3 of the Collected works of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Simon Wilkins Pickering and Co. 1834
[15] P.E. book 3 chapter 26
[16] Correspondence dated April 28th 1669
[17]  Correspondence dated Sept 22th 1668

Books consulted

Notes on the Natural history of Norfolk. Jarrold and sons 1902
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne ed. Simon Wilkins 1842
The Art of the Dutch Republic 1585-1718  Mariet Westermann 1996
The Embarrassment of Riches Simon Schama Fontana 1989

Useful Wikilinks

The Dutch Republic

The Paston Treasure

The Paston Treasure::Microcosm of the known world

One for Peter R. 

In the British artist Mark Burrell’s painting Lets Make America Great Again (2017) the negative emotional and psychological traits of America’s controversial President, Donald Trump are satirized.

Painted in the medium of alkyd resins, contributing towards his unique tonal palette, Burrell's artistic imaginative is alive and well and enhanced, as ever, through skillful draughtsmanship and a meticulous attention to detail. These talents, in conjunction with the artist’s sensibility, insight and occasional dark humour contribute to create a provocative art-work in which Donald Trump is portrayed as an overgrown baby in the care of a hooded baby-sitting member of the KKK who is pushing a pram on the edge of a cliff. Meanwhile, the American flag is in flames as Trump in his pram stuffed full of dollars and lit by coloured bulbs, sounds off his horn, only to emit bubbles in vain.

Finer details include - the hammer and sickle in the American flag, a letter saying Trump loves Putin, and a meteorite heading towards the White House. Its background features two contrasting scenes, to the right, a Hieronymus Bosch-like scene of hell in which a factory belches thick pollutant smoke, to the left, a heavenly woodland scene in which a copse of trees bathe in the golden light of a setting sun.

The allusions are stark and disturbing. The fate of a nation seems balanced between a heavenly and hellish future in the hands of a man-child. By placing Trump in a pram there's more than a hint of the recently-elected American President's well-documented record of  immaturity and childish temper tantrums.

Like many similar-minded artists, Burrell has exercised his artistic talents to speak out on the behalf of a mostly silent and unrepresented majority of sane-thinking people. In his own words -

'I felt compelled to paint a picture of my concerns of which I think millions of others in the world are also fearful'.

In his Let’s Make America Great Again (65 x 75 cm.) Burrell is following in the footsteps of a long established tradition of British art, that of political commentary through satire. Its a tradition which historically spans from the cartoons of James Gillray (1756-1815) and Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827) to the Victorian humour of the magazine Punch to the latex puppetry of Peter Fluck and Roger Law in the British TV show Spitting Image (1984-96).

One weapon of the artist and cartoonist alike is that of satire, defined as the mocking of characteristics and personality traits, often of politicians and those in power in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intention of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or even society itself into improvement. Satire's greater purpose is constructive social criticism, it uses wit to draw attention to issues affecting the world and society today. [1]

Trump’s fatal combination of psychological traits, perceived by many to be those of arrogance and ignorance, are rich pickings  for comedians, artists and satirists alike. They are also psychological traits which are often attributed to Americans in general, either through prejudice or misunderstanding of cultural norms, but also occasionally correct in assumption, hence the view of the stereotypical American throughout the world. Arrogance and ignorance may be considered charming and excusable attributes in a child or baby perhaps, but hardly ever acceptable in a septuagenarian leader of a world superpower.

The very real anxiety for millions of sane-thinking people today, politics apart, is simply, how could someone with a well-documented unstable personality have become elected as the leader of one of the world’s most powerful nations ? Burrell along with millions of others' concerns are very real, especially when the danger of a thermonuclear war is threatened through the fatal combination of one individual with immense power being psychological unstable. Never before as much as now has the world urged America to ensure there is a rational mind fully in control of its nuclear arsenal.

Burrell’s artistic desire to to portray ‘the raw emotions behind the mask’ in which an insane-looking Trump appears little more than a monster blighting a beautiful country, succeeds on several levels; Let’s Make America Great Again is simultaneously a satirical portrait and sharp indictment of Donald Trump’s psychological and emotional stability, a near hallucinatory and apocalyptic-impending landscape allusive to the world's future as one of heaven or hell, and not least, a worthy addition to an ever-expanding portfolio of extraordinary art conjured as much from steadfast industriousness as well as free-ranging imagination, from the artist’s brush.

The title of Mark Burrell's painting originates from a frequently repeated statement made by Donald Trump throughout his election campaign - 'Let's make America great again'. The statement can only be rhetorical. How can America be 'made great again' when it already is ?

Perhaps President Trump means make America great again as one of world's nations with the greatest inequalities of wealth distribution ? America's already great at that. Perhaps he means 'Make America Great Again' in terms of military expenditure ? America is also great at that. Its expenditure in military hardware and defence outstrips the rest of the entire world combined, and at the the present time of writing President Trump has  completing a series of arms deals with Saudi Arabia totaling more than $300 bn. Perhaps President Trump means make America great as a world distributor of pornography ? It already is. Perhaps he means make America great again in the number of people incarcerated in prison ? America's already one of the greatest at that too. Perhaps he means 'Make America Great Again' in terms of America being a world leader in consuming the world's resources ? Again, its already great at that. One strongly suspects Trump's election slogan appeals most to those with a weak identity and suffering from insecurity in the face of a rapidly-changing world.

The indisputable facts remain - the American population which represents only 5% of the world's total population consumes an astounding 26% of the world's energy. America also consumes a staggering 30% of the world's resources and is the world's largest single emitter of carbon dioxide, 'Greenhouse gas' emissions which cause climate change and global warming. Phenomena which are scientifically proven but which worryingly, for all those who care about the world’s future, the current President denies. At the present time of writing Trump has withdrawn from the crucial Paris agreement talks, as if one nation could isolate itself from environmental concerns which affect the world.

Accordingly to Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies, the authors of Why do people Hate America, it was the acclaimed British dramatist, screenwriter  and Nobel prize winner, Harold Pinter (1930-2008) who stated in 2002 -

The US has ‘exercised sustained, systematic, remorseless and quite clinical manipulation of power world-wide, while masquerading as a power for good’. It is ‘arrogant, indifferent, contemptuous of International Law, both dismissive and manipulative of the United Nations: this is now the most dangerous power the world has ever known - the authentic “rogue state”, but a “rogue state” of colossal military and economic might’.   [ 2]

Along with the commonly-held perception of many Americans appearing as arrogant and ignorant, the briefest of inventories of commonly-held grievances against America and its people includes - resentment at thinking themselves the centre of universe, an unhealthy diet and epidemic obesity, a gargantuan consumption of the world's resources, the export of trash cultures, an obsession with war, diplomatic meddling in other nation's affairs and acting unilaterally on the world-stage of politics. [3]

The tragedy of today is that much of the world has long looked up to and respected America as the upholder of humanitarian and democratic values, only to be bitterly disappointed by American protectionism, isolationism and rabid nationalism in the policies of its latest President, Donald Trump. 

Mark Burrell’s The Boy  Happy to be Himself  (2017) is a witty response to America's export of 'Trash culture', in particular Hollywood and its machismo superheroes. Quintessentially gothic in its evocation of a mysterious atmosphere, its an artwork which is humorous but with a serious message as well. 

Set at night in a urban street in moonlight with a broad wash of midnight blue, the centre-stage of The Boy Happy to be Himself  depicts a floodlit bill-board with three life-sized superheroes. The slogan Coming to you Soon is inscribed above them. With his back against these figures, and seemingly oblivious to them all, a boy is seen engrossed, reading a book. Beside the boy there's a book-stand with the words ‘The Magic of Books’ inscribed upon it. Meanwhile, life goes on in an intimate street setting - a bonfire is attended and chimneys smoke, someone taking an evening walk carries an umbrella which mysteriously provides light. A masked schoolboy standing beside the billboard gazes towards the viewer. A tower-block of flats can also be seen, allusive to a landmark visible from Burrell's studio in his home-town of Lowestoft.

A  hallmark of Burrell’s art is its unique colour tonality, an instance of which can be seen in the reflected colours of the paving-stones in the foreground of The Boy Happy to be Himself, effectively making the ordinariness of paving-stones appear magical, a superb  example of magical realism, no less. Another attribute of Burrell's art is its skillful draughtsmanship, the viewer's eye perusing the scene in this case is tugged between a calm street background and intriguing foreground imagery.

Burrell's art encourages the viewer to look and look again, and in doing so discover new layers of allusion, meaning and detail. A closer inspection of its superheroes reveals Batman to be obese and thus barely capable of acrobatically swooping across the night-sky while Superman's youthful vigour has long past, his receding hairline suggestive of an ageing Dad-with-Slippers adventurousness, while the Norse god Thor has a glazed and manic expression, suggestive of a Viking berserker barely capable of intrepid North Sea navigation. Uninterested and unimpressed by any of these three superheroes, a  boy with his back turned against them reads a book. The contrast between the ability to think for oneself and not allow the Hollywood film industry to shape one's view of the world, is stark.

Burrell’s humourous painting is not without a serious message. Hollywood’s film industry with its pervasive influence upon the human imagination cannot be over-estimated. There are few in the world today whose imagination has not been manipulated by its relentless agenda of advertising American values. Hollywood's influence  is often far greater than consciously realised, contributing towards what may quite rightly be termed as none other than American cultural imperialism. Hollywood's domestic market consumption in turn may well contribute towards an acclimatising and hardening of American youth towards war, conflict and economic competition against the world at large, rather than relate and understand cultures and people beyond the American border.

The superheroes Batman and Superman originated from 1930's America, an era of economic depression and rampant crime, and as such are the product of American wish-fulfillment to eradicate social problems without any realistic understanding of the dominant cause of most social problems then as now, namely, grossly unfair wealth distribution. Hollywood itself is a multi-billion dollar industry which is little sympathetic to  its impact upon the environment or its consumption of the world’s quite finite resources.  Its hard to comprehend the facts. Warner Bros. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) has a supposed $410 million price tag. Superman Returns (2006) cost $246 million to make, Man of Steel (2013) cost $228 million and grossed $668 million worldwide, The amazing Spider-Man (2012) cost over $238 million, grossing $752 million, Superman Returns (2006)  cost $246.4 million and returned $391 million for its financial investors, Spider-Man 2 (2004) cost $250 million and made $783.8 million.

But are any of these badly misinterpreted Nietzschean 'superheroes' worthwhile emulating ? The predictable and formulaic plots of many Hollywood films are the product of investors who simply want a large financial return on their investment without any concern of artistic integrity. One questions with Burrell, whether Hollywood's  consumption of the world’s quite finite resources, purely for entertainment purposes, often of quite a childish nature, can ever be truly justified.

Recent  political propaganda which satirizes the British Prime Minister Theresa May and her election slogan (Strong and Stable).

The inclusion of the Norse god Thor in The Boy Happy to be Himself produces a startling cognitive dissonance when juxtaposed to all-American superheroes. Burrell's Thor has a manic look about him, reminiscent  of the stentorian British actor Brian Blessed (b. 1936) or wild-man  Oliver Reed (1938-1999). Its a look suggestive of one whose brain may well be burnt-out from drinking vast quantities of mead or from ingesting too many fly agaric mushrooms as the Viking Berserkers were wont to do.

Thor's joining the ranks of American superheroes is a good example of cultural appropriation. The Norse god was a sacred figure who existed thousands of years before Hollywood, yet has been used by American filmmakers as an example of a super-hero, and as such is an example of what is termed as 'cultural appropriation'. Examples of cultural appropriation, that is, the 'borrowing’ of symbols associated with a specific cultures include amongst numerous examples, Mohawk hair-styles, Tartan kilts and Rastafari dreadlocks, all of which are worn by those not part of the culture from which they originated, but appropriated as badges of identity. Cultural appropriation and its widespread abuse by Western culture is discussed in depth in the Palestinian historian Edward Said in his ground-breaking work Orientalism (1978).

Incidentally, understanding of the Viking era was considerably enhanced when in 1938 at Woodbridge in Suffolk, just 40 miles south of Burrell's home-town of Lowestoft, the site of two 6th and early 7th-century cemeteries was discovered by archaeologists. One cemetery contained an undisturbed ship burial, including a wealth of Anglo-Saxon artefacts of outstanding art-historical and archaeological significance. The Sutton Hoo Viking burial site remains one of the most important of all archaeological discoveries of  the Viking era (500-1100 CE).

With self-deprecating humour Burrell confesses to 'getting tired of American propaganda', such as produced by Hollywood, whilst also admitting to indulging in a little propaganda of his own. He suggests that it may be the Buddhist-orientated spiritual self-help guide and international best-seller The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle which is being read by the young lad in his painting.

Holding no illusions about the reception of his new painting, Burrell states -

'Some will pick up subliminally my message, others will think it just another funny pic'.

Burrell also reflects on how certain motifs in his paintings have altered little over the past 40 years, featuring candles, tea cups, and British flags, often set during evening or night. The 'message’ in  The Boy Happy to be Himself  seems to be - the simplest way to emancipate oneself from the world-wide dominance of American cultural imperialism is simply to read, preferably in printed book form (still arguably the most efficient way to absorb information) and find out for oneself, in order to begin and persist in thinking independently.


Mark Burrell's The Watchers (36" x 30") is a sharp indictment of the City bankers, debt-collectors, government bully-boys and jobsworths in general in Britain today who are busy devastating the lives of the disabled, vulnerable and unemployed without a thought or care of the damage they cause, whilst 'only doing their job'.

Painted in 2009, the year in which the harsh realities of the world Recession began to be assimilated by millions of people with a noticeable decline in living standards, Burrell's The Watchers features a combination of two of the artist's strongest attributes, namely, skillful portraiture and a social conscience. Not unlike the German artists George Grosz (1893-1959) or Otto Dix (1891-1969), both of whom documented the social injustices and inequalities of Germany's Weimar Republic (1919-33), Burrell  is also well-capable of utilizing his artistic talents in order to produce hard-hitting social commentary. In the artist's own words -

'People are being constantly abused by the state and the unemployed are being used as scapegoats. People need to look a bit harder. Its a heavy unfair system full of legal forms of corruption'.

Much of the Western world's current economic and social woes can be traced back to the era of Thatcher and Reagan in the early 1980's and their adoption of the economic model advocated by the so-called Chicago school of economics as represented by Milton Friedman and the Austro-British economist Friedrich Hayek. Basically, Neo-liberalism (which is neither new or liberal) is an ideological knee-jerk reaction against socialism which rejects the responsibilities of the Nation-State towards its citizens. Indeed, when the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925 - 2013) first came to power she allegedly slapped a copy of Hayek's book, 'New Economics' onto a table, saying, 'this is what we believe in'.

Since the collapse of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers in 2008 resulting in a debt being passed onto the rest of the world and paid for by those who were not responsible for the banking failure, the economic policies of Neoliberalism have been found wanting, in particular in a fair distribution of wealth, resulting in a certain amount of on-going brutalization in sectors of Western society, as depicted in Burrell's The Watchers. One certainly wouldn't want to bump into any of these characters down a deserted street !


Through their familiarity in exploring the little understood world of the imagination, the British artists Mark Burrell (b. 1957) and Peter Rodulfo (b. 1958) the co-founders of the North Sea Magical Realism art-movement are equally adept at adjusting the focus of their artistic imagination. Its thus relatively easy for them to venture into new territory such as the arena of political commentary.

The artist Peter Rodulfo has also been known to make a satirical statement in his art concerning the state of politics in England today. In his A Barrel of Laughs painted in 2013, some 4 years before the British Referendum upon continuing membership to the European Union, Rodulfo astutely identifies the prime culprit who instigated the fiasco and farce which continues to embroil British politics. Surrounded by pigs, suggestive of the phrases 'Pig-headed' and 'Pig-ignorant' the Far-right politician Nigel Farage (b. 1964) is seen in a barrel, perhaps an allusion to his tub-thumping, jingoistic and rabble-rousing tendencies, certainly not because he is in any way whatsoever A Barrel of Laughs, as the colloquial British phrase puts it.

Of particular note is the great care taken in A Barrel of Laughs in its draughtsmanship and depth of perspective, resulting in an extensive landscape with a finely wrought cloudscape. Humour and playfulness in general are also frequently encountered in much of Rodulfo's art.

The subject of satire in Rodulfo's painting is the British politician Nigel Farage. Although satire is most often associated with literary forms, it also occurs in the visual arts. Because satire often combines both anger and humor, as well as the fact that it draws attention to controversial topics, it can be profoundly disturbing, not unlike the thinly-veiled racism of the central character featured in Rodulfo's A Barrel of Laughs.

Nigel Farage’s hobbies includes the predictable pre-occupations of the Far-Right, an unhealthy obsession with World War II in which, contrary to his rhetoric, he took no part in whatsoever, the historical event occurring long before he was born, He also likes to tour battlefields in preparation for a history book  which he plans to write for schoolchildren.

Underlying much of Farage's and fellow Brexiteer's ideology is the delusional belief that English exceptionalism can take on and beat all Europe. In essence, the founding myth of the Britain which exists in Farage and his followers minds is simply a way of justifying their xenophobia. For Farage and his followers, the Second World War was not about fighting against the Nazis, but purely and simply about fighting against foreigners. They may say "Nazis" but in reality they simply mean "Germans". The supreme irony being which is lost on Farage and  followers of the Far-right who incessantly harp on about a war in which they did not participate as they were not even alive, is that the second world War War had as its imperative the objective of the elimination and defeat of the Far-Right in power in Europe at the time.

     

Unlike Nigel Farage, Peter Rodulfo is easily well-read enough to describe as erudite. Indeed, in 2016 Rodulfo proposed the seventeenth century literary figure Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) to be an ancestral member of  the North Sea Magical Realism art-movement. Browne's elective affinity to the art-movement is founded upon several factors. Firstly, geographically (Browne is recorded as botanizing upon Great Yarmouth's sand-dunes and throughout Norfolk's extensive coastline). Secondly, as an artist possessing unique imaginative gifts in concept, imagery and symbolism, and  finally and not least, as one whose contribution to the visual arts is far greater than is commonly known. For example, one of several techniques employed by political cartoonists includes that of caricature, a word which derives from the Italian of caricare—to charge or load, thus caricature essentially means a "loaded portrait". According to the Oxford English Dictionary the word 'Caricature' was introduced into the English language by Sir Thomas Browne. Its one of hundreds of words which the seventeenth century polymath and literary artist is credited as the first to employ. Browne's definition of caricature being, 'When Men's faces are drawn with resemblance to some other Animals, the Italians call it, to be drawn in Caricatura', while also advising his eldest son Edward Browne - 'Expose not thy self by four-footed manners unto monstrous draughts, and Caricatura representations'. [4] 

However, in Rodulfo's painting it is as much the word-play of the plural of pigs, the word 'swine,' which means 'a contemptible or unpleasant person' in the English language which may be applicable to Farage than the specific art of caricature itself.

Rodulfo's satirical painting A Barrel of Laughs voices the concern of all sane and politically literate people in England today, namely, how far previously unacceptably right-wing views have permeated into British politics. Indeed there remains little for Nigel Farage's single - cause political party UKIP to campaign for, now that their goal has theoretically been achieved, namely the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Project.

The British philosopher A.C.Grayling speaks on behalf of many, including doubtlessly Rodulfo, when stating of Nigel Farage -

"I think he’s a bounder. He’s a cad. He’s an embarrassment. I cringe at the thought of how he behaved like a football hooligan and a lager lout in the European Parliament. What an advertisement for the best of the English character. I have no time for him at all. I think he is an embarrassment and a waste of space".

When distinguished academics such as A.C. Grayling raise the concern that Brexit is beginning to look like a right-wing coup its surely time to heed the early warning signs of a nation sleep-walking into fascism, chanting in their sleep, 'It couldn't happen here'. It could, and is happening.

The North Sea Magical Realism artists Mark Burrell and Peter Rodulfo are united in their concern over recent political events in the USA and GB. Their art goes some way towards highlighting and combating the views of the politically illiterate, those who are indoctrinated through an increasingly right-wing media and those whose misanthropic politics are alarmingly vociferous in America and Great Britain today.

Notes

[1] Wikipedia
[2]  Granta Spring 2002
[3] 'Why do people hate America ?' by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies pub. Icon Books 2002.
[4] Christian Morals pub. post. 1716
[5] http://www.euractiv.com/section/uk-europe/interview/a-c-grayling-brexit-is-starting-to-look-a-lot-like-a-coup/

High quality prints of Mark Burrell's 'Let's Make America Great Again' are available from the artist. Please contact Mark Burrell Art to purchase.

All 3 of Mark Burrell's painting are on display at his Open Studio's week-ends on June 10th and 11th, 17th and 18th, 24th and 25th.

Recommended Reading

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle pub. Yellow Kite 2001
Meaning in the Visual Arts by Erwin Panofsky pub. University of Chicago 1955
Why do people hate America ? Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies pub. Icon Books 2002
Orientalism - Edward Said 1978

First performed in Budapest, a full century ago on May 12th 1917,  Béla Bartók's ballet-pantomime The Wooden Prince is based upon a fairy-tale which focuses upon the themes of love and loneliness, the contrasting natures of men and women, the artist's relationship to creativity and the triumph of love over adversity.

The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945) is arguably one of the unhappiest examples of a composer who learned to live with neglect. Throughout most of his career, discouragement, the struggle to find an audience, failing health and chronic poverty, dominated his life. It was only after his death in 1945 that public recognition of his musical genius occurred.
In 1914, the writer Béla Balázs, who also wrote the text for Bartok's opera Bluebeard’s Castle, found the composer, “in a gloomy and hopeless state of mind. He was thinking about emigration, or of suicide.” The Wooden Prince was a composition in which Bartók’s fortunes seemed, at least temporarily, to change. Balázs suggested to Bartók the idea of a musical pantomime. Composition began in 1914; it was the first serious work Bartók had attempted in many months. Progress was sporadic, but he persisted, inspired by the promise of a staged production. It may well have been the subtext of Balázs's pantomime about the fate of the creative artist which inspired him.

The orchestral score of The Wooden Prince is the largest ever employed by Bartok. The composer calls for four flutes and two piccolos, four oboes and two english horns, four clarinets, E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet, four bassoons and two contrabassoons, three saxophones, four horns, four trumpets and two cornets, three trombones and tuba, two harps, celesta, glockenspiel, xylophone, triangle, castanets, cymbals, side drum, bass drum, tam-tam, and strings. Its total performance time is approximately fifty minutes.

Termed a symphonic poem for dance by the composer, each individual dance of The Wooden Prince varies sharply in character. Highlights of the orchestral score include a terrifying Tolkien Ent-like march of trees, a jazz influenced dance upon waves featuring three saxophones, a playful dance of the princess in the forest scored for solo clarinet, harp and pizzicato strings, and a vigorous comic dance in which Bartok caricatures the movements of the wooden dummy prince lurching through abrupt shifts of tempo with a pulsing, repetitive rhythmic stamp.

The Wooden Prince reveals a number of influences upon the composer's maturing style. Its brilliant, original and colourful orchestration may have resulted from Bartok’s encounter with the repertoire of the Ballet Russe who visited Budapest with the Hungarian premieres in 1913 of Stravinsky’s two new ballets, The Firebird with its libretto based upon a conglomerate of Russian fairy tales, and the puppet-drama Petrushka.

The tone-poems of the Austrian composer Richard Strauss were also an influence upon Bartók who reportedly was stunned when first hearing Also Sprach Zarathustra (1890) at its Budapest premiere in 1902. Other influences include Bartok's careful study of Debussy’s scores at his friend and fellow composer Zoltan Kodály’s suggestion; and the discovery of Eastern European folk music, which had given him a second career as a pioneer ethnomusicologist.

The libretto of The Wooden Prince tells of a handsome young prince who sees a beautiful princess playing flirtatiously among the trees. He impulsively falls in love with her and struggles to win her heart. In his way stand the wishes of a fairy who wishes the prince to belong alone in her magical nature world, and who uses all her powers to prevent him from reaching the princess. In the third dance, termed a 'grand ballet', the forest itself, and then a river are summoned to turn the prince away from his goal, while in the distance the princess sits at her spinning wheel in the castle, oblivious to his effort. To gain her attention the prince fashions an image of himself, that he can lift above the trees for her to glimpse. He takes his crown, his sword, and, eventually, his golden hair, arranges them on a dummy, and watches as the princess instantly stops sewing and dashes down through the forest to find this handsome prince she has seen . The princess falls in love not with the real prince, but with the wooden dummy he has made, resulting in the dejected prince retreating into solitude. The wooden prince is brought to life by the fairy. The princess is disappointed once the dummy breaks down, catches sight of the real prince, and succeeds in regaining his heart. The prince abandons solitude for the embrace of lover. As the curtain the story ends with the lovers, now certain of their affection, standing quietly gazing into each other’s eyes.

Opening in the key of C major with distinct reference to the music of Richard Wagner's Rheingold, the introduction of The Wooden Prince displays great psychological mastery as its music slowly transforms from a mood of calm and tranquillity to one of full-blown tension and crisis.

Early in the ballet there is an uncanny evocation of a vast green forest and 'Water- music' in which Bartok vividly conjures a direct image of nature, applying the lessons of his impressionistic phase from the music of Debussy. The French composer's influence can be heard in the third dance of the ballet, Dance of the Waves which features three saxophones. 

The Belgian inventor Adolphe Sax's great contribution to music, the saxophone is featured in various other orchestral works, in particular those of French composers including Bizet in his L'Arlesienne suites dating from the 1870's, Ravel's Bolero (1928) as well as his orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition (1922) and Debussy's Rhapsody for Saxophone and Orchestra (1903). Others who composed for the saxophone's distinctive voice include Rachmaninov in his Symphonic Dances (1940), his last ever composition, Vaughan Williams in Job, A Masque For Dancing (premiered in concert form in October 1930 at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival), Alexander Glazunov in his Concerto for  Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra (1934)and Benjamin Britten in his Sinfonia da Requiem (1941).

One would have thought the saxophone to be the perfect instrument to depict a bustling metropolis in Bartok's subsequent work The Miraculous Mandarin, a story of sex, crime, murder and robbery, but in fact it's in the third dance of The Wooden Prince, entitled Dance of the Waves, with its three saxophones, that one of the earliest allusions  in orchestral music to jazz can be heard. 

The full sequence of dances in The Wooden Prince is as follows-

In addition to the Italian story-teller Carlo Collodi's world-famous tale of the adventures of a wooden doll who becomes a boy, Pinocchio (1883)there are several ballets which feature a dummy or mannikin.

Leo Delibe's comic ballet Coppelia (1870), Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker (1892) based upon E.T.A. Hoffman's dark tale of 1816, and Stravinsky’s ground-breaking score for the Ballet Russe, Petrushka (1911) all feature a puppet or doll-like character. In the frenzied courtship dance of the princess with the puppet wooden prince Bartok utilizes exotic pentatonic harmonies and vigorous rhythms which are imitative of  music in the score of Stravinsky's ballet, Petrushka. 

A rare Hungarian video-clip of the moment the princess meets and dances with the wooden prince gives an idea of the intricate relationship between orchestral score and its choreography.  

In the ballet's apotheosis the melody featured at the moment of the couple's final coming together is the Hungarian folk-song Fly, Peacock, quoted by Bartók in his First String Quartet and which Zoltán Kodály also quotes in his Peacock Variations.

The librettist of The Wooden Prince, Béla Balázs stated that the wooden puppet symbolizes the creative work of the artist, who puts all of himself into his work until he has made something complete, shining, and perfect. The artist himself, however, is left poor. as in that common and profound tragedy in which the creation becomes the rival of the creator, or the bitter-sweet dilemma in which a woman prefers the poem to the poet, the picture to the painter.

In the Mexican film-director Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth (2006) the worlds of fascist Spain and the dark fantasy world his adopted daughter Ofelia explores are juxtaposed to eventually collide, with tragic, yet redeeming consequences. Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, along with The Tin Drum (Schlöndorff 1979) The City of Lost Children (Caro and Jeunet1995) Donnie Darko (Richard Kelly, 2001) Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze 1999) Amélie ( Jeunet 2001) The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes (Brothers Quay 2005) The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry 2006) and many of the films by Terry Gilliam are among my personal favourites. There is however nowadays an increasingly amorphous and mushrooming of the term 'magical realism' and an ever-lengthening list of films which critics claim are exemplary of the generic term, thus rendering the label near meaningless.   

[9]  CW vol. 9 i: 453 'The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairytales' (1945/48)

Browne's cosmological speculations also led him to the profound observation that - 'The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity'. [15]

Its also in Christian Morals that Browne’s ambiguous relationship to astrology can be detected. He’s highly critical of natal astrology when declaiming -

'Burden not the back of Aries, Leo, or Taurus, with thy faults, nor make Saturn, Mars, or Venus, guilty of thy Follies'.  [16]

And effectively demolishes the claims of the astrological birth-chart in his sharp observation - ‘for some are Astrologically well-disposed who are morally highly viscous’. [17]

However, far from entirely dismissing the esoteric art, Browne also speculates -

'If we rightly understood the Names whereby God calleth the Stars, if we knew his Name for the Dog-Star, or by what appellation Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn obey his Will, it might be a welcome accession unto Astrology, which speaks of great things, and is fain to use  Greek and Barbaric systems'.[18]

Browne kept abreast and well-informed of the latest scientific discoveries throughout his life. Astronomy seems to have been of great interest to him in his later years. Writing to his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708) resident in Rome on his travels, he confirms of their joint eye-witnessing -

'I see the little comet or blazing star every clear evening, the last time I observed it about 42 degrees of height, about 7 o’ clock, in the constellation of Cetus, or the whale, in the head thereof; it moveth west and northly, so that it moveth towards Pisces or Linum Septentrionale pisces. Ten degrees is the utmost extent of the tail...That which I saw in 1618 began in Libra, and moved northward, ending about the tail of Ursa Major; it was far brighter than this, and the tail extended 40 degrees, lasted little above a month. This now seen hath lasted above a month already, so that I believe from the motion that it began in Eridanus or Fluvius'.  [19]

He even considers acquiring astronomical instruments, writing to Edward Browne -

'..some that have had them tell me there is account made of some kind of spectacles without glasses, and made by a little trunk or case to admit the species with advantage. ....I hear such instruments are made and sold in London; and some tell me they have had them here. Enquire after them, and where they are made, and send a pair, as I remember there is no great art in the making thereof'.  [20]

However, although his eye-sight seems as sharp as ever, his advanced years are now of little help for stargazing, writing to Edward -

'The stream or tail of the comet was very long, when I saw it, in a clear  night, and I believe it was the same night when you saw it,  at St. Albans ; but the weather was so piercing cold, that I  could not endure to stand in it, otherwise I might have taken the altitude of the star or head of the comet, and then  reckoned the length of the tail to our vertical point, and then, allowing for the altitude, I might have seen how much  of ninety degrees the tail took up ; as, if the altitude were 30 degrees, the tail, coming to the vertex, must be sixty degrees extended'. [21]

Comets remain  of interest to Browne,  less than two years before his death, writing to Edward Browne-

'The news letters mentioned it, but to little or no purpose, or any information. We have had somewhat cloudy or foggy evenings, so that we hear no more of it, and this day was clear and frosty, and the sun set very bright and red, but we could not see a star, it was so misty this night, while I am writing, which is between seven and eight o'clock. I never saw a large and very long tail of a comet, since 1618, when I was at school. I believe it will be much observed and discoursed, and accounts given of it by the R. S. (i.e. Royal Society) and observers beyond sea'. [22] 

'By this parallaxis astronomers find out the comet's distance from the earth ; and, in that of 1618, they found it to be as far above the moon as  the moon is above the earth, and so find out its place, or sphere it is in, which I believe will be performed, or is already, by some astronomers'. [23]

He advises his son - 'You might do well to have a figure of parallaxis, and to understand it, for it may be very useful, and is in many books. Now, if this comet be very high, and at a great distance above the moon, or in the sphere of Mercury or Venus, it will have but little parallaxis, and so we may conclude that it is above the moon'. [24] 

Perhaps Browne's late interest in astronomy was the result of his having a mystical experiencing of stars as the source of all life on Earth. Our own star, the sun supports and sustains all life on earth, including humanity.

In essence, Browne's scientific outlook was forever inclined towards fundamental tenets of Hermeticism with its correspondences, analogies and polarities, concepts not always conducive to modern quantitative science. Browne was also a believer in unquantifiable aesthetic principles such as symmetry, harmony, order and proportion, and for this reason he never fully embraced the discoveries of a science which challenged or refuted concepts such as his beloved 'music of the Spheres' or the eternal patterns and archetypes of an Intelligent or Grand Designer.

Its thus as a paradoxical figure in intellectual history, with one foot planted firmly in esoteric lore and the other, in modern scientific enquiry that Browne reveals himself to us today. His holistic approach to medicine and his critical following of Paracelsus marks him as a progressive-thinking medical man in seventeenth century England. Indeed, its in the fields of psychiatry and psychology, not astronomy that Browne's greatest achievements lay. Its not insignificant that the double-faced figure of Janus, one of Browne's favourite symbols, which the Swiss psychologist C.G. Jung considered to be a 'perfect symbol of the Psyche',and that one of the very earliest usages of the word  'Archetype'  occurs in Browne's literary works.

To summarize, Browne's place in intellectual history, as one of the very last Renaissance men who held an equal interest in both astrology and the newly developing science of astronomy is paradoxical to modern sensibilities, forever insistent upon Either/Or.

Yet its precisely because of Sir Thomas Browne's consultation of both natural and supernatural knowledge that he may be defined as much an early chemist as an alchemist, as much a Hermetic philosopher as advocate of rational, deductive science and as much an astrologer as vigorous promoter of the new science of astronomy. And this is precisely why Norwich's very own 'Starman' remains a controversial and little-understood, yet also highly significant figure in Western intellectual history. 

  

Galileo, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Trent 1635

Two World Systems Englished by T. Sainsbury, 1661

William Gilbert. De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure 1600

Robert Hooke - Lectures, London 1678

Johannes Kepler -  Mysterium Cosmographicum, Tübingen 1596

Kepler - de Stella nova in pede Serpentis, Prague 1606

* Philip Ball - Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything pub. Vintage 2013

* Wonders of the Solar System presented by Professor Brian Cox BBC DVD 2010

Also consulted


Star Names : Their Lore and Meaning Richard Hinckley 1899 Allen Dove pub. 1963

Ingenious Pursuits : Building the Scientific Revolution Lisa Jardine pub. Little, Brown and co. 1999

[8] Hugh Aldersey Williams 'The Adventures of Sir Thomas Browne in the 21st century' Granta 2015. There's a number of caveats to be sounded about this book. Whilst its to be applauded for generating interest in Browne, its also very much Aldersey-William's own Religio Medici
 Link to Review here. Hugh Aldersey-William's proposal of Browne as a closet atheist in particular is wildly unlikely, but also a good example of how Browne's strongly archetypical of  'Old wise man' which often attracts psychological projection, invariably of an unconscious nature.

This essay dedicated to Tchenka Sunderland - Astrologer, one-time mentor and decades long encourager of my Brunonian studies.

A Happy Birthday to Kazuo Ishiguro (b. Nov. 8th 1954, Nagasaki) recent winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The jacket-notes for what is Ishiguro's only Japan-centred novel An artist of the floating world  describes the novel thus-

1948: Japan is rebuilding her cities after the calamity of World War II, her people putting defeat behind them and looking to the future. The celebrated painter Masuji Ono fills his days attending to his garden, his two grown daughters and his grandson, and his evenings drinking with old associates in quiet lantern-lit bars. His should be a tranquil retirement. But as his memories return to the past - to a life and a career deeply touched by the rise of Japanese militarism - a dark shadow begins to grow over his serenity. 

But of greater interest to myself is the postscript dated January 2016  to mark the occasion of his novel's 30th anniversary, in which Ishiguro states-

‘An Artist’ was written between 1981 and 1985, years of crucial, often fractious and bitter transition in Britain. The governments of Margaret Thatcher had brought an end to the post-war political consensus about the welfare state and the desirability of a ‘mixed’ economy (in which key assets and industries are owned publically as well as privately). there was an overt and strident programme to transform the country from one based on manufacturing and heavy industries, with large organised workforces, into a predominantly service-based economy with a fragmented, flexible, non-unionised labour pool. It was the era of the miners’ strike, the Wapping dispute, CND marches, the Falklands War, IRA terrorism, an economic theory - ‘monetarism’ - that characterised deep cuts to public services as the necessary medicine to heal a sick economy. .... This novel.....was shaped by the Britain in which I was then living: the pressures on people in every walk of life to take political sides; the rigid certainties, shading into self-righteousness and sinister aggression, of ardent, often youthful factions; the agonising about the ‘role of the artist’ in a time of political change. And for me personally: the nagging sense of how difficult it is to see clearly above the dogmatic fervours of one’s day; and the fear that time and history would show that for all one’s good intentions, one had backed a wrong, shameful, even evil cause, and wasted one’s best years and talents to it.  - London, January 2016

In his dystopian science-fiction novel Never Let Me Go (2005) the English county of Norfolk, where Ishiguro 'discovered' his vocation as a novelist, is described as a place where everything which is lost ends up -

“You see, because [Norfolk is] stuck out here on the east, on this hump jutting into the sea, it's not on the way to anywhere. People going north and south, they bypass it altogether. For that reason, it's a peaceful corner of England, rather nice. But it's also something of a lost corner.'

"Someone claimed after the lesson that Miss Emily had said Norfolk was England's 'lost corner' because that was where all the lost property found in the country ended up".

"Ruth said one evening, looking out at the sunset, that, 'when we lost something precious, and we'd looked and looked and still couldn't find it, then we didn't have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day, when we were grown up, and we were free to travel the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk." - Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go 

Its often been commented upon that Britain and Japan share a number of socio-economic characteristics; both are heavily industrialised island nations which once pursued Imperial ambitions, possessing a formidable and large naval force, both are also nations which to the present-day have rigidly defined social hierarchies.

In what is perhaps Ishiguro's most well-known novel, The Remains of the Day (1989)  which has been described as P.G.Wodehouse meets Kafka, Ishiguro explores psychological characteristics often associated with the English nation, the famous 'stiff upper lip' of emotional repression and inarticulateness; of individuals who are unable to express themselves adequately, a particularly English tragedy, often enhanced and facilitated through an inflexible and detrimental to equality, hierarchical class-system which refuses to die an honorable death. 

Written in a  fluid, intimate and masterful prose style, distinctive characteristics of Ishiguro's prose, The Remains of the Day depicts England in the 1930's in which the class system dominates people's lives. It also describes how through political naivete the British upper-class were blind to the dangers of fascism spreading throughout mainland Europe, a political awareness which remains unlearnt in sectors of British society to the present-day, as Ishiguro himself states in an article on the result of the ill-conceived British referendum on membership to the European Union [1] as well as in interview on BBC television.

In the excellent Merchant-Ivory film adaption of Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day (1993) the magical chemistry between the actors Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson makes no small contribution in  portraying the fatal psychological inadequacy of the English, an inability of emotional expressiveness, aided and abetted by their obsession with status and social class. These factors blight what ought to have been a healthy love affair between the two central characters of Ishiguro's brilliant novel.  

The String Quartets of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) are ranked amongst the greatest of the genre. Frequently technically innovative in structure, experimental in harmony with poignant  melodies and sharp wit, Beethoven's late quartets in particular express not only world-weariness and resignation but also serenity and transcendence. As such they are considered to be amongst the most enigmatic and mysterious of all music within the Western classical tradition.

Its worthwhile reminding ourselves of basics. A string quartet is a musical ensemble  consisting of four string players – two violin players, a viola player and a cellist. A prominent combination in chamber ensembles in classical music, most major composers from the mid 18th century onwards, wrote string quartets. The String Quartet was developed into its current form by the Austrian composer Joseph Haydn (1737-1809) whose quartets in the 1750s established the genre.

Ever since Haydn's day the string quartet has been considered a prestigious form which challenges the composer's art. With four parts to play with, a composer has enough lines to fashion a full argument, but none to spare for padding. The closely related characters of the four instruments combined cover a wide compass of pitch. The writer of string quartets must concentrate on the bare bones of musical logic. Thus, in many ways the string quartet is pre-eminently the dialectical form of instrumental music, and the one best suited to the activity of logical disputation and philosophical enquiry. [1]

The literary figure, polymath and contemporary of Beethoven, Wolfgang von  Goethe (1749-1832) explains the appeal of the string quartet thus-

"If I were in Berlin, I should rarely miss the Moser Quartet performances. Of all types of instrumental music, I have always been able to follow these best. You listen to four sensible persons conversing, you profit from their discourse, and you get to know the individual character of the instruments" [2]

Beethoven's early string quartets were composed between the summer or autumn of 1798 and the summer of 1800. They are clearly born of the tradition of his great predecessors, yet they already strain towards new directions. Succinct themes capable of extensive development; endlessly imaginative melodic manipulation; startling dynamic contrasts; complete, sometimes radical, formal mastery are all evident in Beethoven's first set of six quartets, Op. 18. [3]

The opening movement of the C minor quartet no. 4 of the set of  opus 18  displays much of the tension and angst of a minor key Mozart quartet, along with an indebtedness to Haydn's development of the quartet, as well as some distinctly Beethovian dramatic moments.





Of Beethoven's Middle quartets, the most important are the three so-called Razumovsky Quartets opus 59. (7, 8 and 9) named after the Russian prince who commissioned them. Dating from 1806 a contemporary music journal described the Razumovsky quartets as-

" long and difficult...profound and excellently wrought but not easily intelligible - except perhaps for the third, whose originality, melody and harmonic power will surely win over every educated music lover" [4]

In the Razumovsky quartets, along with his 3rd symphony, the Eroica Symphony in E flat major ,opus 55 (first performed April 1805) Beethoven breaks free from Classical form and convention towards Romanticism with the accent on feeling, self-expression and extended form. Its of these three quartets that Beethoven allegedly replied to an uncomprehending violinist, "Not for you, but for a later age".

The second movement of the E major String Quartet (no. 3 of opus 59) is often likened to music of hymnic transcendence. Beethoven's pupil, Carl Czerny relates it was conceived whilst the composer gazed at the night sky in contemplation of  'the music of the spheres'.




The New Grove Beethoven informs us that-

After completing the Ninth Symphony in early 1824 Beethoven spent the two and a half years that remained to him writing with increasing ease and exclusively in the medium of the string quartet. The five late string quartets contain Beethoven's greatest music, or so at least many listeners in the 20th century have come to feel. The first of the five, op. 127 in E flat of 1823-24, shows all the important characteristics of this unique body of music. It opens with another lyrical sonata form containing themes in two different tempos; the Maestoso theme melts into a faster one, wonderfully tender and intimate. [5]

The composition of  the A minor quartet op. 132 was interrupted by a serious illness in April 1825. An extraordinary 'Hymn of thanksgiving in the Lydian mode' forms its central movement in which the composer gives Thanks for the restoration of his health.



In the Quartet in B flat op. 130, the confrontation of themes in different tempos gives the opening movement an elusive, even whimsical feeling. A deliberate dissociation is intensified by the succession of five more movements, often in remote keys, with something of the effect of 'character pieces' in a Baroque suite. The feverish little Presto is followed by movements labelled by Beethoven Poco scherzando, Alla danza tedesca and Cavatina......[6]

The movement entitled Cavatina sees Beethoven at his most expressive with a heartfelt Welt abschied (Farewell to the World).




No discussion of Beethoven's Late String quartets can be complete without acknowledgement of the observations of Theodor W. Adorno (1903-69). Although the eminent philosopher and musicologist  himself found it impossible to complete a book upon Beethoven's String Quartets, nevertheless  he perceptively articulates defining qualities of Beethoven's late string quartets in the scattered fragments of his writings,thus -

There is in them something like a paring away of the sensuous, a spiritualization, as if the whole world of sensuous appearance were reduced in advance to the appearance of something spiritual.... It can be said that in the latest Beethoven the fabric, the interweaving of voices to form something harmonically rounded, is deliberately cut back. In Beethoven's late style there is altogether something like a tendency towards dissociation, decay, dissolution, but not in the sense of a process of composition which no longer holds things together: the disassociation and disintegration themselves become artist means, and works which have brought to a rounded conclusion take on through these means, despite their roundness, something spiritually fragmentary.  Thus, in the works which are typical of the true late style of Beethoven, the closed acoustic surface which is otherwise so characteristic of the sound of the string quartet with its perfect balance, disintegrates. [7]

Beethoven's String Quartet cycle may be considered unparalleled in scope, inventiveness and emotional depth until the String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75). The Soviet-era composer's String Quartets match Beethoven's in technical brilliance and profundity  in many ways and therefore invite comparison; however, Beethoven's String Quartets stand independently in their own right, as monuments to the revolutionary genius of the Romantic composer.

Notes

[1] Wikipedia
[2] Goethe 1829 Correspondence
[3] Beethoven String Quartets  Vol.1  Basil Lam BBC Music Guides 1975
[4] Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 
[5] The New Grove Beethoven  ed. Joseph Kerman and Alan Tyson pub. W W Norton & Co 1983
[6] Beethoven String Quartets Vol. 2. Basil Lam BBC Music Guides 1975
[7] Theodor W. Adorno Philosophy of Music: Fragments and Texts pub. Polity Press. 1998 New Ed 2002

The intimacy and privacy of the String quartet became a favoured medium for the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75). His cycle of fifteen String Quartets  may be considered equal in profundity, wit and technical brilliance to Beethoven's String Quartets.

Although sometimes evoking a Kafkaesque atmosphere of anxiety, dread and fear induced by life in the Totalitarian era of Stalin, (Shostakovich on a number of occasions was under extreme pressure to conform to Communist Party aesthetics), nevertheless the composer managed to preserve the highest degree of artistic integrity in his String Quartets in which the 'Other Shostakovich', someone quite separate from the 'Official' State War hero and composer of the patriotic  Leningrad' Symphony, are  featured.

As Alex Ross notes-

'The 'other Shostakovich' was a gnomic, cryptic, secretly impassioned figure who spoke through chamber music (twelve string quartets from 1948 on) .... The string quartet became his favourite medium: it gave him the freedom to write labyrinthine narratives full of blankly winding fugues, near-motionless funeral marches, wry displays of foolish jollity, off-kilter genre exercise, and stretches of deliberate blandness. One of the composer's favourite modes might be called "dance on the gallows" - a galumphing, almost polka-like number that suggests a solitary figure facing death with inexplicable glee'.[1]

'Like the Second and Third Quartets, the Fifth begins with a sonata form movement with exposition repeat. In its virile Beethovian energy, this magnificent movement resembles the first movement of the Second Quartet, with a sense of militant resistance, which had not appeared in Shostakovich's music since that work eight years earlier, though the second subject is a graceful waltz. Segueing to its central slow movement, the quartet retreats into an icy muted B minor. ....this threnody for crushed aspirations and deformed lives also recalls the 'ghost music' of the Third Quartet'.




In contrast to Beethoven's expanding the canvas for a String Quartet, Shostakovich in his 7th String quartet (1960) telescopes the format, returning to the length of an early Haydn String Quartet.  Lasting little more than 12 minutes, the length of many single movements of a Beethoven Late quartet. It includes acerbic wit and fiercely contrasting dynamics, along with an enigmatic opening phrase.




Known in the USSR as the 'Dresden' quartet, the Eighth Quartet was composed in three days during the composer's visit to the ruined city of Dresden in July 1960...Shostakovich had supposedly been so shocked by the devastation he saw that poured out his feelings in music, inscribing the work 'In memory of the victims of fascism and war'. .....the composer told friends that, far from concerning the dead of Dresden - victims not of fascism but of Western democracy working to Soviet military request - the quartet was actually a musical autobiography. 'Everything in the quartet ais as clear as a primer. I quote Lady Macbeth the First and Fifth Symphonies. What does fascism have to do with these ? The Eight is an autobiographical  quartet, it quotes a song known to all Russians: "Exhausted by the hardships of prison".

Alex Ross notes -  'The personal motto D S C H, which sounded so pseudo-triumphantly in the finale of the Tenth Symphony, is woven into almost every page of the Eight Quartet. It appears alongside quotations, from previous Shostakovich works, including the Tenth Symphony, Lady Macbeth, and the First Symphony, not to mention Tchaikovsky's Pathetique, Siegfried's Funeral Music from Gotterdammerung, and the revolutionary song "Tormented by Grievous Bondage". .....The final pages of the score trail resemble in a curious way, the mad scene in Peter Grimes , in which the fisherman is reduced to singing his own name : "Grimes! Grimes ! Grimes!". It is the ultimate moment of self-alienation' [3]




Shostakovich and Britten

During the 1960's Shostakovich became a friend of  the composer Benjamin Britten (b. Lowestoft 1913-76). Both composers shared a liking for the music of Gustav Mahler,  both worked within the framework of Western tonality and respected each other's work sufficiently to quote each other in their respective compositions. The theme of the Outsider in society is prominent in both men's music, not least in Shostakovich's later string quartets. Both composers also died tragically prematurely. 

In his highly recommended book on 20th century music and its relationship to politics, 'The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century', the musicologist Alex Ross provides the historical details on the two composers friendship thus-

'In September 1960, when Dmitri Shostakovich came to London to hear his Cello Concerto played by Mstislav Rostropovich, he was introduced to Benjamin Britten. In the following years Britten and Pears made several visits to Russia and the friendship between the two composers blossomed when Britten and Pears traveled to A Soviet composer's colony in Armenia, where Rostropovich and Shostakovich were staying.

Ross notes -'Despite obvious differences in temperament- Britten was warm and affectionate with those whom he trusted, Shostakovich nervous to the end - the two quickly found sympathy with each other, and their connection may have gone as deep as any relationship in either man.

Britten had long admired Shostakovich's music, as the Lady Macbeth-like Passacaglia in Peter Grimes shows. Shostakovich, for his part, knew little of Britten's music before the summer of 1963, when he was sent the recording and score of the War Requiem. He promptly announced that he had encountered one of the "great works of the human spirit". In person he once said to Britten, "You great composer; I little composer". Britten's psychological landscape, with its undulating contours of fear and guilt, its fault lines and crevasses, its wan redeeming light, made Shostakovich feel at home.

Both men seem almost to have been born with a feeling of being cornered. Even in works of their teenage years, they appear to be experiencing spasms of existential dread. They were grown men with the souls of gifted, frightened children. They were like the soldiers in Wilfred Owens poem, meeting at the end of a profound, dull tunnel.

In 1969 Shostakovich capped the friendship by placing Britten's name on the title page of his Fourteenth Symphony.

Dmitri Shostakovich with Benjamin Britten

Alex Ross summarises Shostakovich's String quartets thus -

'The creations of Shostakovich's sixties, a time of increasingly deteriorating health, form a group of their own,....Here, turning away from confrontation with the State and dogged by the possibility of sudden death following his first heart attack in 1966, he focused with growing austerity on eternal and universal subjects: time, love, betrayal, truth, morality and mortality. Withdrawn and cryptic, these compositions are often compared with Beethoven's own late period. ......It  is as if  the composer has seen too much evil, suffered too much duplicity. His withdrawal from the world in his late works seems at least partly to have been founded on a growing mistrust of humanity per se. From those who knew him it seems that Shostakovich's philosophy, at its simplest, was to value the individual and fear the crowd, the heartless collective. Like Britten, he ponders in old age a kind of Noh theatre of moral parable, chiseling away the superfluous to expose the essential human beneath, bereft of its camouflage of vanity and pretence.....The desolate psychological terrain of Shostakovich's late-period music overlaps everywhere with that of Britten's. [5]

Another reviewer of Shostakovich's String Quartets states- 'The quartets are neither minor in their scope or ambition. They all have something to say about the nature of human existence and folly, collectively or as individuals. There are brief moments, more perhaps towards the later quartets, where bitterness and dark intimations of mortality give way to a peaceful acceptance.  There are no happy endings, only surrender to the inevitable, alone in the knowledge of the truth of what we are and what we have been'. [6]

 It's been suggested  that Shostakovich, faced with close scrutiny from Officials, adopted the role of the yurodivy or holy fool in his relations with the government; this persona features in his String Quartets. Austere, increasingly terse and morose, they also bear witness to the intense emotional strain the composer endured throughout his life in compliance with the Soviet authorities. Far from being exclusively expressions of the Russian Soul, they're recognisable as giving voice to the loss of Faith, alienation and existential angst suffered by many in the West in the twentieth century.

Notes

[1] The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century  Alex Ross 2007 Farrar Straus and Giroux
[2]The New Shostakovich Ian MacDonald Pimlico 2006
[3] The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century  Alex Ross 2007 Farrar Straus and Giroux
[4] Ibid
[5] Ibid
[6] Anonymous Amazon reviewer.

The most detailed and scholarly online writings, far surpassing my effort, on each and every one of Shostakovich's Fifteen String Quartets can be found here. 

Within a few years of relocating his home and studio, the visionary artist Peter Rodulfo (b.1958) has accumulated an extraordinary portfolio of artwork which focuses upon the architecture and landmarks, street-life and social activities of Great Yarmouth.

Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection is currently being exhibited at Skippings Gallery in Great Yarmouth throughout the week of April 14th - 20th 2018.

The Yarmouth Collection takes as its springboard observations made by the artist on walks throughout the town. Rodulfo's paintings depict the coastal town in both well-known and little-known guises. The walls which the artist invites the viewer to walk through are those of indifference and inattentiveness to one's everyday environment. Viewing the many gems of Rodulfo's Yarmouth Collection one not only acquires a new awareness of the sights and attractions of Great Yarmouth but also a deepened appreciation of the technical brilliance, wide stylistic diversity and protean imagination which the artist now commands, Rodulfo himself stating -‘Looking is like a language. The best art doesn't need a dictionary, but for general usage a context is needed’.

The attractions and architectural treasures of Great Yarmouth are the context of the Yarmouth Collection - its Marketplace, Regent Road, King Street, the Star hotel, St. George's Park, the Hippodrome Circus, Atlantis Tower, Nelson's Monument, Britannia and Wellington Piers all feature in the Yarmouth Collection.

The chequered fortunes of what geographically speaking was once little more than a narrow peninsula of shingle sandwiched between the North Sea and the River Yare, is clearly visible in Great Yarmouth’s  varied architecture. On  South Quay there's a 13th c.Tollhouse and  a 17th-century Merchant's House, as well as Tudor, Georgian and Victorian buildings. Behind South Quay there’s a maze of alleys and lanes known as "The Rows" while Yarmouth’s medieval wall is the second most complete Medieval town wall in the country. With eleven of  its eighteen original turrets still standing, its more extant than nearby Norwich's surviving medieval city walls.  

Rodulfo shares with fellow leading member of North Sea Magical Realism, Mark Burrell (b. 1957) an interest in the interaction between architecture and social activities; the townscape of Burrell’s hometown of Lowestoft  is often the setting of his luminescent paintings. As with Burrell however, its the overall ambience and mood of a location rather than meticulously reproducing architectural detail which interests Rodulfo. 

An ambiguous, even unsettling atmosphere is evoked in Approach to the Pleasure-Beach (below).  In equal measure of light and dark, cheer and gloom, an overcrowded boat is seen ferrying people to a Pleasure-Beach, some of which resembles the Bolton bros. fun-fair. With its sombre sky and churning water along with overcrowded boat, the viewer is left to wonder about the lengths people will go to in their pursuit of pleasure. The painting's background includes Yarmouth's 'Golden Mile' complete with the Atlantis Tower, Waterways boating-lake, windmill and approaching train.

Portraiture of Yarmouth’s leading cultural figures also occurs in the Yarmouth Collection. The proprietor of the Hippodrome Circus, Peter Jay, along with his bearded and bespectacled son Jack can be seen mixing with the performing clowns and trapeze artists in The Day the Clowns Left (77 x 61 cm ) (below) as well as a pair of giraffes who rubberneck into the frame. Great Yarmouth Hippodrome was built in 1903 by the legendary Circus showman George Gilbert. Its Britain's only surviving total circus building, one of only three in the world. The painting's title alludes to the fact that clowns are to be dropped from the performing artists of the Hippodrome Circus, because they are considered too scary these days for family audiences.

Another leading figure in Yarmouth's cultural life, the artist John Kiki, a founding member of the 'Yarmouth six’ art-group is portrayed in On the Corner (below) with its grinning coffee-cup faces, vertical word COLUMBIA and surly-looking seagull peering from behind it.  John Kiki can be seen standing beside a yellow van in the lower right corner of the canvas, while in the lower left  corner stands a hill-top Greek village, a visual reference to Yarmouth’s long-established Cypriot-Greek community.

Rodulfo’s Quayside view of Yarmouth (below) far from either a pastiche or homage to Jan Vermeer’s famous View of Delft (1661) simply highlights an intuitive artistic perception - that Vermeer’s Delft and Yarmouth town share distinctive qualities of light, as well as cloud formations; both towns being situated on low land encompassed by water with a  full hemisphere of sky above (major contributing factors for Norfolk’s famed sunsets).

The skilful reproduction of cloud and sky reflected in the river Yare in Quayside view of Yarmouth is of particular note. The artist  himself stating of this  quayside view -

'I just thought the view is beautiful, but most people would walk by without a glance, as I am sure Vermeer’s contemporaries did, when walking past his view of Delft'.


Great Yarmouth itself is no back-water in British art history. Almost every major artist of the Norwich School of Painters which flourished exactly two centuries ago has an association with Yarmouth. Many Norwich School artists visited Yarmouth in order to paint beach and marine subjects; others, such as J.S.Cotman, resided in the Town attempting to make a precarious living, other Norwich School artists such as Joseph Stannard embarked from Yarmouth in order to view major art-collections such as the ‘Golden Age’ Dutch masters on display in Amsterdam; later in his short life the tubercular Stannard was sent to Yarmouth by family and friends in hope that the salubrious sea-air would restore his health. For many years John Crome visited Yarmouth weekly as an art- teacher for many years, he also sailed from the sea-port in order to view art-treasures on display in Paris plundered by Napoleon in various victorious campaigns.

In Yarmouth Market Place (148 x 117 cm)(below) the vibrancy of one of England's oldest and largest marketplaces is represented through swirling activity and a cheerful and pleasing tonal palette. Market produce of fruit and vegetables, flowers and clothes, along with  gangways and shoppers, are all depicted in what may be termed Rodulfo's multi-layered perspective. Gate-crashing into the picture are two seagulls, near ubiquitous to Yarmouth town, one humorous, the other slightly threatening. They also contribute to the general hustle and bustle of Yarmouth Market Place, and can be seen in various other paintings of Peter Rodulfo's wholly original Yarmouth Collection.

   'Just one sniff and you'd wish you were one huge nose!'

Evidence can be found in the collected writings of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-82) that each and every one of the  seventeenth century Norwich physician's five senses were well-developed and refined, yet also restrained. His penning of 'Notes on the cookery of the Ancients' in an age of few pleasures, with its passionate utterance-

' I wish we knew more clearly the aids of the ancients, their sauces, flavours, digestives, tasties, slices, cold meats, and all kinds of pickles. Yet I do not know whether they would have surpassed salted sturgeons’ eggs, anchovy sauce, or our royal pickles. [1] 

suggests he enjoyed the sensory pleasure of taste, whilst his fathering of eleven children hints of his being not totally immune to the most basic pleasures derived from the sense of touch.

Of the higher senses, the innate musicality of Browne's prose, in particular the discourse Urn-Burial (1658), with its 'vast rolling undulations of  sound' along with the hymn-like final paragraphs of its diptych companion discourse The Garden of Cyrus testify to Browne's possessing a good ear for rhythm and harmony, fundamentals of music-making, whilst his declaring -

I can look a whole day with delight at a handsome picture, though it be but of an horse'. [2]

along with his appreciation of the beautiful in art and nature, usage of highly original optical imagery and many perspicacious botanical observations are each strong evidence of a sharp-eyed visual sense.   

As with his other senses, there's evidence that Browne's olfactory sense was acute.  In each of his major writings reference to smell can be found, either in a medical capacity as a physician and early Scientist, or as olfactory imagery in his prose. 

Browne's era was one in which primitive sanitation, numerous diseases and variable personal hygiene standards thrived. For these reasons,  like many others, he was highly appreciative of fragrances. It is quite difficult for us today to imagine  the intensity of the various malodorous smells of his day. Many of the smells of Browne's era are now long lost to the sanitized and relative odourlessness of modern life. 

Its worthwhile reminding ourselves of a few basic biological facts. The nose is a sensory organ constantly exposed to the environment; its 50 million receptors are the only part of the brain which are not encased within the skull. The nose constantly receives impressions, many of which are involuntarily. Smell is capable of awakening and unlocking long forgotten memories of specific places, times and feelings. Smell can also evoke extremely strong feelings, ranging from disgust and repugnance to well-being and euphoria. The role of pheromones in sexual attraction is now well recorded, while the nose's 'intuitive deductive' capacity was of paramount importance to early man in distinguishing between edible food and warning away from poisonous substances. But although the nose is capable of differentiating between thousands of different smells, the sense of smell remains the least understood of all the senses, in particular its relationship to emotion and memory. There is no theory yet which can entirely explain olfactory perception.

One of the earliest studies on smell was by the Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus (c. 371-287 BCE) who wrote a tract entitled 'On Odours'. Olfactory descriptions abound in the Deipnosophistae or 'Banquet of the philosophers' by Athenaeus (circa 200 CE), a favourite read of Browne's by all accounts [3] whilst the Latin word 'Sagacious', originally meant not only clever but also possessing a keen sense of smell.

Although smell, or  more accurately, scent was extensively used in the rituals of religious worship in the ancient world, early Christians and later those of a Puritan persuasion, associated perfumes and highly scented fragrances with the Roman Empire which had persecuted their religion, so they often censored and disapproved of the usage of incense in ritual worship and personal use.

Renaissance Scholars and poets were aware that olfactory imagery was employed in Classical Greek and Roman literature in order to describe beauty, ugliness, moral worth and virtue. Olfactory imagery can be found in the writings of many English literary figures including Shakespeare, along with Browne's contemporaries, Milton, Donne, Herbert and Herrick.

In the twentieth century the power of smell has been explored by writers such as Marcel Proust, and more recently by Patrick Suskind in his novel Perfume (1985). The artist Guy Bleus (born 1950) is credited as one of the first to systematically use scents in the plastic arts. In 1978 he wrote the olfactory manifesto The Thrill of Working with Odours in which he deplored the lack of interest in scents in the visual arts. Since then he has exhibited smell paintings, mailed perfumed objects and made aromatic installations; he also created spray performances in which he sprayed a mist of fragrance over his audience.

Browne's first usage of olfactory imagery can be found in his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643), in this particular case in order to illustrate a paradox of the human condition, the conflict between the emotions and reason, a subject not without relevance in much current-day political debate. 

'In all disputes, so much as there is of passion, so much there is of nothing to the purpose, for then reason like a bad hound spends upon a false sent, and forsakes the question first started. [4]

In his quirky encyclopaedic endeavour Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) Browne  makes one of the earliest modern scientific observations on smell. He notes that every man may have a proper and peculiar savour; that the sense of smell is acuter in dogs than man, and that the Greek philosopher Theophrastus recorded Alexander the Great to be sweet-smelling. After speculating upon how diet and ill-health may make some people smell unpleasant, the learned physician vigorously attacks  a common belief of his era that any single Nation of people can smell bad, in particular, the anti-semitic slander. Using two of the three determinators to ascertain truth, namely Reason and Experience, Browne argues that such a belief is irrational and a harmful prejudice. [5]

It was the Renaissance alchemist-physician Paracelsus (1493-1541) who urged the medical practitioner to enquire into the properties of Nature, thus when a Spermaceti whale was reported beached upon the Norfolk coast, Browne duly set off from Norwich to investigate it. In a famous descriptive chapter, which incidentally influenced the American author Herman Melville's description of a whale in 'Moby Dick', Browne wrote of the putrefying Spermaceti carcass-

'But had we found a better account and tolerable Anatomy, of that prominent jowle of the Spermaceti Whale , then questary operation, or the stench of the last cast upon our shoar, permitted, we might have perhaps discovered some handsome order in those Net-like seases and sockets, made like honey-combs, containing that medicall matter'. [6]

Browne's scientific investigation however was thwarted by 'insufferable fetour denying that enquiry', the creature's 'abominable scent'  agitating the physician's olfactory sensibility. Browne concludes his chapter upon the Spermaceti whale with learned humour, thus-

And yet if, as Paracelsus encourageth, Ordure makes the best Musk, and from the most fetid substances may be drawn the most odoriferous Essences; all that had not Vespasian Nose, might boldly swear, here was a subject fit for such extractions. [ 7]

Browne's allusion to Vespasian's nose [8] originates from an anecdote recorded in Suetonius's Lives of the Caesars. When Titus, the son of the Roman Emperor Vespasian, complained to his father of a tax he'd imposed upon public Urinals Vespasian showed Titus a coin from the first day's tax, then asked him, 'Does it smell bad my son ?' Titus replied, 'No father!' To which Vespasian allegedly retorted, 'That's odd it comes straight from the Urinal!'

Its also in Pseudodoxia Epidemica  that an early reference by Browne to plastic surgery upon the nose occurs in the passing remark- 'we might abate the Art of Taliacotius, and the new in-arching of Noses'. [9] 

This remark is explained thus - 'An early form of plastic surgery, as it were: surgical grafting, especially of noses. Such operations were fairly common and quite successful'. [10]

Smell, or more precisely, fragrance is quite naturally featured in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) in which Dr. Browne lyrically exclaims-

...whereto agreeth the doctrine of Theophrastus. Arise O North-wind, and blow thou South upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out; For the North-wind closing the pores, and shutting up the effluviums, when the South doth after open and relax them; the Aromatical gums do drop, and sweet odours fly actively from them. [11]

Numerous botanical observations are placed at the heart and central chapter of The Garden of Cyrus - including an observation indicative of Browne's appreciation of the olfactory sense -

'That the richest odour of plants, surpasseth that of Animals may seem of some doubt, since animal-musk, seems to excel the vegetable, and we find so noble a scent in the Tulip-Fly, and Goat-Beetle'. [12]

The Garden of Cyrus concludes with what has been described as one of the most eloquent expressions of the simple medical fact that the sense of smell is diminished in sleep-

'Nor will the sweetest delight of Gardens afford much comfort in sleep; wherein the dullness of that sense shakes hands with delectable odours'; [13]

Finally, late in his life, Browne wrote a highly unusual work entitled Museum Clausum, (circa 1675) an inventory of lost, rumoured and imagined books, pictures and objects conjured from the learned philosopher-physician's rich and fertile imagination. One particular object listed in miscellaneous tract 13 suggests that Browne recognised and identified smell's ability to alter consciousness; it also alludes to 'both the Indies' mentioned by Browne's contemporary, the alchemist Thomas Vaughan (1621-1665) when  writing-

'He who journeys through this great and wide sea may touch at both Indies.' [14]

The 'union of the Indies' is a lesser-known symbol of totality in alchemy which is commented upon by the psychologist C.G.Jung thus  -

'As I have explained elsewhere, it leads to the four quarters, here indicated by the two Indies - East, West, - and by the turning of the compass to the north'. [15]

Accompanied by a slightly modified quotation by the Roman poet Catullus, included amongst Browne's 'Antiquities and Rarities of several sorts' includes the bizarre curio of - 

'18. A transcendent Perfume made of the richest Odorates of both the Indies, kept in a Box made of the Muschie Stone of Niarienburg, with this Inscription -

Just one sniff, Fabullus, and you'd wish you were one huge nose ! [16]


 *     *    *    *    *    *    *    *     *    *    *    *    *       *    *    *      

This post is dedicated to the Brunonian scholar Dr. Kevin Killeen with thanks for his illuminating talk on Thomas Browne, 'the cusp of Life and Death' delivered at the Chapel, Park Lane, Norwich on June 27th, 2018.


Notes

[1]   Link to Notes on cookery of the ancients
[2] Religio Medici Part 2 Section 11
[3] Several books by Theophrastus are listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Dr. Browne and his son Edward's libraries, as is Athenaeus whom Browne writes of in his Latin essay (translated) 'From a Reading of Athenaeus'
[4] R.M. Part 2 Section 3
[5] P.E. book 4 chapter 10
[6] P.E. book 3 chapter 26
[7] Ibid.
[8] In Religio Medici Browne states, 'What a βατροχομυομαχία, and hot skirmish is betwixt S. and T. in Lucian?' (R.M. Part 2 Section 3) The new edition of Browne's Selected Writings edited Kevin Killeen (OUP 2013) corrects the misprint  in C.A. Patrides  Major Works Penguin 1977  from 'Note' to  'nose'.
[9]  P.E. Book 3 chapter 9
[10]  James Eason, webmaster of the excellent University of Chicago Browne online site.
[11] The Garden of Cyrus Chapter 4
[12] The Garden of Cyrus Chapter 3
[13] The Garden of Cyrus Chapter 5
[14] quoted by Jung in 'Aion' Cw vol. 9 ii para. 206
[15] Ibid.
[16] Museum Clausum (1686)

See also

Carl Jung and Browne

Browne on Art and Paintings

The unique combination of portraiture and North Sea magic realism art by the established artists Mark Burrell and David Gooch is currently on show at Skippings Gallery, King Street, Great Yarmouth, until the end of  September.

This is the very first time the two friends have exhibited together since first meeting twenty years ago, although they've given each other constructive criticism of each other's art throughout the decades. Indeed, Mark Burrell says of David Gooch - ‘He has one of the sharpest pair of eyes I know and can always spot a weak point in a painting even if its only half a centimetre wide’.

In a harmonious synchronization of perspective and geometry, imagination and intimate feeling, Burrell’s relatively large-scale work Girl at the Window (90 x 80 cm) depicts a young girl with her back to the viewer, caught in a moment of quiet reflection, gazing upon an extensive landscape. She looks towards the setting sun and a small tidal island; a craggy rock with a house, gothic in architectural style, is perched upon its grassy knoll. Surrounded by an extensive estuary, a viaduct connects island to mainland. A crescent moon appears in the twilight.

As often in his art, a spectacular cloudscape is depicted. Though highly-stylized, Burrell's cloudscape is based upon close observation by the artist, in particular, the refractive light upon clouds at sunset. The setting sun, located with pinpoint precision on the horizon, greatly enhances the carefully calculated perspective of the canvas. A cat and  flowers placed in a vase upon the window-sill emphasise the feminine domesticity of the scene. A slightly darker element, linking the gothic architecture of the mysterious island house occurs in the form of a pair of shadowy, twin portraits which frame each side of  window. 

‘It was reworked from a canvas 40 years ago. The Salvador Dali influence has now gone, the Dali bread became a girl, and the Vermeer jug turned into a cat. The figure just grew, it wasn’t there before in the old painting; it was isolated, full of decay. There are  paintings by Caspar  David Friedrich and Salvador  Dali entitled ‘A Girl at Window’, but neither of these has the shape or colour or feeling I was after, which was all about light, and the landscape being inside and outside being connected, not solitary.

‘While Friedrich’s Girl at the Window deals with the body in relationship to a cold interior, I, however, was thinking more about the psychology of landscape connecting inner and outer space, and of course a landscape without a figure can create such silence in a work.  This is nature abundant and happy meaning,  no longer afraid and depressed but thankful to be alive in the world, so it’s a landscape about mental states, then and now, and is autobiographical.’

Symbolically speaking a view from a window is a change or alteration in perspective (from a closed wall  indoors to being presented with a framed view) and hence its suggestive of an alteration or change of awareness or consciousness, a necessary adjutant to all mental and spiritual growth.

A tentative Jungian interpretation would suggest the canvas alludes to a psychological achievement, that of recognition and integration of the anima  (inner feminine within male psyche) to the self. This is expressed in the painting's imagery in the relationship between the unknown girl gazing upon the house perched upon a rock, its central focal point being mandala-like in the fantastic landscape.

The island, in particular, one composed half of rock and half of architectural design is a good symbol of the Self, which also consists of the known and unknown, of raw nature and refined culture.

Burrell is not only familiar with Jungian psychology, but also with a 20th century English author who wrote extensively on spiritual matters, stating-

The unusual topographical features of St.Michael's mount in Cornwall and St. Michel's mount in Normandy, France are both landscapes suggestive of  spiritual sanctuary, as does the fantastic landscape and intimate vision depicted in Mark Burrell's Girl at the Window. 

Mark Burrell’s distinctive tonal palette, skilful draughtsmanship  and meticulous attention to detail is clearly visible in each and every one of the paintings in this Skippings exhibition. Equally adept in realism, as his portraits demonstrate, as in his realisation of magical landscapes inhabited by strange, yet somehow familiar characters, the wide spectrum of Burrell’s subject-matter now ranges from his native Lowestoft, to the caricaturing of international politics, to the highest flights of imagination, creating a personalised microcosm in which emotion and feeling are heightened through a highly original colour palette; a flourishing field of vision no less. 

Once considered to be the 'ultimate oddity’ of Thomas Browne's collected writings, the late miscellaneous tract  Musaeum Clausum (Sealed Museum) is now seen as evidence of the physician-philosopher possessing a versatile imagination and a sly sense of humour in his last years. Ever the consummate literary showman, Browne announces to an unknown correspondent that his Musaeum Clausum consists of, ‘some remarkable Books, Antiquities, Pictures and Rarities of several kinds, scarce or never seen by any man now living'. [1]

The first section of Musaeum Clausum is a scholastic wish-list of books rumoured to exist which Browne would like to read, such as the writings of the Chinese philosopher Confucius translated into Spanish. Browne's one-line inventory of book-titles anticipates the Argentinian magic realism author Jorge Luis Borges's declaration that, 'to write vast books is a laborious nonsense. Much better is to offer a summary, as if those books actually existed.'

Musaeum Clausum's ‘Rarities of Pictures’ section features exotic locations such as the Arctic and desert along with physiognomic coincidences, random reproductions and optical art. In 2016 the North Sea magic realism artists, Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell each realized a highly-polished artwork from the skeletal sketches of  Rarities of Pictures' [2]

In the final section, 'Antiquities and Rarities of several sorts' Browne lampoons some of the improbable artefacts of doubtful provenance collected by the undiscerning of his era. He also subtly mocks the outlandish claims of those engaged in alchemical experiments, with his own bizarre curio in the curtain-falling ‘rarity’ of-

'A Glass of Spirits made of Æthereal Salt, Hermetically sealed up, kept continually in quick-silver; of so volatile a nature that it will scarce endure the Light, and therefore only to be shown in Winter, or by the light of a Carbuncle, or Bononian Stone'.

Before revealing the medical nature of Dr. Browne’s ‘ethereal salt’ and exploring the labyrinthine symbolism of salt in alchemy, it's worthwhile looking a little closer at  Browne's curio, as it names two of the 'deities' closely associated with alchemy, Hermes and his counterpart, Mercurius.

The term 'hermetically sealed up' is a great example of how the opaque language of the alchemystical philosophers metamorphosed into early chemistry terminology. The term originates from the Egypto-Greek god Hermes and his magic ability to seal treasure chests so that no-one could access their contents. In the early days of the chemical process of distillation, the ability to make an airtight seal was highly valued and the secret of the seal was a  closely guarded one.

Hermetic philosophers such as Browne believed in the wisdom of the mythic Hermes Trismegistus, even after it was proved the Corpus Hermeticum originated from the early Christian era, and was not penned by the legendary Hermes Trismegistus in ancient Egyptian times.

Browne boldly states his subscribing to the tenets of Hermetic philosophy in Religio Medici  thus -‘The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of Hermes’. [3]
The very title Musaeum Clausum itself may allude to a Hermetic publication. As a keen bibliophile Browne kept up-to-date with forthcoming publications and may well have known that the alchemical anthology Musaeum Hermeticum, which first saw light in 1625 was reprinted in Latin in 1678.

The word 'Glass' in Browne's curio is synonymous with the alchemical apparatus of the Vessel, Vas, or philosopher's egg. Its modern chemistry equivalent is the distillation retort. [4]

The word clausum is also closely associated with alchemy, C.G. Jung reminding us that - ‘The vas bene clausum (well-sealed vessel) is a precautionary measure very frequently mentioned in alchemy’. Jung als0 reminds us in words applicable to both the inner, psychic process within the alchemist (i.e. the mind/ vessel) as much as the  outer, physical world and experimental process in the laboratory, that - ‘The adept must always take care to keep the Hermetic vessel well sealed, in order to prevent what is in it from flying away’. [5]

Hermes lends his name not only to the solitary figure of the spiritual searcher, the hermit, but also to the winged Mercury, the god of communication and  trickster figure who assisted with revelation or thwarted the adept in their search for gold. Known today as mercury, Quicksilver was so named from its seemingly living properties, ('quick' being an early English word for alive or living). Because of its peculiar properties, being a liquid metal which contracted and expanded when exposed to cold and heat, as capable of division as easily as reunifying itself, the chemical substance of mercury acted as play-dough upon the imagination of the alchemist when experimenting with its properties in the laboratory.

The alchemist's encounter with the numinous through unconscious psychological projection upon substances and processes whilst engaged in experiment are well-illustrated in Browne’s declaring in Religio Medici -

‘I have often beheld as a miracle, that artificial resurrection and revivification of Mercury, how being mortified into thousand shapes, it assumes again its own, and returns into its numerical self’. [6]


Salt is the only mineral rock eaten by man. Its a substance which man valued enough to risk his life and labour in dangerous mining conditions in order to acquire.  One of the oldest and most ubiquitous of all food seasonings, salt has a dual nature—preserving and corrupting, its also a disinfectant, a component of ceremonial offerings, and was once a unit of value exchange. During the Roman era, salt was  used as a form of currency, from the custom of paying soldiers in pieces of compressed salt (the word ‘salary’ originates from  salārium, ‘salt money’) hence also the phrase: ‘to be worth one’s salt’. Man’s relationship to salt has generated enormous poetic and mythic meaning, not least when promoted in  importance by the alchemist-physician Paracelsus.

Above all others, it was Paracelsus (1493-1541) with his advocation of chemical-based alchemy who influenced the development of medicine during the Renaissance and beyond. Paracelsus urged physicians to investigate nature in order to discover new  properties in the mineral, botanical and animal kingdoms whose extracted ‘essences’ could be potentially useful for healing. In Paracelsus’s voluminous writings there can also be found a moralist and theologian as profound and radical as the Reformation figure of Martin Luther (1483-1546).

Taking his cue from the Persian alchemist, Rhazes (854–925 CE) who suggested that metals contained a third, salty component, Paracelsus added to the alchemical duality of sulphur and mercury a third element, salt, perhaps in imitation of the Christian Trinity. Paracelsus maintained that everything is made out of philosophical mercury, sulphur and salt, though without abandoning the ancient Greek schemata of the four elements, effectively giving alchemists two schemata to play, speculate and experiment upon.

Paracelsus’s stress upon the importance of salt in the alchemical triad greatly influenced his followers. Martin Ruland the elder's Lexicon Alchemiae (1612), once in Browne's library, lists a bewildering number of salts, including Sal Sapientia, the salt of the wise. Ruland’s Paracelsian advocacy of Salt can be seen in his stating-

'Therefore, he that understands the Salt and its solution possesses the wisdom of the ancients. Therefore, place your whole reliance on the Salt. Count nothing else of importance. For Salt by itself is the most important secret which all the Wise have thought proper to conceal'. [7]

Astoundingly Ruland even asserts - 'The Salt of the Philosophers is the Stone of the Philosophers', as well as mentioning  a 'Salt of Universal Harmony'. [8]

Paracelsus’s promotion of salt, along with its multifaceted qualities and many symbolic associations, attracted various alchemystical philosophers and early chemists to philosophize upon and experiment with salt, sometimes mixing philosophy, religious insight, medicine and laboratory work indeterminately, as in Johann Glauber's De Salium Natura (On the Nature of Salt).

From the ancient Greek Pythagoreans who called the sea the 'tear of Kronos', because of its 'bitter saltness' to the late Renaissance chemist and alchemist Johannes Baptista Van Helmont (1579-1644) who believed that volatile salts composed the vital spirit or the breath of animals and plants, Salt has featured in the speculations of philosophers, alchemists and early modern chemists alike.  Indeed, it has been said that 'salt chymistry' is pivotal to the study of the inter-relationship between chemistry, natural history, physiology and medical sciences in the early modern period. [9]

In one of the six door-step size volumes of the alchemical anthology Theatrum Chemicum  (The Chemical Theatre) once in his vast library, Browne would have had his curiosity aroused when reading-

'But if Thales of Miletus chose to call that stone of Hercules, the magnet, an animate thing, because we see it attract and move iron, why shall we not likewise call salt, which in wonderous wise penetrates, purges, contracts, expands, hinders, and reduces a living thing?’  [10]

In the alchemical anthology 'The Rose-Garden of the Philosophers' (Rosarium Philosophorum, c.1550) one reads-

'Who therefore knows the salt and its solution knows the hidden secret of the wise men of old. Therefore turn your mind upon the salt and think not of other things; for in it alone (i.e. the mind) is the science concealed and the most excellent and hidden secret of all the most excellent and most hidden secret of all the ancient philosophers’. [11]

C.G. Jung reminds us - 'Whenever an alchemist speaks of “salt”, he does not mean sodium chloride or any other salt, or only in a very limited sense. He could not get away from its symbolic substance, and therefore included the sal sapiente in the chemical substance.  [12]

'Salt was considered to be an arcane substance by the sixteenth and seventeenth-century alchemists, in ecclesiastical as well as alchemical usage, salt is the symbol for Sapientia and also for the distinguished or elect personality, as in 'Ye are the Salt of the earth'.  [13]

And that- 'Salt was associated with Christ through the sal sapientiae association. In antiquity salt denoted wit, good sense, good taste, etc., as well as spirit. Cicero for example remarks: “In wit [sale] and humour Caesar.....surpassed them all."  [14]

The philosophical aspect of Salt features in what is perhaps one of C.G. Jung’s most memorable sayings. Juxtaposing two of salt's attributes, its bitterness with sal sapiente, the salt of the wise, to make the profound spiritual observation-

'Tears, sorrow, and disappointment are bitter, but wisdom is the comforter in all psychic suffering. Indeed, bitterness and wisdom form a pair of alternatives: where there is bitterness wisdom is lacking, and where wisdom is there can be no bitterness'. [15]

In Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72) Browne notes the place of salt in folklore, in religious ceremonies and the Bible. Salt also features in Pseudodoxia in the chapter entitled Of Crystall and in several of Browne's 'chymical operations', including his experiment as to whether magnetism increases or decreases in fresh or salty water/

Its when speculating upon the origins and causes of colour that Browne displays his familiarity with the primary concept of Paracelsian alchemy, stating -‘The Chymists have laudably reduced their causes unto Sal, Sulphur, and Mercury'. [16]

As a medical doctor Browne knew, as he states in Pseudodoxia - 'there being in everything we eat, a natural and concealed salt, which is separated by digestions, and doth appear in our tears, sweat and urines, although we refrain all salt, or what doth seem to contain it’. [17]

Well-informed of events in the medical world, Browne certainly also knew of the success his contemporary Johann Glauber (1604-1670) had with salt. The German-Dutch alchemist and chemist Johann Glauber was the first to produce salt extracted from Hungarian spring water. This naturally occurring salt is water soluble, has a bitter taste, and is sometimes used in medicine as a mild laxative; it's also used in dyeing. Glauber's salt, the common name for sodium sulfate, occurs as white or colorless crystals which upon exposure to fairly dry air effloresces, forming a powdery  sodium sulfate. Glauber’s production of sodium sulfate, which he called sal mirabilis or "wonderful salt", was an effective but relatively safe laxative and a popular alternative to purging (emptying the digestive tract being a treatment for many diseases) which brought him fame and the honour of it being named "Glauber's salt".

Browne was aware of Glauber's Salts not only from his owning a copy of Glauber's De Salium Natura  but also from his eldest son Edward Browne (1644-1708) who visited 'old Glauber' while in Amsterdam in 1668 on his travels, and dutifully informed his father of the fact in correspondence. [18]

Alchemist-physicians such as Paracelsus and Glauber paved the way for future advances in medicine in their experiments with the properties of salt. The medical world began using saline around 1831. Today saline solution, a mixture of sodium chloride in water has several uses. Applied to an affected area its used to clean wounds and to treat dehydration from illnesses such as gastroenteritis and diabetic ketoacidosis, as well as used to dilute medications to be given by injection. In alternative medicine the light emitted by crystal rock lamps is believed to have therapeutic benefits and currently is a popular form of home lighting. Its also known today that excessive consumption of salt is the cause of many serious medical conditions including high blood pressure.

Its in Pseudodoxia Epidemica that clues to the true nature of Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' can be found. Adhering to the Paracelsian principle of the three primary substances of nature, namely sulphur, mercury and salt, Browne writes-

'For beside the fixed and terrestrious Salt, there is in natural bodies a Sal niter referring unto Sulphur; there is also a volatile or Armoniack Salt, retaining unto Mercury; by which Salts the colours of bodies are sensibly qualified, and receive degrees of lustre or obscurity, superficiality or profundity, fixation or volatility. [19]


Dr. Browne's 'ethereal Salt' is in fact none other than medicinal smelling salts for sal volitalis was the alchemist's name for ammonium chloride. It's alluded to here by Browne as  'Armoniack Salt'.

Chaucer knew of sal ammoniac, and mentions it  along with sublimed mercury, vitriol, saltpetre,  arsenic and brimstone in his Canon Yeoman's Tale. An early form of smelling salts or sal ammoniac was Salt of hartshorn (ammonium carbonate). Hartshorn salt, also known simply as hartshorn, and baker's ammonia was used in the seventeenth century as a forerunner of baking powder, but there can be little doubt that Browne’s interest in Sal Volitalis, was of a medical nature and not for baking.  One can be confident Dr. Browne's 'ethereal salt' is smelling salt, for in his commonplace notebooks there are notes on how to prepare harthorn, the active ingredient for the manufacture of Sal Volitalis.

'As is observable in gums, hartshorn...... Wherein it is presumable the water may also imbibe some part of the volatile salt.... in half a pint of jelly of hartshorn there is not above two drachms......Much hartshorn is therefore lost in the usual decoction of hartshorn in shavings and raspings, where the greater part is cast away.......The calcination of hartshorn by vapour of water is a neat invention, but whether much of the virtue be not impaired, while the vapour insinuating into the horn hath carried away the tenacious parts and made it butter' [20]

Smelling salts release ammonia gas, which triggers an inhalation reflex, irritating the mucous membranes of the nose and lungs, effectively rousing someone who has fainted or suffered a shock, back into consciousness. In an age of violent social change and Civil War, when news of fortunes and lives lost was frequent, there'd have been call for Dr. Browne to revive those who had fainted from bad news, during pregnancy or even from excessive blood-letting.

In alchemy Volatilis, the Latin word for flying, was how the alchemists described the vaporous fumes rising from their distillation vessel. In alchemical symbolism the fixed and the volatile are depicted as a pair of birds, one wingless, the other with wings, that is, one bird able to fly, the other grounded and 'fixed'. Keeping the contents of the Vessel (i.e. the mind)  'fixed' was one of the alchemist's great challenges, and often disaster struck during their 'chymical operations' and their endeavours came to nothing.

C.G. Jung recognised that the inner, psychic processes within the alchemist and the outer, ongoing experimental process in the laboratory often cross-reference and transformed each other ; the 'volatile essence'  preserved in the vessel, i.e. the psyche and its precious content of individuation, being vulnerable to 'flying away' -

‘The volatile essence so carefully shut up and preserved in the Hermetic vessel of the unio mentalis could not be left to itself for a moment, because this elusive Mercurius would then escape and return to its former nature, as, according to the testimony of the alchemists, not infrequently happened’. [21]

Browne’s fixation upon the Quincunx pattern in The Garden of Cyrus (1658) may be interpreted psychologically as none other than a symbol of totality and wholeness, the Unio mentalis or United Mind of the alchemists. The Quincunx assumes a spiritual significance in The Garden of Cyrus as Browne's personal mandala, the symbol agent through which he believed he'd been permitted divine revelation, a glimpse into Nature's highest arcana and thus acquire Unio mentalis or United Mind, defined by C.G. Jung as the union of spirit with soul.

Remarkably, C.G.Jung states- 'The quinarius or Quino (in the form of 4 + 1 i.e. Quincunx) does occur as  as symbol of wholeness (in China and occasionally in alchemy) but relatively rarely'. [22]



The ‘Disappointed Alchemists’ club

It's possible Thomas Browne had someone specific in mind when conjuring his image of a volatile 'ethereal salt’. The alchemist Sir Robert Paston, resident at Oxnead Hall, some dozen miles north of Norwich (not quite Browne’s neighbour geographically) wrote to him about his laboratory experiments in April 1669 -

Honoured Sir, On Saturday night last, going into my laboratory, I found some of the adrop (that had been run four or five times in the open air, and every time its aetherial attracted spirits drawn from it) congealed to a hard candied substance......Upon about half a pound of this I cohabated some of its aetherial spirit, which it notwithstanding tinged red, and I am now drawing it again, for I think I had better have exposed it in its consistence to the open air again.....and by grinding, exposing, and distilling, it may at last go a white and spiss water, such an one as philosophers look after, or at least be fit to receive, and to be actuated with (....) and saline parts of the aetherial spirit, when that operation comes in hand if  it affords us any that way. [23]

And again in September 1674-

'I have little leisure and less convenience to try anything here, yet my own salt will set me on work, having now arrived to this that I can with four drachmes of it dissolve a drachme of leaf gold...  I am going to seal up two glasses, one of the menstruum with gold dissolved in it, and another of the menstruum per se, and to put them in an athanor, to see if they will putrefy, or what alteration will happen. I have at Oxnead  seen this salt change black as ink, I must, at the lowest, have an excellent aurum potable, and if the signs we are to judge in Sendivogius’ description be true, I have the key which answers to what he says, that if a man has that which will dissolve gold as warm water doth ice, you have that which gold was first made in the earth'. [24]

In his brilliant study on the 17th century painting known as The Paston Treasure Spike Bucklow notes-

'Paston was assisted in his laboratory by Thomas Henshaw (1618–1700) (who used the pen-name "Halophilus" meaning ‘salt-lover’). Together they  attempted to discover a formula for the fabled "red elixir", another name for the philosopher's stone, which alchemists believed could transmute base metals into gold'. [25]

And - ‘So, Sir Robert's recipe for 'Manna' was playing with extraordinary potent cosmic forces. It all hinged upon a mysterious salt that mediated between the 'fixed' and the 'volatile'. Clues to the exact identity of that salt lay hidden in the maze and opinions varied. Brickenden gave Sir Robert details of 'a salt for infinite health and riches' that could be gathered from drops of dew gathered in May. But many, including Charles II's alchemist, thought the 'universal salt' was gunpowder's key ingredient - saltpetre. Sir Robert's recipe for making salt,  Spiritus salis, was evidently important because he wrote it in Latin. [26]

Like Robert Paston who suffered a  'whirlpool of misfortunes’, Browne in his old age may, for want of a better description be described as a ‘disappointed alchemist’ that is, one who devoted less time on alchemical experiment and more time in prayer and meditation.  As Spike Bucklow perceptively puts it-

'Alchemy was not suddenly found to be ‘wrong’, but the Norwich science of Arthur Dee, Thomas Browne and Robert Paston was quietly sidelined by the London science of the Royal Society. The differences were mainly social and political. The Norwich practitioners read signs, like Polynesian canoeists, Yarmouth fishermen and Navy tars, the London practitioners started to use instruments and charts, like naval officers'. [27]

The Paracelsian neologism ‘Spagyricci inscribed on Browne’s coffin-plate supplies the true nature of Browne’s alchemy. As ever, Martin Ruland, a physician who served the esoteric-loving Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, assists enquiry with his Lexicon Alchemiae (1612)  definitions of -

SPAGIRIA - 'The Spagyric Art, is that which treats of the separation of the pure from the impure, so that after the refuse matter has been rejected, the virtue which remains can operate. It is the Art of Distilling and Separating'.

Browne's moral probity is well-defined by the next entry of -

SPAGIRUS– 'Any man who can separate the true from the false, set the good apart from the bad, and the pure from the impure, rejecting duality and cleaving to unity'. [28]

Technically speaking, Browne was a spagyricist, that is, one who believed that the calcined essences of plants could be useful in medicine. Historically speaking, the spagyrists were active just before the iatrochemists, the true beginning of purely chemical medicine, as opposed to those searching for hidden 'quintessences'  extracted from the natural world.

Browne’s continental medical education acclimatised him towards Paracelsian medicine to a far greater degree than many of his British contemporaries. Some have suggested  he was unsympathetic to Paracelsian medicine, but the long list of books by continental Paracelsian physicians, an edition of the complete works of the Swiss physician listed in Browne’s library, the Paracelsian neologism 'Spagyricci’ inscribed upon his coffin-plate, and the many references to the Swiss physician in Browne’s writings, all suggest otherwise. Although often critical of mystical aspects of Paracelsian thought, Browne was a follower of Paracelsus, a highly-critical follower, but follower nonetheless.
An even closer analogy to Browne's science than Paracelsus, can be found in the ideas of the Belgian chemist, alchemist and physician Jan Baptist van Helmont (1580-1644). Van Helmont, like Browne, is a transitional figure in the history of science. Though Van Helmont was skeptical of specific mystical theories, dismissing much of Paracelsian mysticism, nevertheless he refused to discount magical forces as a valid explanation for some natural phenomena. Van Helmont, like Browne regarded all science and wisdom to be a gift from God. Browne's estimate of Van Helmont along with Paracelsus, can be seen in his stating in his late work Christian Morals -

'many would be content that some would write like Helmont or Paracelsus; and be willing to endure the monstrosity of some opinions, for divers singular notions requiting such aberrations'.  [29]

Evidence of Browne's joining the ranks of 'disappointed alchemists' can be gleaned from his late writings. Because of its alleged Egyptian origins alchemy was sometimes known as ‘Cleopatra’s Art’ amongst many other names. Browne concludes The Garden of Cyrus in disappointment at ever being unable to achieve the alchemical feat of palingenesis, that is, the revivification of a plant from it ashes.

'And though in the bed of Cleopatra can hardly with any delight, raise up the ghost of a Rose'.

Its interesting to note that the funeral ashes of Urn-Burial are 'answered' by an abundance of flowers in bloom in The Garden of Cyrus. 

Committed throughout his life to the Christian faith, Browne endorsed Christianity above alchemy as a philosophy for developing one’s inner self, when, making allusion to alchemy as 'Vulcan’s Art' he states in his late work Christian Morals-

Vulcan’s Art doth nothing in this internal Militia: wherein not the Armour of Achilles,  but the Armature of St. Paul,  gives the Glorious day. [30]

Browne's real alchemy is in the word, in particular the sonority, rhythm and symbolism of his 1658 discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus with their plexiform relationship in polarity, truth and imagery. Together they are Browne's literary philosopher's stone, of which one critic perceptively notes -

'Mystical symbolism (of this kind) is woven throughout the texture of Browne's work and adds, often subconsciously, to its associative power of impact....there is nothing vague or wooly about Browne's mysticism,...Every symbol is interrelated with the overall pattern'. [31]

Although the diptych discourses Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus (1658) appear as if two identical white crystalline substances,when 'tasted'   they differ sharply; Urn-Burial  is discovered to be the bitter salt of Christian Stoicism, a sprinkling of which is essential for spiritual well-being in the face of disease, suffering, death and the grave. ( Indeed, Salt is mentioned in Urn-Burial in Browne's description of adipocere, or grave wax, his solitary credited scientific discovery). In complete contrast, the 'light' half of the diptych The Garden of Cyrus is fructose sugar, with its excited rush of ideas, playfulness and pleasure in the sweet delights of nature. 

Today we may be skeptical of the scientific credentials and achievements of alchemists such as Paracelsus, Sir Thomas Browne or Sir Robert Paston and take their science cum granis salis, with a pinch of salt; nevertheless, their collective spirit of enquiry paved the way for future generations of scientists; we may therefore agree with Virginia Woolf -

'Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne, but those who do are the salt of the earth’.















Part 2 to follow - Of the Carbuncle and  the Bononian Stone.

Notes

[1] 'Ultimate oddity' from C.A. Patrides 'Approaches to Sir Thomas Browne': The Ann Arbor Tercentenary Lectures and Essays edited by C.A. Patrides  pub. University of Missouri 1982.

A manuscript of Musaeum Clausum was found amongst the papers of the Collector and Natural philosopher Walter Charleton (1619-1707). It may have been written for him for his delivering the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in the late 1670's.

[2] See    Four 'Rarities in pictures' from Dr. Browne's Musaeum Clausum

[3] Religio Medici  Part 1:12
[4]  Haeffner : Dictionary of Alchemy Aquarian Press 1999
[6] Religio Medici 1:46
[7] Ruland Lexicon Alchemiae. Listed in Browne's library p.22 no. 119
[8] Ibid. Other books by Paracelsian physicians in Browne's library include Theodore Turquet de Mayerne (S.C. page 25 no. 98, page 51 no. 103,104) Joseph Duchesne (S.C. page 33 no. 8 page 34 no. 63) Alexander Suchten (S.C. page 51 no. 128) Petrus Severinus (S.C. page 18 no. 50 page 20 no. 23, 24, 25, 26) John French (S.C. page 51 no. 118) Johann Glauber (S.C. page 43 no. 10) and Gerard Dorn (S.C. page 25 no. 118)

[9] ‘The Salt of the Earth: Natural Philosophy, Medicine, and Chymistry in England, 1650-1750 (History of Science and Medicine Library) Anna Marie Roos Brill 2007

[10] C.W 9 ii: 143 Jung quoting Chrysippus Theatrum Chemicum vol. 1 listed in Sales Auction Catalogue page 25 no.124
[11]  C.W  12:359
[12]  C.W  9 ii:247
[13]  C.W  9 i :575
[14]  C.W  14 :324
[15] C.W 14: 330 The bulk of Jung's writings on salt  are in his  Mysterium Coniunctionis : An Inquiry into the separation and synthesis of psychic opposites in alchemy (1955-56). Chapter 5  p.183-239.

[16] The index to Kevin Killeen's highly recommended paperback edition, the Selected writings of Thomas Browne (21st-Century Oxford Authors OUP paperback  edition 2018) With a great introduction and index which lists over 30 references to salt in Browne's writings.

Browne's experiments with salt and snow Bk. 2 chapter 1 Of Crystall.  Experiment with magnetism and salt water Bk. 2 ch.2 Concerning the Loadstone.
  
[17]  P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[18] Johann Glauber De Salium Natura S.C. page 43 no. 8 Amsterdam 1658 Keynes Selected correspondence letter no. 22  dated 22nd September 1668
[19]  P.E. Book 4 chapter 10
[20] Wilkins  1835 edition Commonplace notebook
[21]  C.W14:742
[22] C.W.  18: 1602
[23]  Wilkins 1835 edition
[24] Ibid

[25] The Anatomy of Riches:Sir Robert Paston's Treasure Spike Bucklow Reaktion Books 2018. Highly recommended.

[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28]  Martin Ruland's Lexicon Alchemiae  (1612) Sales Catalogue p. 22 no 119
[29] Christian Morals  Part 2:5
[30]  Christian Morals Part 1:24
[31] Peter Green  Sir Thomas Browne Writers and their work no. 108 Longmans, Green and Co. 1959

See also

Paracelsus and Browne

Carl Jung and Sir Thomas Browne

Notes on Pictures

*  Photo:  A Salt Crystal magnified

*  Alchemical symbols for Sulphur, Salt and Mercury.

*  Painting: -  'The unconscious Patient'.
Rembrandt's early oil painting, is one of a set of five depicting the senses completed c. 1624 or 1625. They are  among his earliest surviving works, and are identical in size. The Sense of Smell shows a physician reviving a swooning woman by placing a handkerchief soaked in a volatile salt under her nose, in order to rouse her into consciousness. It was reidentified in 2015. The whereabouts of the painting representing the sense of taste remains unknown.

*  Painting: 'An Alchemist seduced by Luxuria'  anon. circa 1580
* Photo - Alchemical flower Stand with four tubes and glowing flower of fern.       Dina Belenko Photography

The psychologist C.G. Jung reminds us that- 'Every creative person is a duality or a synthesis of contradictory qualities. On the one side he is a human being with a personal life, while on the other he is an impersonal creative process. As a human being he may be sound or morbid, and his personal psychology can and should be explained in personal terms. But he can be understood as an artist only in terms of his creative achievement'. [3]

Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell both acknowledge Richardson's influence upon  their own personal artistic development. Rodulfo recollects - 

'I first met Guy in 1980. At the time I was exhibiting at Norwich Castle Museum. Guy had  seen my work there and got in touch  with me so as to see more of my art. In due course Guy showed me his work which greatly impressed me. For some time I had been making ever more encrusted collages, and seeing Guy's work gave me the courage and inspiration to take my collages a big step forwards, in the form of three-dimensional constructions and assemblages,which in turn led on to free standing sculptures'. 

Mark Burrell, a Lowestoft neighbour of Richardson, states-

'I first saw Guy's work over 30 years ago when I was lucky enough to see a one man show by him. I was utterly spell bound by the sheer imagination of his 3D pieces, many were ornate boxes with spy-holes to peer into; within these he created great depth and all kind of imaginings. His themes over the years are many and varied, but his frank, honest and quirky depiction of human sexuality, playful and uncensored make me smile and think. 30 years later I still get a feeling of excitement when I pop round to see him and his unique work.'


Guy Richardson exhibited with Peter Rodulfo and Mark Burrell at the Tripp Gallery, London, in November 2017, attending the opening preview of the first collective North Sea Magical Realism exhibition. 

The physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82) can truly be said to have achieved worldwide fame with his inclusion in the Japanese author Natsume Sōseki’s novel Sanshirō (1908-09).

Natsume Sōseki (夏目 漱石, 1867 – 1916) is considered to be one of Japan's greatest writers. He studied at what was the Tokyo Imperial University and became Japan's first official English Literature scholar, spending two unhappy years resident in England circa 1900-2. Eventually Sōseki became a professor of English literature at Tokyo Imperial University. It would appear however, that no earlier English translation of Sanshirō was made before Jay Rubin's 2009 translation, perhaps due to negative historical/cultural reasons.

In Sōseki's semi-autobiographical coming-of-age novel, Sanshirō is a naive and dreaming student who discovers his rural upbringing to be a disadvantage in the metropolitan city of Tokyo. The early twentieth century witnessed a period of rapid industrialisation and adoption of Western ways in Japan. A photo dated circa 1905 (top) gives some indication of how rapid the industrialisation of Japan was, resulting in a certain amount of psychic dissonance, as indicated in the above photo, with both traditional costume and  modern electrification visible.

Sanshirō's class-mate Yojirō expresses the excitement of modern Tokyo when he exclaims to him - 'Get on the streetcar and ride around Tokyo ten or fifteen times. After a while it'll just happen -you'll become satisfied'.   

In what is a narrative of gentle awakening in matters of romance, sex and learning, Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia plays a small part in Sōseki's novel. It is the enigmatic scholar Professor Hiroto who makes psychological observations such as - 'Look at England. Egotism and altruism have been in perfect balance there for centuries. That's why she doesn't move. That's why she doesn't progress. The English are a pitiful lot - they have no Ibsen, no Nietzsche. They're  all puffed up like that, but look at them from the outside and you can see them hardening, turning into fossils'.

Professor Hiroto lends Sanshirō an edition of Hydriotaphia (Urn-Burial).Browne's philosophical discourse assists the youthful’s protagonist’s intellectual development, for during his meditation upon it, he witnesses a child’s funeral. The combination of Browne's stoical prose and child's funeral awakens in the dreaming student an acute awareness of his own mortality. Here's the full, relevant text, including a passage in which Browne's literary voice is likened to the lingering reverberation of a giant temple bell sounding faintly throughout the centuries, a particularly original homage.

Buddhist  Bell Temple, Nara, Japan

'He read the concluding paragraph of Hydriotaphia as he ambled down the street toward Hakusan. According to Professor Hirota, this writer was a famous stylist, and this essay the best example of his style. ‘That’s not my opinion, of course,’ he had laughingly confided. And in fact Sanshirō could not see what was so remarkable about this style, The phrasing was bad, the diction outlandish, the flow of words sluggish. It gave him the feeling of looking at some old temple. In terms of walking distance, it had taken him three or four blocks to read, and still he was not very clear about what it said'.

'What he had gained from the paragraph wore a patina of age, as if someone had rung the bell of the Great Buddha in Nara and the lingering reverberation had faintly reached his ears in Tokyo. Rather than the meaning of the passage itself, Sanshirō took pleasure in the shadow of sentiment that crept over the meaning. He had never thought keenly about death; his youthful blood was still too warm for that. A fire leapt before his eyes so gigantic that it could singe his brows, and this feeling was his true self.........'

'As he glanced in through the gate, Sanshirō twice muttered the word hydriotaphia. Of all the foreign words he had learned thus far, hydriotaphia was one of the longest and hardest. He still did not know what it meant...... Just to learn hydriotaphia was a time-consuming effort, and saying it twice caused one’s pace to slacken. It sounded like a word the ancients had devised for Professor Hirota’s personal use'.

Although Browne wrote on almost every topic under the sun,  little on the Land of the Rising Sun (Nippon) can be found in his writings, other than  mention of the Northeast passage to China and Japan, via the Arctic circle (Miscellaneous Tract 12). Browne's relative silence on Japan is reflective of Japanese insularity from Western missionaries, traders and explorers during his era. 

In May 2011, the University of East Anglia (UEA) which is located in Sir Thomas Browne's home-city of Norwich, established a new Centre for Japanese Studies. The University of East Anglia is also where the Nobel-laureate Sir Kazuo Ishiguro (b. Nagasaki, 1954) studied for his Master's degree in creative writing.  

A final connection between Japan and Sir Thomas Browne remains. One of the very first installations by the site specific installation artist Tatzu Nishi (西野達) (born 1960 Nagoya, Japan) was at the Art East International at Norwich in 1998. Using scaffolding, cladding, wood, and furniture, Nishi constructed a 'living-room' around Henry Pegram's 1905 statue of Thomas Browne, effectively allowing the Norwich philosopher-physician a brief respite from the season's weather to rest and philosophize indoors for a short while.

In 1962 at an age when most ballerinas would be considering retirement, Fonteyn embarked upon a second career, partnering the charismatic dancer Rudolf Nureyev (1938-93) who had recently defected from the USSR. The ever-astute De Valois describes her first impressions of Nureyev during his curtain-calls after his first performance in London in 1961 thus-

'I saw an arm raised with a noble dignity, a hand expressively extended with that restrained discipline which is the product of great traditional schooling. Slowly the head turned from one side of the theatre to the other, and the Slav bone-structure of the face, so beautifully modelled, made me feel like an inspired sculptor rather than the director of the Royal Ballet. I could see him clearly and suddenly in one role - Albrecht in Giselle. Then and there I decided that when he first danced for us it must be with Fonteyn in that ballet', [1]

Others wrote more dramatically of Nureyev's performance, one dance critic stating it, 'produced the shock of seeing a wild animal let loose in a drawing-room'. [2]

In her book 'Apollo's Angels: A History of Ballet' Judith Holman assesses Fonteyn and Nureyev's relationship and the reception of their first performance together in Giselle  on 21 February 1962 thus-

'At first glance, they seemed unlikely match: he was twenty-four and had a sweeping Soviet style, while she was forty-three and the paragon of English restraint. Yet together they created a potent mix of sex and celebrity that made them icons of the 1960s and "swinging" London's permissive scene:... It was pure populism, ballet for the youth generation and a mass consumer age,.. Fonteyn and Nureyev fashioned themselves into balletic rock superstars.

'How did they do it? The onstage chemistry between them has often been explained by sex: that they had it, wanted it, or suppressed it (they never told). But their partnership also stood for something much larger. In their dancing, East meets West: his campy sexuality and eroticism (heavy makeup with teased and lacquered hair) highlighted and offset her impeccable bourgeois taste. Nureyev played his role to perfection: even in the most classical of steps, he flirted with the image of the Asian potentate, and his unrestrained sensuality and tiger-like movements recalled a cliched Russian orientalism (first exploited by Diaghilev's Ballets Russe), which also linked to the escapist fantasies of 1960s middle-class youth: Eastern mysticism, revolution, sex, and drugs.

'The East was one thing; age was another. Nureyev had a gorgeous, youthful physique; Fonteyn was old enough to be her mother. And although her technique was still impressive, she looked her age. Indeed, as Fonteyn's proper 1950s woman fell into the arms of Nureyev's mod man, the generation gap seemed momentarily to close. .. Not everyone was happy with the result: the prominent American critic John Martin lamented that Fonteyn had  gone "to the grand ball with a gigolo". None of this meant , however that Nureyev was disrespectful. To the contrary, when he partnered Fonteyn he did so with supreme respect and perfect nineteenth century manners. To the British, this mattered: Fonteyn, after all, was still "like the Queen" and during the curtain-call of their first performance of Giselle, Nureyev accepted a rose from Fonteyn and then instinctively fell to his knee at her feet and covered her hand with kisses. The audience went wild'. [3]


Fonteyn spoke of Nureyev's gesture after their first performance together thus-

'It was his way of expressing genuine feelings, untainted by conventional words. Thereafter, a strange attachment formed between us which we have never been able to explain satisfactorily, and which, in a way, one could describe as a deep affection, or love, especially if one believes that love has many forms and degrees. But the fact remains that Rudolf was desperately in love with someone else at the time, and, for me, Tito is always the one with black eyes'. [4] 

More objectively, one dance-critic succinctly noted of the relationship -

'One unforeseen result of Nureyev's advent was a new lease of life for Fonteyn. Since Ulanova's retirement, she and Maya Plisetskaya of the Bolshoi shone above all rivals, but now there were sall signs of a possible end to her supremacy through declining technique and confidence. Nureyev changed all that. Responding to his highly charged stage presence, Fonteyn found a dramatic power that had previously eluded her. In place of the formerly reserved, carefully balanced dancer emerged a woman who threw herself impetuously into her roles. Consequently, she went on to many more years of recognition as a unique artist. [5]

The dancer, director, teacher and choreographer Dame Ninette De Valois (born June 6th 1898, died 2001 aged 102) had many honours bestowed upon her in her lifetime including a C.B.E. in 1947, Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (1950), D.B.E.(1951), C.H. (1981) and O.M. (1992). But perhaps it is her being awarded the Erasmus Prize in 1974 for a contribution of particular importance to Europe in the cultural or social sphere which best reflects her greatest achievement. She effectively established a British National ballet company, (The Royal Ballet), as well as founding a national ballet company for Ireland and Turkey. The deep influence which de Valois exerted upon the ballet world continues to the present-day.

Ninette de Valois first danced professionally on the stage of the Palladium in 1915 and by 1919 she had achieved the status of premiere danseuse at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, London.

De Valois in 1923

In her memoirs de Valois states that she studied for 4 years with the Italian dancer Enrico Cecchetti (1850-1925). Born in 1850 in the dressing room of the Apollo Theatre in Tordino, Italy, by 1888 Cecchetti was widely acknowledged  as the greatest male ballet virtuoso in the world. He created and performed the virtuoso role of the Blue Bird and the mime role of Carabosse in the premiere of Marius Petipa's The Sleeping Beauty in 1890. Later in life he restaged many ballets, including Petipa's definitive version of Coppélia in 1894, from which nearly all modern versions of the work are based. Indeed, de Valois' own choreography for the Royal Ballet's revival of Coppelia in 1954 is based upon Cecchetti's choreography. [1]

Enrico Cecchetti 1890

In addition to Cecchetti, de Valois was greatly influenced by the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev (1872-1929). De Valois considered Diaghilev's Ballet Russe company to be the most perfect ballet expression the theatre has ever known and Diaghilev himself to be an exemplary fusion  of  connoisseur, creative artist and scholar.

It was during de Valois' time with the Ballet Russe that Diaghilev assigned to Bronislava Nijinska the choreography of Stravinsky's Les Noces. The result combines elements of her brother's choreography for The Rite of Spring with traditional aspects of ballet, such as dancing en pointe. The following year Nijinska choreographed three new works for the company: Les biches, Les Fâcheux and Le train bleu. While attending rehearsals of Les Noces de Valois noted- 'From  this detailed study was to emerge a clear picture of the geometrical beauty of the inner structure and relationship between the music and choreography'. [2]

De Valois had the unique opportunity to learn many aspects of staging a ballet production while with the Ballet Russe. Artists of the calibre such as Picasso, Stravinsky and Matisse frequently visited the Company in rehearsal. She describes one surprise visitor during rehearsals, none other than Vaslav Nijinsky who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1919 and committed to a mental asylum. She describes him thus - 'Looking around that company where futures and pasts were stamped on features and actions, one felt the silent onlooker's present state spelt a peace that might be absent for ever from the understanding of his companions. It is important to stress the happiness that was in his face; it was as if the mind had departed in an effort to escape from the discord'. [3]

In 1931 De Valois, through the help of theatre manager Lilian Baylis (1874-1937) established a permanent ballet company at Sadler's Wells. At first the Vic-Wells ballet had only six female dancers, with Ninette de Valois herself as lead dancer and choreographer. The company performed its first full ballet production on 5 May 1931 at the Old Vic, with Anton Dolin as guest star. Its first performance at Sadler’s Wells was a few days later, on 15 May 1931.

De Valois shares this amusing anecdote about her benefactress Lilian Baylis- 'The body beautiful was her great topic; on this point she had no inhibitions. I once stood with her at the back of the Old Vic circle during a ballet performance when she informed me, in clear loud tones, that a certain male dancer had a most beautiful behind'.  [7]

De Valois performed one last time as a dancer in 1935 in a production of Coppelia.  One critic noted-

'Her performance was characterised by superlative neatness and elegance but it was in her miming that she particularly excelled. In the second act especially she reflected to perfection every idea and fancy passing through the heroine's brain. Not only her face but all the movements of her body seemed to be called into play'.

'She imposed a stern discipline upon my turbulent imagination. An incredibly brilliant woman -sympathetic, understanding, marvellous to work with'. [8]

Although she officially stepped-down as Director of The Royal Ballet in 1963, de Valois continued to teach and exert her sometimes formidable influence upon the Company for a further decade. De Valois herself stated of  choreography-

'Choreography is one of the most complex and exacting forms of creative work, demanding an abstraction and plasticity to be found in painting and sculpture. In this way its relation to space is coupled with its own function in time'.

De Valois (left) teaching a dancer

Today on the 270th anniversary of the birth of  Johann Goethe (August 28th 1749-1832) its exciting to reveal and elaborate upon the fascinating relationship between the brightest star of German literature to the English physician-philosopher Thomas Browne (1605-82). 

Goethe and Browne were  both polymaths who shared a lifelong interest in topics as diverse as botany, anatomy, optics and antiquity. They also held a shared interest in esoteric topics such as Neoplatonism, Pythagorean numerology and alchemy; subjects vital to their scientific thinking and which influenced their literary symbolism.

Goethe and Browne's affinity in anatomical and botanical studies is remarkably close; for example, whilst Browne acquired the skeletal leg-bone of an elephant for his anatomy studies, Goethe somehow acquired an elephant's skull for study; whilst Browne's botanical studies included sea-holly, a plant found on Norfolk’s coastal sand-dunes, Goethe made botanical observations on sea-holly found on the sand-dunes of the Venice lido.

In his botanical studies Goethe  developed the theory that the characteristics from which all plants grow are variations which are modelled upon a prototype plant or Urpflanze. His theory that Nature follows a pre-ordained pattern, or  'inner form' is in accordance with the popular early nineteenth century German school of Naturphilosophie. Goethe's Naturphilosophie which in turn adhered to the Renaissance belief that Creation consists of a hierarchical ladder, as described by Browne thus -

'First we are a rude mass,........next we live the life of plants, the life of animals, the life of men, and at last the life of spirits, running on in one mysterious nature those five kinds of existences, which comprehend the creatures not only of the world, but of the Universe' [1].

German Naturphilosophie held the pre-Darwinian belief that Nature possesses an 'inner form' , a belief which is central to both Goethe's and Browne's botanical studies. Goethe's theory that Nature has a fixed, pre-ordained 'Inner Form' was asserted a full century and half earlier by Browne in Religio Medici (1643).

'I hold moreover that there is a phytognomy, or physiognomy, not only of men, but of plants and vegetables; and in every one of them some outward figures which hang as signs of their inward forms. [2]

Writing in terms comparable to Goethe's Urpflanze or 'Prototype plant' Browne  in Religio Medici proposes that nature has an invisible, prototype 'inner form'

The two early scientists also shared an interest in Optics; Goethe, as is well-known, stubbornly refuted Newton's theory of Colour, and his motivation for challenging Newton's discoveries remains much discussed. His Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours) was not received as favourably by the scientific community as its author had hoped. Browne's own study of optics resulted in strikingly original optical imagery in his literary works.

For Goethe science was a source of imaginative insight which had developed from poetry;  the hasty, breathless, fractured tone of an early draught and the published text of Browne's Garden of Cyrus strongly suggests the physician-philosopher's detection of an archetype in nature, the Quincunx pattern, may,  like Goethe's  scientific insights, have originated from a sudden, quasi-poetical, vision.

Browne's mystical insight that the Quincunx pattern embodies the mysteries of nature is not so dissimilar from Goethe's Fahrenlehre (Theory of Colours)  in which the German scientist wanders into contemplation on symbols, in particular the triangle and  the hexagon, thus-

'Colour may have a mystical allusion....The mathematician extols the value and applicability of the triangle; the triangle is revered by mystics;  much admits of being expressed in it by diagrams, and amongst other things, the law of the phenomena of colours: indeed we presently arrive at the ancient mysterious hexagon'.

But as the American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science Stephen Jay Gould (1941 - 2002) stated -

'The human mind delights in finding pattern - so much so that we often mistake coincidence or forced analogy for profound meaning'.

In the preface to his Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin included Goethe as one who in some way or other anticipated his own ideas. But it was also Darwin who destroyed the 'rule of five' theory of German Naturphilosophie. Before Darwin Creation theories were represented by Classical deities, notably Neptunism and Vulcanism to represent life's  origins. Goethe believed life evolved from the element of water, as symbolised by the sea-god Neptune.  However, its the Roman god of fire Vulcan who held significance to Browne,  utilizing highly-original proper-name symbolism he alludes to the Roman deity thrice in The Garden of Cyrus at its beginning and apotheosis.

Recent scientific evidence suggests life's origins may in fact be a combination of fire and water. Fossil remains of microbes which colonised deep sea hydrothermal volcanic vents more than three billion years ago have been discovered in a region of Western Australia which was once covered by ocean.

Science for Goethe was, equally for Browne, a source of revelation which permitted the enquirer, 'to see how and where God reveals himself that is heaven on earth'. Goethe's scientific outlook has been described as peculiar for being neither inductive or deductive. As an 'intuitive' scientist, one who was suspicious of systems and mathematics in science, his scientific views, like Browne's, have been questioned.

Goethe has been described as - 'one of the last of the universal scientific minds still able to encompass the whole of nature'  and as 'a pantheistic poet wanting to create in science also'. His science has been defined as, 'Platonic ideas in the mind of a creative spirit', all of which is equally applicable to the pre-Newtonian, scientific enquiry of Thomas Browne. An accurate assessment of Goethe's science by John. R. Williams and also applicable to Browne's science, states -

'Goethe's science is an integral part of his life and work,  its flaws are those both of the man and of the age, of his personality and of the current state of knowledge'. [4]


However much  previously overlooked, misunderstood or denied,  both Goethe and Browne were extremely well-versed in esoteric topics such as Hermetic philosophy, Neoplatonism, the kabbalah and alchemy. This deep interest in esotericism influenced their scientific and philosophical thinking as well as their literary creativity.

Goethe first came into contact with esoteric literature while recuperating from a mystery illness during his adolescence when his doctor introduced the budding poet to the occultist circle of Fraulein von Klettenberg. Klettenberg encouraged the young poet to read the esoteric writings of Paracelsus, Boehme and Bruno. However, Goethe's interest in the occult waned once recovered, but in a letter to Klettenberg dated August 26 1770 he wrote, -'Alchemy is still my veiled love' and of her recommendation to read Agrippa the budding poet confessed - 'it set my young brains on fire for a considerable time'.

As long ago as 1895 the  critic R.M.Meyer in the Goethe Jahrbuch proposed that German Naturphilosophie resembled Browne's 'inner form' and that the Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741-1801) may have recommended his Religio Medici to Goethe. [6] Browne spiritual testament was first translated into German in 1746. Lavater read it enthusiastically, primarily for its assertive physiognomic statements, such as-

'there are mystically in our faces certain characters which carry in them the motto of our souls, wherein he that cannot read A.B.C.may read our natures'. [7]

Physiognomy,  the questionable belief that the human face can be interpreted, features in each of Browne's major literary works; an unreliable, yet theoretical diagnostic tool for physicians, Browne was influenced from his reading of the Italian polymath Giambattista Della Porta's (1535-1615)  Celestial Physiognomy.

Lavater vigorously promoted physiognomy, became a famous author on the subject and was subsequently shunned by a skeptical Goethe. It remains unknown as to whether or not Goethe read Browne's Religio Medici.

Goethe's many esoteric interests included  numerology which originated from his admittance, shortly before his residence in Weimar, to the Order of the Illuminati, whose teachings were based upon Pythagoras. In his novel Der Wahlverwandtscaften (Elective Affinities) of 1809. Goethe describes the number five as - 'a beautiful odd, sacred number'. Browne's own interest in numerology is admitted frankly in Religio Medici thus - ' I have often admired the mystical way of Pythagoras, and the secret magic of  numbers.'  [8]

In essence, Goethe's personal philosophy was not unlike Browne's, home-spun, flexible and idiosyncratic. In his semi-autobiographical Dichtung und Wahrheit (Poetry and Truth) Goethe confessed -

'Neoplatonism lay at the foundation of my personal religion, the hermetical, the  mystical, the cabalistic, also contributed their share; and thus I built for myself a world that looked strange enough'.

The restless scholar Faust in Goethe's tragic drama shares some psychological traits to those exhibited by the newly qualified Doctor Browne.  After completing many years of study at Oxford and abroad at the Universities of Padua, Montpellier and Leiden, Browne utters as wearily as Faust -

'There is yet another conceit that hath sometimes made me shut my books; which tells me it is a vanity to waste our days in the blind pursuit of knowledge'. [9]

Not unlike Faust, Browne expresses occasional, intense spiritual angst in Religio Medici.

'I feel sometimes a hell within myself, Lucifer keeps his court in my breast'.  [10]

Faust, not unlike the enquiring Browne, yearns in his study of Nature for, 'a glance into the earth! To see below its dark foundations / Life's embryo seeds before their birth / And Nature's silent operations'. [11] 

 In his quest for forbidden knowledge Faust 'ponders over spells and signs, symbolic letters, circles and signs'. Such hieroglyphs fascinated Browne who declared -

'surely the Heathens knew better how to join and read these mystical letters than we Christians, who cast a more careless eye on these common Hieroglyphics'. [12]

Although Browne's confessional shares traits exhibited by Goethe's Faust it departs abruptly from it once the pact is made between Faust and Mephistopheles. Browne located Mephistopheles as dwelling internally rather than externally, stating - 'The heart of man is the place the devil dwells in'. [13]

Browne's Christian faith lays at the heart of his medical practise, enquiries into nature and even his rare excursions into the literary world.  Goethe however held an ambiguous and luke-warm opinion of Christianity, objecting to the clanging sound of church-bells in particular.

Whilst Browne's Urn-Burial shares Goethe's antiquarian interests,  his The Garden of Cyrus shares a number of thematic and symbolic traits to Goethe's late masterpiece Faust II.  As digressive and disjointed in its construction as Goethe's drama and in its associative thought and imagery, with little concern of intelligibility to its reader, it too employs proper-names from Greek mythology to represent scientific and psychological speculations.

During their long, settled, and relatively undisturbed lives, Goethe and Browne became extremely well-read, not only in the scientific advances of their era, but also in Classics of Greek and Roman literature, as the catalogues of their respective libraries reveal. The Classical world, especially Ancient Greece, with its scientific discoveries was for both scholars of great interest and both display a thorough knowledge of Classical literature. The same symbolic names can be found in their respective yet neglected works of fantasy, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus.

The Greek mythological god Proteus is a good example of a symbolic name shared by the two literary figures. In Cyrus Proteus is 'the symbol of the first mass' whilst  in Faust II   Proteus represents organic metamorphosis. The warrior Achilles, the wanderer Ulysses and the nature-god Pan are also mentioned in both works, as is Greek philosopher and botanist Theophrastus, the first to attempt to categorise plants. But above others it is the Greek god Apollo ruler of beauty of form, order, prophecy, medicine and music who was of singular symbolic significance and artistic importance to both literary polymaths.

Browne's survey of the artistic, natural, botanical and mystical precedents of the Quincunx  in The Garden of Cyrus may be described in Goethe's words as a delight in-

                         

Formation, transformation, The eternal Mind's eternal delectation' [14] 

The learned doctor in a drowsy soliloquy concluding The Garden of Cyrus observes that, 'the phantasms of sleep which often continueth precogitations making cables of cobwebs', alerts one to Faust's meditation that -

'How logical and clear the daylight seems

Till the night weaves us in its web of dreams'.

This shared imagery of dreams and  the illusory web is evidence that, like the alchemists before them, Goethe and Browne utilized highly-charged poetic symbolism in their attempt to portray  the unconscious psyche.

Goethe's monumental drama Faust held great meaning to C.G.Jung. For the Swiss psychologist Faust is a work which from its beginning to end is full of alchemical themes and imagery. C.G.Jung even regarded his work on alchemy as a sign of his inner relationship to Goethe and never suppressed or denied the persistent rumour that his grandfather was an illegitimate offspring of Goethe's.

Jung often referred to Goethe's drama Faust in order to amplify a psychological observation.  Of Part II of Faust  he stated -

'The second part of  Faust, was more than a literary exercise. It is a link in the Aurea Catena (The Golden or Homeric Chain in alchemy is the series of great wise men, beginning with Hermes Trismegistus, which links earth with heaven) which has existed from the beginnings of philosophical alchemy and Gnosticism down to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Unpopular, ambiguous, and dangerous, it is a voyage of discovery to the other pole of the world. [15]  

Although Goethe's Faust Part I and Browne's Urn-Burial are acknowledged as firmly established works of world literature, their respective, other halves, Faust II and The Garden of Cyrus have baffled and perplexed most readers, and neither work has achieved the popularity of their counterparts.

However, 'though overlooked by all', Goethe's dramatic works, Faust parts 1 and II have a remarkable relationship to Browne's Urn-Burial  and The Garden of Cyrus.  For just as  Urn-Burial and The Garden of Cyrus are structured upon the time-honoured schemata of Hermeticism, namely the polarity of Microcosm and Macrocosm, so too are Goethe's Faust I and II 

'Not all our experiences can be expressed in the round and directly communicated. For this reason I have chosen the means of revealing the more secret meanings to attentive hearts by creative formations which face each other and mirror each other'.

Goethe's understanding of the alchemical quest for Unity necessitated that the 'small world' or Microcosm of Part 1 of Faust, with its subjective world of Faust's love for Gretchen, needed to be balanced with the larger objective world or Macrocosm of Part 2 which, as it wanders through time and space, concludes with Faust's redemption.

Browne's diptych discourses also adhere to the basic tenet of Hermeticism, the the Microcosm/Macrocosm correspondence.  Just as Urn-Burial's concern is of the earth-bound 'little world' of Man, his suffering, mortality, unknowingness and death, in essence the Microcosm, in complete polarity The Garden of Cyrus with its abundance of astral imagery, many examples of the Eternal forms and fascination with greater, universal principles, represents the Macrocosm at large. Equally, just as Faust I concerns itself with the small, little world of man so too the extraordinary settings ranging through time and space of Faust II represent the Macrocosm at large.   As with Goethe’s literary diptych so too with Browne’s diptych Discourses. Only when 'conjoining' the two respective halves of each literary work can  one fully understand and appreciate their total artistic vision.

Goethe's many duties and social life in the Weimar Court, his travels and love-affairs, mark him  a much worldlier person than the devout physician. Ultimately Goethe was a humanist, his message being – He who strives on and lives to strive can earn redemption still. Thomas Browne was likewise affirmative of all that is good in man, asserting  - 

'Me thinkes there is no man bad, and the worst, best; that is, while they are kept within the circle of those qualities, wherein they are good:there is no mans mind of such discordant and jarring a temper to which a tuneable disposition may not strike a harmony.  [16] 

Julian Huxley in Religion without Revelation (1967) nominated Goethe, alongside Blake, Wordsworth, Thomas Browne and Dante as, 'one of the immortal spirits waiting to introduce the reader to his own unique and intense experience of reality'. Today Goethe and Thomas Browne are remembered not so much for their scientific endeavours but for the originality of their literary creativity.  Through their respective literary creations both writers have bequeathed their own special vision of Humanity and reality which distinguishes them as 'Universal Citizens', or 'World Sages'.  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, like Browne before him, belongs to the category of men to whom the improvement of Mankind was a deep concern. Goethe's science and literary creativity has a close, if little recognised elective affinity to Thomas Browne’s.


Notes

[1] R.M Part 1:34
[2]  R.M. Part 2:2
[3] R.M.Part I:50
[4] The Life of Goethe: A Critical Biography by John R. Williams pub. John Wiley  and Sons Ltd. Blackwell 2001
[5] Lecture notes of 1818 Lecture XII Miscellaneous criticism Collected works of Coleridge
[6] Richard Meyer 'Zur inner form?' Goethe Jahrbuch 1895 vol. 16 pp. 190 - 191
[7] R.M.Part 2:2
[8] R.M.Part I.12
[9] R.M.Part 2:8
[10] R.M.I:51
[11] Faust Part I Night
[12] R.M.Part 1:16
[13] R.M. Ibid
[14]  Faust Part 2  ed. David Luke Oxford University Press 2008  lines 6287-8
[15]  Memories, Dreams, Reflections C.G.Jung  chapter 6
[16] R.M. 2 :11

In addition to Bettini's describing the workings of the camera obscura many other authors associated with its development are recorded in Browne's library [8].

Browne's strong interest in optics is celebrated in French artists Anne and Patrick Poirier's 'geometric garden' of twenty interconnecting sculptures in granite and two large-scale marble pieces, one of a brain, the other an eye, which were installed in 2007 near the physician's 17th century home at Hay Hill, Norwich. The Italian marble block, approximately 1.5 metre square has on its obverse an eye and the word 'Memorabilia' on its reverse.

The myth of how the peacock got its many 'eyes' and how it became a bird sacred to the goddess Juno is recounted in Ovid's Metamorphoses, a source-book of inspiration to Renaissance painter, poet and sculptor alike. The Roman poet relates how the hundred eyes in the head of Argus took their rest two at a time while the others kept watch on guard. Wherever Argus stood he was looking at Io, and had Io in front of him even when his back was turned. Zeus ordered Hermes to assassinate Argus. The goddess Juno had the hundred eyes of Argus preserved forever, into a peacock's tail. [17]

The subject of Juno and the hundred eyes of Argus became a popular theme during the seventeenth century.  European artists including Rubens, Velasquez and many others  were inspired by the Greek myth. [18]


Avian symbolism is frequently encountered in alchemical iconography in which the raven, swan, pelican, dove, owl and peacock also feature. Several symbolic attributes are associated with the peacock, these include it being, like the phoenix, a solar bird from its wheel-like fanned display of feathers, as a symbol of rebirth and immortality from its supposed incorruptible flesh, as a symbol of multiplication from the many 'eyes' upon its fanned feathers, while the optical effect of iridescence produced by its feathers is likened to the numinous experience of the alchemist engaged in experiment.

Symbols can endure paradox. Whilst the peacock, like the phoenix is a solar symbol from the way in which it spreads its tail in the shape of a wheel,  the many 'eyes' upon its fanned feathers are analogous to the starry night sky.

C.G. Jung notes - 'The peacock is an old emblem of rebirth and resurrection, quite frequently found on Christian sarcophagi' [19] a fact which Thomas Browne noted  in Urn-Burial when writing of early Christian funeral iconography depicting,  'the mystical figures of peacocks, doves and cocks'. 

Jung also states the peacock symbolizes the unity of all colours (and therefore, the integration of all polarities to wholeness) that the many colours of the caudo pavonis (peacock's tail) herald the attainment of the alchemical goal. [20] 

The caudo pavonis announces the end of the work, just as Iris, its synonym, is the messenger of God. The exquisite display of colour's in the peacock's fan heralds the imminent synthesis of all qualities and elements, which are united in the  "rotundity" of the philosophical stone'. [21] 

Jung  likened the iridescence of peacock's feathers to alchemical experimentation stating - The chemical causes of the cauda pavonis are probably the iridescent skin on molten metals and the vivid colours of certain compounds of mercury. [22]  

The optical effect of iridescence on silk may have been known  to Thomas Browne when very young for his father was a wealthy silk merchant. In  Pseudodoxia Epidemica he notes- 'And from such salary irradiations may those wondrous varieties arise, which are observable in Animals, as Mallards heads, and Peacocks feathers, receiving intention or alteration according as they are presented unto the light'.[23]

The serene and starry sky and the sun are peacocks. The deep-blue firmament shining with a thousand brilliant eyes, and the sun rich with the colours of the rainbow, present the appearance of a peacock in all the splendour of its eye-spangled feathers. .....It is commonly said of the peacock that it has an angel's feathers, a devil's voice, and a thief's walk'. [24]

On a mundane level the many eyes of the peacock's tail may be interpreted as symbolizing  the watchfulness of the observer during the alchemical  opus while at a higher level poly optics symbolizes the alchemical stage of Multiplication.

For Jung the peacock symbolizes the unity of all colours (and therefore, the integration of all polarities to wholeness), the caudo pavonis (peacock's tail) heralding the attainment of the alchemical goal. 

'The caudo pavonis announces the end of the work, just as Iris, its synonym, is the messenger of God. The exquisite display of colour's in the peacock's fan heralds the imminent synthesis of all qualities and elements, which are united in the  "rotundity" of the philosophical stone'. [25] 

The peacock's display exhibits the short-lived nature of all manifestation, since its forms appear and vanish as swiftly as the peacock displays and furls its tail. Indeed, to the present-day the sudden appearance of a rainbow (the peacock's close symbolic relation) caused by the optical effect of light refracted through water, retains a fragment of a once potent numinosity to those seeing it occur in nature. 

Crucially, in Jung’s view the motif of the all-seeing 'eyes' of the peacock - polyophtalmia (many eyes) - is associated with ‘multiple consciousness’ that is, with the various quasi-conscious states  which exist in the unconscious. Multiple eyes symbolize what Jung calls 'multiple luminosities' of the unconscious. Particularly, polyophthalmia ‘indicates the observing consciousness is the observing agent of the psyche. Polyopthalmia can also symbolically illuminate the concept of foreknowledge, that is, not about knowing something in advance (‘fore’) but rather instead about being able to observe what is already in existence through a simultaneous multiplicity of perspectives. Thus, the many eyes of the displayed tail feathers of the peacock can be said to symbolize a non-linear multiplicity of perspectives. [26 ] 





John Coltrane (1926-67) and Stan Getz (1927-1991) were the two tenor saxophonists who dominated 20th century Jazz. Like chalk and cheese to each other, each possessed a unique technique and interpretative skill, as their respective performances and recordings demonstrate. If Stan Getz's The Peacocks may be considered as expressive of the nigredo stage of alchemy, John Coltrane's rendering of The Night has a Thousand Eyes is an albedo fountain of musical notes.

Could we satisfy ourselves in the position of the lights above, or discover the wisdom of that order so invariably maintained in the fixed Stars of heaven; Could we have any light, why the stellary part of the first mass, separated into this order, that the Girdle of Orion should ever maintain its line, and the two Stars in Charles’s Wain never leave pointing at the Pole-Star, we might abate the Pythagoricall Music of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan; and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell in his Starrie Booke of Heaven.

Immediately following this light-hearted challenge, Browne supplies his reader with a fine example of the Hermetic doctrine of correspondences. Descending in subject-mater from astronomy to mineralogy, he draws attention to correspondences in patterns formed by star-constellations to those found in 'bodies in the earth', such as minerals.

The belief that all in the heavens above, the macrocosm is mirrored in life on earth below, including man as microcosm, is encapsulated in the maxim 'As above, so below' which is expounded in the so-called Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Tablet, or Tabula Smaragdina, a text which was held by European Hermetic philosophers and alchemists alike as the corner-stone of their art. Attributed to the mythic sage Hermes Trismegistus, the Emerald Tablet was thought to originate from the antediluvian cradle of civilization, ancient Egypt and to predate the Christian era, but in fact was written in the 2/3rd CE. The opening verse of the Emerald Tablet announces -

Tis true without lying, certain and most true.
That which is below is like that which is above
and that which is above is like that which is below......
It ascends from the earth to the heaven
and again it descends to the earth 

As ever Browne couches a simple proposition, in this case the maxim 'As above so below' in ornate, processional and labyrinthine prose.

But not to look so high as Heaven or the single Quincunx of the Hyades upon the head of Taurus, the Triangle, and remarkable Crusero about the foot of the Centaur; observable rudiments there are hereof in subterraneous concretions, and bodies in the Earth; in the Gypsum or Talcum Rhomboides, in the Favaginites or honey-comb-stone, in the Asteria and Astroites, and in the crucigerous stone of S. Iago of Gallicia.

In what is a highly-compressed text, replete with proper-name symbolism and  'astral imagery', various astronomical constellations are named, including the Southern Triangle and Cross, the Centaur, Orion the hunter, Ursa Major or the Great Bear and the star-cluster of the Hyades in Taurus. The discourse as a whole is framed by cosmic imagery, opening with the Creation and concluding with the Apocalypse.

The three esoteric concepts named in the opening of the third chapter of the Discourse, 'the Pythagoricall Music of the Spheres, the sevenfold Pipe of Pan and the strange Cryptography of Gaffarell' are each rewarding to elaborate upon, not least for identifying Browne's considerable understanding and appreciation of  such esoteric concepts.

Revered as a god for almost one thousand years until the suppression of his School and teachings, the Greek philosopher Pythagoras (c. 580 - c. 500 BCE) is credited with origin of  the concept known as 'the Music of the Spheres'.

In his half-mystical, half mathematical and numerological concept of the proportional movement of the sun, moon and planets Pythagoras proposed the planetary spheres were related to each other by  whole-number ratios of pure musical intervals, creating musical harmony. Legend records the ancient Greek guru whilst in a self-induced trance could even hear 'the music of the spheres'. An early commentator on Pythagoras, Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 250 CE - c.325 CE) informs in his Life of Pythagoras that-

'Pythagoras....extending his ears, fixed his intellect in the sublime symphonies of the world, he alone hearing and understanding, as it appears, the universal harmony and consonance of the spheres, and the stars that are moved through them, and which produce a fuller and more intense melody than anything effected by mortal sounds'. [1]

The Music of the Spheres is alluded to in Plato's Myth of Er and by the Roman author Cicero in The ‭ Dream of Scipio an account elaborated upon later in the highly influential cosmology of Macrobius who lived circa 400 CE. The grandson of Scipio whilst travelling through the cosmos with his military grandfather remarks-

And, as I gazed on these things with amazement, when I recovered myself: "What," I asked, "what is this sound that fills my ears, so loud and sweet?""This," he replied, "is that sound, which divided in intervals, unequal, indeed, yet still exactly measured in their fixed proportion, is produced by the impetus and movement of the spheres themselves, and blending sharp tones with grave, therewith makes changing symphonies in unvarying harmony.....Now the revolutions of those eight spheres, of which two have the same power, produce seven sounds with well-marked intervals; and this number, generally speaking, is the mystic bond of all things in the universe. And learned men by imitating this with stringed instruments and melodies have opened for themselves the way back to this place, even as other men of noble nature, who have followed god-like aims in their life as men. [2]

A belief in the music of the spheres features in Browne's psychological self-portrait Religio Medici (1643) in which he poetically declares-

'For there is a music where-ever there is a harmony,‭ ‬order or proportion‭; ‬and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres‭; ‬for those well ordered motions,‭ ‬and regular paces,‭ ‬though they give no sound unto the ear,‭ ‬yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. [3]

Its plausible that Browne when mentioning 'the seven-fold Pipe of Pan', had a specific illustration in mind. Throughout his life he kept abreast of the Jesuit priest Athanasius Kircher's latest publications, including, as previously mentioned, an account of his 'Soul-journey' Iter Ecstaticum Kirceranium‭  (1660)‭. Kircher's greatest publication, the vast three volume work known as Oedipus Egypticus (Rome 1652-54) is also listed as once in Browne's library. Kircher's often erroneous, yet ground-breaking work of comparative religion, includes a copper-plate engraving of the Bembine Tablet of Isis, the Rosetta stone of its age. Its mentioned no less than twice in The Garden of Cyrus.  Kircher's Oedipus Egypticus also includes a folio-sized illustration of Pan which itemizes the god of Universal Nature's attributes. The  Pythagorean relationship between music and the cosmos is highlighted in Pan's 'seven-fold Pipe' which is equated with the seven planetary spheres (Above). [6]

In the artist Rinat Baibekov's painting Pan (top of post) the Nature god is seen about to play upon his Pipes in order to evoke Universal and Cosmic Harmony. A multitude of creatures playfully gnaw at the invulnerable god's protective armour. Baibekov supplies poetry penned by himself to accompany his painting -

Shepherds, hunters, peasants,
who live far from vain cities
are the hidden talismans of magic
whose name is All, is PAN god of nature,
Inventor of spell-working Pipes
whose sound enchants nymphs.

Nature's powers are infinite.
For millennia she dreams,
With Panpipe sounds awakens,
Ten times more powerful
 returns the Spring.

In a painting of meticulous detail and rich tonality, Baibekov's Pan features a theme encountered in several of his paintings, that of polyoptics or many eyes. With a number of eyes peering through shadows in Baibekov's Pan the viewer becomes conscious of being viewed.

In alchemical symbolism polyoptics  is often symbolized by the many-eyed feathers of the peacock representing the stage of  Multiplication in the alchemical process. The motif of all-seeing 'eyes' in the psychology of C.G. Jung is associated with ‘multiple consciousness’ that is, various quasi-conscious states which exist within the unconscious psyche. [7]

The mystery and awe often associated with an encounter with Pan is vividly expressed by the Greek panpipe player Gheorghe Zamfir in his evocative soundtrack for film director Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975).  Weir's film is an atmospheric and fictitious narration of the unexplained disappearance of several schoolgirls whilst picnicking at Hanging Rock at Victoria, Australia. 

Yet another example of the hermetic maxim 'As above, so below'  occurs in the third chapter of The Garden of Cyrus. Browne had a great interest in books by the polymath Giambattista Della Porta (1535-1615) including Villa (1592) in which Della Porta endows the quincunx pattern with archetypal potency. In a quite literal example of 'As above, so below' Browne mentions the fact that the Roman Emperor Augustus is recorded as having moles on this body which corresponded to those in the constellation Ursa Major, also known as The Plough or Charles' wayne.  Citing this correspondence as an example of Della Porta's 'Celestial physiognomy' Browne informs his reader -

That Augustus had native notes on his body and belly, after the order and number in the Starre of Charles wayne, will not seem strange unto astral Physiognomy, which accordingly considereth moles in the body of man, or Physicall Observators, who from the position of moles in the face, reduce them to rule and correspondency in other parts. [8]

Given Browne's lifelong fascination with  the symbolism of numbers, letters, hieroglyphs, along with anagrams, acrostics, riddles and all manner of unusual, hidden or 'occult' knowledge, its fairly unsurprising that a copy of Jacque Gafferell's Unheard-of Curiosities and its 'strange cryptography' is listed as once in his library. It was from his reading of Gaffarell's book that Browne is credited with introducing the word 'cryptography' into the English language.

In his phenomenally popular Unheard-of Curiosities Jacques Gafferell (1601-1681) a French scholar of Hebrew, the kabbalah and astrology, proposed an alternative to the Babylonian-Greek Zodiac. Gaffarell proposed that the letters of the Hebrew alphabet can be traced in the night-sky stars. First published in Paris in 1629, Unheard-of Curiosities when translated into English in 1650 was in the vanguard of a flood of esoteric literature which poured forth from the printing-presses of England throughout the 1650's decade. The demand for esoteric literature during this decade, a demand which has never since been paralleled, was due to several social factors including a relaxation of licensing of printing-presses and censorship regulations under the Protectorate of Cromwell.  Many major esoteric works were either translated or first published during the 1650's decade including Agrippa's 3 books of Occult Philosophy, Elias Ashmole's vast compendium of British alchemical authors, Theatrum Brittanicum (1652) and Della Porta's Natural Magic (1658). These books catered for the general Endzeitpsychosis and mood of Millenarian expectation engendered by the execution of King Charles I and widespread social apprehension towards the Cromwellian Proto-Republic. The very conclusion of Browne's discourse The Garden of Cyrus however, reassures the English reader experiencing social and political instability that -

'All things began in order, so shall they end, and so shall they begin again',

Browne's Garden of Cyrus (1658) is neither immune or isolated from the enthusiastic trend of interest and publishing activity of esoteric literature which thrived in England during the 1650's decade.  'Though overlooked by all', until modern-day understanding of the vital influence which Hermetic philosophy wielded upon science and art throughout the Renaissance, Browne's 1658 discourse The Garden of Cyrus is the supreme example of Hermetic philosophy's influence in seventeenth century English literature.

Jacques Gaffarell's 'kabbalah of the stars' is one of a number of Renaissance era esoteric schemata which imaginatively blends ancient world wisdom with a personal, mystical vision. Not unlike Gafferell's 'strange cryptography' or Della Porta's celestial physiognomy or even John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica Thomas Browne's Quincunx is also an amalgam of ancient world and home-grown esoteric schemata.

Originating from the teachings of Pythagoras (the Quincunx pattern can be seen at the heart of the Pythagorean symbol of the Tetractys a triangle of ten dots) and from Della Porta's advocation in Villa, the Quincunx becomes in Browne's mystical vision, an all-embracing, metaphysical Weltanschauung which unites the physician-philosopher's spiritual and scientific beliefs. Its repeatedly delineated throughout a literary work which has perplexing all but the most determined reader.

With words utterly applicable to the hermetic content of The Garden of  psychologist C.G. Jung noted -

Intellectual responsibility seems always to have been the alchemists weak spot... The less respect they showed for the bowed shoulders of the sweating reader, the greater was their debt to the unconscious...The alchemists were so steeped in their inner experiences, that their whole concern was to devise fitting images and expressions regardless whether they were intelligible or not. They performed the inestimable service of having constructed a phenomenology of the unconscious long before the advent of psychology..The alchemists did not really know what they were writing about. Whether we know today seems to me not altogether sure. [9]
    

The American poet and literary critic John Irwin (b. 1940 - died December 20th 2019) noted -  'the idea that there is a necessary (because original) correspondence among numbers, letters and geometric shapes, is a belief  found in esoteric  alchemy and the cabala'. Irwin perceptively states of the symbolic importance of Browne's Quincunx that-

The quincunx represents God's infallible intelligence while it also embodies the main 'tools' man uses to decipher the universe: mathematics, geometry and language. The implication is that if the God-given design of man's original plantation was a quincuncial network, then this design must express the basic relationship between man and the world, known and unknown, which is to say that this formal pattern imposed on physical nature schematizes the interface of mind and world in that it contains within itself the various modes of intelligible representation of the world i.e. mathematics, language, geometry  joined together in the homogeneousness of their physical inscription as numbers, letters and geometric shapes. [10]

The apotheosis of The Garden of Cyrus  are equally relevant to modern-day understanding of Thomas Browne's 'highly hermetic' discourse'. [11]

A large field is yet left unto sharper discerners to enlarge upon this Order'.

Notes

[1] from 'Music, Mysticism and Magic: A Sourcebook' edited by Joscelyn Godwin pub. Arkana 1987

[2] Ibid.
[3] R.M. Part 2 Section 9
[4] Urn-Burial chapter 4 The polarized zodiac signs Cancer‬ and Capricorn respectively as the exit and entrance to heaven occurs in Macrobius,‭ ‬‘‬The Dream of Scipio,‭ ‬I:12 where its stated, ‘the soul came down by Cancer to enter the body at conception and ascended by Capricornus at death‭’‬.
[5] Gaspar Schott‭ Iter Ecstaticum Kirceranium‭ is listed in 1711 Sales auction Catalogue of Browne's library page 30 no. 52
[6] Oedipus Egypticus 1711 Sales Catalogue page 8 no. 91

[7] Rinat Baibekhov's Pan Dimensions 62 cm. x 82 cm. Medium acrylic on paper, mounted on board and framed. 2010. Available for Sale.
[8]  The Garden of Cyrus chapter 3. The historian Suetonius in his Lives of the Caesars wrote of  the  Roman Emperor Augustus (63 BCE- 13 CE) -  'It is said that his body was covered with spots and that he had birthmarks scattered over his breast and belly, corresponding in form, order and number with the stars of the Bear in the heavens'. Paragraph 80.
Della Porta's Coelestis Physiogranonia is listed in the 1711 Sales Auction Catalogue of Browne's library page 41 no. 41
[9] Collected Works of C.G. Jung Volume 16 para 497
[10]The Mystery to a Solution: Poe, Borges, and the Analytic Detective Story. John T. Irwin  pub. The Johns Hopkins University Press 1996
[11] Writing in 2014 Prof. Peter Forshaw of the University of Amsterdam  stated 'we find Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682) commenting on the, 'strange Cryptography of Gaffarel in his Starry-Book of Heaven', in his highly Hermetic 'The Garden of Cyrus'. (1658)'

Books consulted

*  Thomas Browne: Selected Writings edited and with an introduction by
    Kevin Killeen pub.Oxford University Press 2014

* Music, Mysticism and Magic: A Sourcebook edited by Joscelyn Godwin

    pub. Arkana 1987

* Music, Science and Natural Magic in Seventeenth-Century England
    Penelope Gouk  pub. Yale University Press 1999