Elixir Quest
Elixir Quest, 2021, acrylic on canvas, 20”x20”
This painting was inspired by the work of the nineteenth-century Japanese woodblock artist Utagawa Kuniyoshi (d. 1861) entitled The First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty in China, in Search of the Magical Herbs of Longevity, Had Ten Great Ships Built, and the Court Magician Xu Fu with Five Hundred Boys and Girls, Carrying Treasure, Food Supplies, and Equipment, Set Out for Mount Pengla, currently held by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, The First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty... in Search of the Magical Herbs of Longevity, c. 1843, Woodblock print (nishiki-e); ink and color on paper, 14.1" x 29.5"
Kuniyoshi’s masterpiece The First Emperor is one of my favorite works of art; the way he arranges and juxtaposes his color and subject within space gives an immediate sense of the alchemical quest itself—its exhilarating expansiveness as well as its momentous seriousness.
The Chinese alchemical tradition arose simultaneously alongside similar ideas and practices of Hellenistic Egypt. While there is some debate about which civilization was the first to produce “proper” alchemical discourse, the earliest direct textual instances known to address the external alchemical process of transmuting base metals into noble ones are found in Greco-Egyptian texts of the third century CE. Nevertheless, the alchemical quest for immortality in China and the promise of a curative potion or “elixir” (the English word deriving from the Arabic alchemical term al-iksir) can be traced further back to at least the eighth century BCE. Yet older still is the phenomenon of what I refer to as alchemical metaphorical thinking, which no doubt began much earlier in prehistory soon after the art of transforming metals through fire, known as smelting, was discovered; by 2000 BCE smelting had developed into a world civilizational technology.
Kuniyoshi’s First Emperor depicts the legendary Chinese alchemist Xu Fu (d. circa 195-155 BCE) leading the first of his two recorded expeditions to find the Elixir of Eternal Life for the Emperor Qin Shi Huang (r. 221-210 BCE). According to ancient Chinese accounts, this first expedition returned empty handed, while the second never returned at all.
The history of alchemical experimentation is replete with examples of such people whom today we might refer to as alchemical “fundamentalists.” Traditionally known as “charcoal burners,” these literalists took alchemical symbolism at face value and earnestly tried to turn lead into gold by discovering an empirically identifiable “stone” or “elixir” (the two terms were often understood as synonymous), which would bring about such a transmutation. Yet the accounts of such zealous, “real-world” exploits can usefully serve as memorable allegories for the process of interior alchemical transformation. Rather than sailing across the world in a futile pursuit of extracting from it infinite material wealth or eternal physical existence, I’d like to think that Xu Fu realized (in traditional Taoist fashion) the spiritual nature of the quest for an alchemical elixir on his second expedition, retiring somewhere far away from the drama of the imperial court in order to end his life in internal harmony with nature and the cosmos.
So in my painting Elixir Quest, I internalize Kuniyoshi’s First Emperor as a metaphorical representation of the alchemical spiritual quest that seeks the way to transmute the heavy darkness of one’s psychological lead into the ever expanding light of spiritual gold. Here, the sails have become standards, displaying ancient symbols of the alchemical process that propel the inner journey towards self-realization and wholeness.
The alchemical ship that sails upon the ocean represents the vessel of the human being on the alchemical quest, which was traditionally referred to as the Great Work, the Magnum Opus. In Elixir Quest, the relationship between the alchemical artist and the Work itself is symbolized by the compass rose on the stemhead at the bow, which makes up a four part mandala or quaternity. As C. G. Jung observed, such “squaring of the circle” reflects wholeness as articulated in various alchemical quaternities. The first of such a quaternity represented here is that of the four worlds of the human being—her physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions. Other directly related quaternities that may be applied are the four seasons, elements, directions, humors, temperaments, and stages of alchemical dissolution and reintegration—the transformative processes of blackening (nigredo), whitening (albedo), yellowing (citrinitas), and reddening (rubedo).
The sea itself is a potent symbol of the unconscious as well as that of primordial matter (prima materia)—the receptive ground of consciousness and the fundamental beginning of the alchemical Work. Here lies the promise of purification, transformation, and rebirth, but also the threat of being overwhelmed and drowned within the chaotic depths of the unconscious.
In the biblical book of Job, God is said to have "inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness” (26:10). In alchemical terms, the “circle” here can be understood as the liminal space of the 360 degree horizon around the vessel of self where sea meets sky, separating order and chaos—the threshold between the light of tranquility within the eternal moment and the dark disquietude of self-dissipation as time-bound conditioning and habitual thought. The primordial monster of unconscious chaos lurks in the abyss—the biblical Leviathan (“the encircler”)—embodying the danger of entropy and its terrifying fragmentation within the darkness of the unconscious, while simultaneously holding the promise of conscious self-ordering and integration. The two sides of the horizon thus represent the threshold of paradox where the opposite processes of disintegration and re-formation—night and day—dynamically meet and become a fluid whole. This confluence of opposites is most famously represented by the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol and is similarly symbolized by the ancient circular ouroboros or “tail eater,” which is displayed on the flag at the vessel’s most forward end. This first standard depicting the ouroboros thus marks the overarching self-transformative process of the alchemical Great Work—the conscious dissolution of self into unbounded essence and subsequent regeneration from essence into a higher order.
Moving towards the stern, the next standard displays the six-pointed star, or hexagram, commonly known as the Star of David or alternatively as the Seal of Solomon, symbolizing the well-known alchemical correspondence between “above and below”—the macrocosm of the larger universe and the microcosm of the human being. The hexagram is thus observed through a window that opens to the horizon where earth and sky meet. the golden circle at the center representing their alchemical integration.
Similarly, the sun and moon are seen through a window within the standard tied to the vessel’s mainmast, revealing the relationship between the human soul and the divine, while marking the active and receptive natures of the forces at play within alchemical transformation. Thus the moon, symbolizing the soul, receives its life and energy from the sun, which represents the divine. The phases of moonlight, like the symbol of the ouroboros, reflect the cyclical nature of dissolution and regeneration within the fire of creation.
On the bridgedeck, just below the mainmast, emanates a burning blaze symbolizing the transcendent light of the divine presence, which sustains and guides the vessel within the infinitely expansive ground of Being.
The next standard to the right of the mainmast displays the well-known alchemical staff of Hermes, the caduceus, depicted as a rod entwined with two serpents. The rod represents the alchemical center, which is both the world axis around which pivots the forces of the cosmos as well as the central energetic channel within the human body that runs from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. The serpents thus symbolize the alchemical sun and moon—the active and receptive forces at play within both the cosmos and the vessel of the human body as well as their ultimate alchemical unification.
On the final standard at the stern of the vessel flies the symbol of the phoenix, which rises out of the dissolution of the conditioned self and soars in the eternal moment of ever expanding consciousness. Representing the ultimate stage of alchemical transmutation and the consummation of wholeness, the phoenix is alchemically associated with the Philosopher’s Stone as well as the Elixir itself.