ALCHEMICAL FIGURE, 1938
Gouache and pencil. 6¼ x 5in. (16 x 12.7cm.)
Inscribed on the reverse with the title and date. Initialled IC Jan 1938.
Provenance
National Trust bequest.
Tate Gallery Archive.
This work marks the first appearance of the phrase 'Alchemical Figure' that appears as the title of a number of works including Alchemical Figure (1940); Alchemical Figure (1940); Alchemical Figure: Androgyne (1941) and as an inscription on the reverse of others: The Homunculus I (1940); The Homunculus II (1940); The Opal (I) (1940) and Tidal Wave and Volcano (1940).
Where the human body appears in these works it brings to mind the geometrical figures of man, contained within a circle or a square, arms by the sides, held straight above the head or in the form of an ‘X’, as drawn by hermeticists such as H.C. Agrippa and Robert Fludd. They proclaim that man, the measure of the universe, in his perfection contains all numbers, movements, elements and weights. There is no part of his body that does not correspond to a sign of the zodiac, a star, or a divine name.
The present painting seems to make visible those forces which are ever present but normally concealed from our apprehension. The ‘X’ shaped body is contained within a force field – one thinks of the aura of the spiritualists – or, perhaps, a ‘sound figure’ of the sort obtained by vibrating a thin plate upon which powder has been spread.
The emphasis on the genitalia and the spinal column suggests a reference to the tantric idea of the introversion of sexual forces and the endeavour to draw them up the spine and into the brain.
The colouring of the body parts is clearly influenced by qabalistic thinking, in which each body part is associated with a sephira in the Tree of Life. Several of the bodily components are coloured in accordance with the Queen Scale of colour, but the match is not perfect as the legs, for example, are not the correct colour.
The work is unframed and has probably never been exhibited.