Customer Reviews

Transmutations: Alchemy in Art: Selected Works from the Eddleman and Fisher Collections at the Chemical Heritage Foundation

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This is a great little book. Beautiful images of alchemical laboratories and alchemists that give a tantalizing glimpse into the possibilities of imaginative attitudes toward alchemy and its practitioners during the period. These are not the puzzling diagrams and bizarre symbols that characterize alchemical emblem texts, but fine art treatments of the subject by painters rather than the alchemists themselves. We get a peek into the alchemical laboratory brought to life and light by skilled painters--in fact certain great and notable names. Unlike most examples of alchemical art there is no difficulty in interpreting the images.

Any library or bookshelf dealing with alchemical art would be incomplete without this book.

Occultists and spiritual alchemists may find these images to be of aesthetic and historical interest, but this is more relevant to students of the history of art and contains little information pertaining directly to esotericism. Of course practical alchemists will be delighted to see the instruments of the art in use more dynamically than in most texts.

Hopefully these pieces will inspire the reader to seek out the collection, which is one of the most important holdings of alchemical material, especially in America. All serious students of alchemy should make a pilgrimage.