The Bird

What rises and what comes back down. Note whether the bird is flying, caught, or paired with a second one.

Thirteen works here carry a bird, and in the alchemical plates the bird is doing one job above all others: it is the part of the work that goes up.

Maier is the plainest voice on it. His seventh emblem states the whole difficulty in a sentence: “Fit pullus à nido volans, qui iterùm cadit in nidum.” The chick flies from the nest and falls back into it. What rises has to come down again or nothing is finished, and the picture gives you the rock, the nest and the bird between the two with nothing else in it to distract from that.

When there are two birds they are opposed and then reconciled. “Aquilæ duæ, una ab ortu, altera ab occasu conveniunt”, two eagles, one from the east and one from the west, meeting. And the pairing runs down into the barnyard without losing its point: “Sol indiget lunâ, ut gallus gallinâ”, the Sun needs the Moon as the cock needs the hen.

One bird in this archive speaks. The vulture of Maier's forty-third emblem stands on its rock with banners running out of its mouth, and the motto tells you to listen: “Audi loquacem vulturem, qui neutiquam te decipit.” The banners are lettered with the three colours of the work. It is the only picture in the archive where the creature is captioned in its own voice.

Elsewhere the bird is a part rather than a whole. Hall's Abraxas has “the head of a rooster” on a human body. Dürer sets the dove above the Father and the dead Christ. Waite's four living creatures put an eagle in a corner of the World. And Goya's are the exception that proves what the others assume: “Bats and owls fly round a sleeping man, and place a pencil in his hand wherewith to reproduce his vision.” His birds do not rise. They arrive.

1. Michael Maier, Atalanta Fugiens, 1618: The motto printed over each engraving, read off the 1618 Oppenheim printing rather than off the scan's machine reading.
2. Manly P. Hall, The Secret Teachings of All Ages, : Hall's text and plate captions, 1928. Transcribed here, not yet read against a printed folio.
3. Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, : Waite commissioned the 1909 designs and wrote the key to them.
4. Albert F. Calvert, Goya, an Account of His Life and Works, : An English account of the Caprichos. A cataloguer describing the plate, not Goya explaining it.

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  Audi loquacem vulturem, qui neutiquam te decipit

  Matthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier · 1618
• 

  Aquilæ duæ, una ab ortu, altera ab occasu conveniunt

  Matthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier · 1618
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  Fit pullus à nido volans, qui iterùm cadit in nidum

  Matthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier · 1618
• 

  Occultum Lapidem, the Philosopher's Stone

  J. Augustus Knapp · colour plate, 1928
• 

  The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

  Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes) · 1799

Plates that carry the symbol, tagged by eye and not yet decoded: first where it is the central motif, then where it plays a secondary part. Each opens in the viewer; the key and the notes come with the entry.

Central motif · 3

• Fit pullus à nido volans, qui iterùm cadit in nidumMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the rock with the nest at its top and the bird between the two, a river town belowMichael Maier, 1618 “Fit pullus à nido volans, qui iterùm cadit in nidum.”
• Audi loquacem vulturem, qui neutiquam te decipitMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the vulture on the rock with its banners, lettered I am black, white and redMichael Maier, 1618 “Audi loquacem vulturem, qui neutiquam te decipit.”
• Aquilæ duæ, una ab ortu, altera ab occasu conveniuntMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the two eagles alighting on the hands of the bearded figure between themMichael Maier, 1618 “Aquilæ duæ, una ab ortu, altera ab occasu conveniunt.”

Secondary motif · 10

• Abraxas, a Gnostic PantheosJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928a rooster-headed figure in armour, whip raised and shield on the arm, stands in a chariot drawn by four white horses, his legs two serpents; the sun at the upper left, a crescent moon at the upper right, the name ABRAXAS lettered below; the Sun and the Moon as the central motif by Hall's reading of the figure as solar, the Serpent and the Horse by eye; one body made of a rooster, a man and two serpentsHall, 1928 “The seven-lettered name of ABRAXAS is symbolically significant of his seven-rayed power.”Central motif: the Sun and the Moon
• The Ancient of the AncientsJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928the Name in a triangle of light above the throne, hexagrams on the pillars; the Triangle and the Divine secondary, by eyeHall, 1928 “In the Zohar His robes are said to be white, but they are here shown as red to signify that the garments of Divinity partake of the nature of cosmic activity.”Central motif: the King and the Queen
• Occultum Lapidem, the Philosopher's StoneJ. Augustus Knapp, colour plate, 1928a double-headed eagle stands in flames at the heart of a many-faceted white crystal, on a dark blue ground crossed by rays; Fire as the central motif, by eyeHall, 1928 “The Philosopher's Stone is an ancient symbol of the perfected and regenerated man whose divine nature shines forth through a chain of purified and unfolded vehicles.”Central motif: Fire
• The Cherub of EzekielArtist uncredited, colour plate, 1928a nude winged figure stands inside a flame-shaped aureole, a sword hilt-up at the waist, the heads of a bull and a lion behind his own, the wings rising above; the Angel and the Wing as the central motif, the Lion by eyeHall, 1928 “The prophet beheld four strange creatures, each having four heads, four wings, and brazen hoofs like those of a calf.”Central motif: the Angel and the Wing
• The Holy TrinityAlbrecht Dürer, 1511the Throne of Mercy: God the Father crowned and robed holds the dead Christ, the dove above them, angels with the instruments of the Passion around, the world below; the Divine as the central motif, the Angel by eyeCentral motif: the Divine
• The Sleep of Reason Produces MonstersGoya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes), 1799a man sleeps at his writing desk while owls and bats crowd out of the dark behind him; one owl holds a crayon out to his hand, and a lynx lies awake at the right. The title is written on the side of the deskthe manuscript commentary, in Lefort's French, 1877 “La fantaisie, sans la raison, produit des monstruosités; unies, elles enfantent les vrais artistes et créent des merveilles”Central motif: the Demon and the Monster
• The Star (XVII)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909a great yellow eight-pointed star with seven smaller white stars; a nude woman kneels at a pool, one knee on the land and one foot on the water, pouring from two ewers onto land and water; a tree with a bird behind her; the Heavens as the central motif, the Vessel by eyeWaite, 1911 “The female figure in the foreground is entirely naked. Her left knee is on the land and her right foot upon the water.”Central motif: the Heavens
• The World (XXI)Pamela Colman Smith, 1909a dancing figure wrapped in a purple sash, a wand in each hand, inside a green wreath bound with red ribbons; the four living creatures, a man, an eagle, a lion and a bull, in the corners; the Heavens as the central motif, the Angel and the Lion by eyeWaite, 1911 “She is in the act of dancing, and has a wand in either hand.”Central motif: the Heavens
• Hic leo, quas plumas non habet, alter habetMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the winged lion and the wingless lion together, one bearing down on the otherMichael Maier, 1618 “Hic leo, quas plumas non habet, alter habet.”Central motif: the Lion
• Sol indiget lunâ, ut gallus gallinâMatthaus Merian, attributed, for Michael Maier, 1618the sun-headed man and the moon-headed woman facing each other, the cock and the hen at their feetMichael Maier, 1618 “Sol indiget lunâ, ut gallus gallinâ.”Central motif: the Sun and the Moon

• Fire
• The Demon and the Monster
• The Angel and the Wing