The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century

by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola

Alchemy, its mysteries, and the quest for the Philosopher's Stone have been a strand in the development of European culture from antiquity onwards. By the seventeenth century the complex pictorial language of alchemical symbols had reached a high point of elaboration and beauty. With the spread of printing, the whole fantastic iconography flowered as never before. This magnificent book presents a selection of the finest alchemical engravings, brought together for the first time. The best engravers of the age--the De Bry family, Merian, De Hooghe, and others--worked to interpret the haunting emblems of Lambsprinck and Michael Maier, the profundities of the wordless Mutus Liber , or the Christian mysticism of Jacob Bohme. In his introduction and commentaries, the author investigates the origins of this visual tradition, interprets the symbols, and provides information on authors, publishers, patrons, and engravers.

Genres: Art, Alchemy, Occult, History, Reference

Paperback

First published October 1, 1988

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think anyone knows what the alchemists were thinking or what exactly their intentions were. What trickles down to us is their desire to transform lead into gold, but we don't even know what exactly their lead and gold were - literal elements or proto-psychological symbols of inner work or... something else entirely, maybe something related to the cosmos. There are certainly plenty of theories and many are quite fascinating, though as far as I know all are basically speculation. But I love speculation; it allows the mind to spread out and try on one thought after another, to free associate to its heart's content, to be rigorous and unfettered simultaneously, to actually discover something.

So given this state of affairs it's still possible for a person of today to continue to speculate as to what alchemy was all about, and there's no better vehicle, or stimulant, for this speculation than the plates published in the 17th century in books of engravings. So many of these engravings (or more properly emblems) are very strange, but are not presented as if they are strange, rather there's a somber dryness to them that makes them even stranger; and to add to this the fact that so many brooding bearded melancholy alchemists spent years contemplating them and dedicated their lives to unravelling and adding to their mysteries, to zone on these emblems is a trip indeed.

There was a time in my life when I was fairly obsessed with esoteric modes of knowledge (my preferred medium was Tarot cards), and I spent many hours studying how Tarot cards related to the cabbalistic Tree of Life, which involved memorizing the Hebrew alphabet and all the elements associated with each letter, and how this related to that, and that related to this, etc. I don't know what I was thinking! To waste all that time! I suppose I thought that there just might be a system of knowledge that really explained things, from the inner imagery of the microcosm to the outer limits of the macrocosm, and that learning this might make my life, I don't know, more sacred or meaningful. What baloney!

Luckily now I know that there's no system of thought that is worthy of our adoration and devotion, because all systems of thought are smaller than ourselves, are subsets of our minds, so why not live beyond them, or at least put them in their proper place - beneath us.

But this is all to say that the emblems in this book still have the ability to stimulate the mind and set it off on speculations and associations and very fertile reveries that just might expand the borders of one's mind. And if not they're fun to look at anyway.

Also, the person who put this book together is the son of the painter Balthus.

[Jonathan petersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

best thing.

[Escultor Sergio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esto que escribo no es mi “review” del contenido del libro, más que nada quiero comentar no el fondo sino la “forma.
La edición de Siruela es bellísima, el diseño gráfico de Don Jacobo Siruela es impecable. El libro mide 30 .5 cm de altura x 22.5 cm de ancho, es una belleza que se disfruta tanto visualmente como al tacto.
Los libros electrónicos jamás te dan tantas sensaciones, y este libro en particular me hace feliz tenerlo en físico, es uno de mis favoritos de mi biblioteca.

[Sazenu3333 · Rating 3 out of 5]

good book