Contemplation

As I mentioned in a previous post, I want to write on each of the plates of the Splendor Solis. Well, I’ve not got far: the first plate is so compelling I’m posting on it again. Others have commented on it (Adam McLean, Joseph Henderson, Dyane Sherwood) and what I know about the plate is informed by them. The feelings, however, are mine.

A commoner/knight is coming to the end of his road; he’s an empty husk, a carapace. The brown helmet is tilting, as was customary for burgher arms. And while the mantling is impressive, it’s also empty and somewhat overdone.

It’s the escutcheon (shield), though, that’s the real give-away: dropped and bearing a “sick sun” (Henderson’s term). There’s possibly hell in those eyes. As Wikipedia says:

The escutcheon can be a metaphor for a family’s honour. The idiom “a blot on the escutcheon” is used to mean a stain on somebody’s reputation.

In contrast, the upper, confident sun has dropped from the sky; and possibly holds knowledge of a way of redemption – through a process of incarnation into this shell (outworn persona). This, we are shown, can only occur via the feminine (shown by the lunar crests atop the coronet). There’s a sense of a potential union of solar and lunar energies, a possibility of injection by the solar barbs.

A man had this dream:

[First there are many, interminable scenes of darkness, exploitation, betrayal, excruciating torture and fear.] Then he finds himself in a celestial room, in plan the shape of one half of the yin-yang symbol. He calls it the tear-drop room. In this room are are many exquisitely beautiful maidens clad in diaphanous gowns. However, each one carries a huge hypodermic syringe filled with a rainbow-coloured liquid, called Chroma. He has great fear of these syringes, but finally can no longer escape: one of the maidens injects him in the thigh with a syringe the size of a sword. He sees his body filling with Chroma. Then a beetle nips him.

The dream points to a transformation through (unwanted) injection, at the hands of the feminine. It is only through this process that the beetle can nip him (i.e. that a shift in consciousness can occur).

In this Plate, what’s depicted is the plight of this commoner/knight. It’s a poignant scene, observed and probably discussed by the alchemist and his adept/student; by therapist and client. The scene’s laid out for us to observe, before a rich red banner; to consider the suitability of the path it proposes. (As as aside, the Splendor Solis was written and painted at a time when the power of the knight was under attack by the developments in warfare and changes in society in general associated with the Renaissance.)

Tagged as: Adam McLean, Alchemy, Dyane Sherwood, Joseph Henderson, Splendor Solis

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