The relevance of the alchemy in artistic practice centres round the transformative power of expression and creation. Alchemists placed a high value on this process as they saw this transformative process as analogous to the processes of transmuting matter into other purer or “higher” forms. To this end, much of alchemical thought has been devoted to describing the substance that they believed could transform the lowest to the highest, the lapis philosophorum or philosophers’ stone. In psycho-therapeutic terms this became equated with the spirit or soul and the transformative affect it can have on the mind as a whole.
Within this framework, creative acts are seen to have the potential to aid in the development and nurturing of a more secure and balanced mind. This Alchemical and analytic-psychological critique of the value of the creative act is I think the foundation of a more holistic view of the interaction between physical and meta-physical, between quantity and quality, and the effect or value of this interaction.
The influence of this branch of thought is perhaps most evident in the art and literature of Romanticism.
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