The Alchymical Garden of Michael Foy by Sean Jefferson
Description
by Sean Jefferson
The Alchymical Garden of Michael Foy is a visionary cycle of paintings and texts by British Symbolist artist Sean Jefferson: a work of pastoral sorcery, alchemical imagination, and charged image-making in which the ancient Royal Art of Alchemy is transmuted into the language of contemporary painting.
Inspired by the twenty-two emblematic images of Splendor Solis, Jefferson’s Garden unfolds as a living theatre of fairies, poisonous plants, spirit presences, chthonic animals, Qabalistic pathways, Celtic survivals, and dream-born apparitions. At its centre stands Michael Foy: ancestral guide, contrarian familiar, and hidden intelligence of the work, whose presence is invoked as both catalyst and companion in the artist’s Great Work.
Here, painting becomes neither mere illustration nor aesthetic ornament, but an operative vessel. Pigment, symbol, automatism, folklore, and visionary perception are brought together in a process of solve et coagula, through which the invisible is given body and the body is returned to mystery.
The result is a distinctly British alchemical landscape: lush, dangerous, humorous, haunted, and spiritually alive.
Across its three cycles of imagery, The Alchymical Garden of Michael Foy draws upon over fifty years of Jefferson’s research into Symbolist art, Spiritualism, fairy faith, Golden Dawn colour symbolism, Jungian transformation, Surrealist automatism, and the occult current that has always moved beneath the surface of visionary art. It is a book for those who understand that images may be
portals, landscapes may be grimoires, and strange beauty—when properly ensouled—may become a mode of initiation.
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This meticulously researched and richly illustrated volume is a joint production of Salier Verlag, Germany, and Lewis Masonic and contains all the relevant texts in both German and English. It is aimed both at academics specialising in the Enlightenment and the general reader with an interest in the history of ideas, alchemy and esotericism, as well as Freemasons who are eager to explore a fascinating and previously neglected chapter in the development of the Brotherhood.
1st Edition 2024 (bilingual edition in German and English)
Hard-cover binding in imitation leather with gold embossing, thread-stitched, two bookmarks (one Gold and one Rose coloured)
Colour throughout with numerous illustrations
544 pages, 17 x 24 cm
Only 500 Printed
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