Artist's Studio in the 19Century Alchemist’s laboratory in the 17th Century.. We search for forms that speak They searched for the Aurum Nostrum and call it Art. and called it The Great Work. Art and Alchemy Alchemical Operations, Mutus Liber, 17c. Rembrandt. Self Portrait in the Studio, 17c. What work did alchemists do in their laboratories? What work do we do in our studios? How are the two works similar, how are they different.? From “Mutus Liber” (the Silent Book), the Gathering and the Working The Alchemist gathered fluid—in this case, dew, the milk of the stars; they mixed it with dirt—they called it prima materia, nigredo, the blackness of the earth (and of the soul); then they solve et coagula (dissolved and coagulated) the mixture…and did it over and over again… until they got it Vermeer: The Studio, 17th Century. It is said that The Great Work was to make gold, and that the art work for us is to make images… Honore Daumier, 19th Century Artemisia Gentileschi, 17th Century Making Pictures… The work of art, the embodied image—it is this that galleries, museums and collectors care about. The work of art, the making—it is this that artists care about. Daumier: “The Sculptors' Studio,“19th Century. We artists know some of the processes for producing the objects of art -- those processes are our craft, both the handling of the medium and the organization of visual form. Artemisia Gentileshci, Judith and Holofernes, 17th Century Process—that’s medium and structure (form), but it’s the content is the reason we do it. Judith was to be raped by Holofernes, but she killed him. That’s the subject. Artemisia had been raped by her father’s assistant. She couldn’t kill him, so she painted the killing of Holofernes… that’s the content. The Alchemists had their aurum nostrum(our gold), this was hers. A modern analytical psychologist would say that the alchemists had used the process of "active imagination," imagination with passion and purpose, to project out onto the substances in the fire of the fireplace, the conflicts deep in the alchemists' own unconscious minds, and that there in the fireplace, by burning, dissolving, decanting, distilling, had transformed the substances and thus the alchemist's own buried conflicts from garbage into gold. The alchemist gathered the dew— the milk and the tears of the stars (and gathered other fluids too), and “decanted” (boiled and condensed the vapor—like how brandy was invented from wine), and took the dregs and ground them (solve— sure, but also break it up any way you can) and dissolved and decanted and coagulated and then heated the coagulated over the slowest fires for the longest times and on and on and with the goal… To lift matter from the lower of lead and dirt to the higher of gold and light. And in that way got not the foolish gold of kings but the spiritual gold of the philosophers. And, it was dirty work. … Alchemist’s Laboratory, 17th Century. It was dirty work. But mostly the books showed the beauty of the endeavor, not the mess of its facts.