brainstorming for "wandering aengus" first initial #3 & #4

In all the brainstorms for this letter, two elements remain the same - the fish and the berry - the way they are pictured, however, changes. Here are brainstorms #1 & #2 from back in November for reference. Off the bat, it is clear that the following images were influenced by my positive experience with brainstorms #4 & #5 of withering boughs. The string wrapped around the theta (and thus effectively tying the theta and short carrier together) was brought over from the previous images, resulting in a pleasing effect. One element that I wish had been retained from brainstorm #2 was the use of a star for the theta. the star would bring the alchemical references back into the illumination and make the image more interesting without causing it to become overworked.

Brainstorm #3 is a bit same 'ole same 'ole and comes across rather uninspired as it really is just a new arrangement for the fish than in previous initials.

#4, however, has something going for it. The string carries on beyond the traditional confines of the letter (which is rather short in stature) and is rather pleasing a result. While I like the two fish, the idea of two fish has nothing to do with the poem and will therefore be nixed. Instead think of it as a study of the fish's position (sketching with pen does have it's downsides) as I was unable to erase the first fish.

The second image and the last images are skeches playing around with the way tha tthe string wraps around the theta and different fish styles.

iconography alert - "the song of wandering aengus"

While doing some research tonight for "To Some I Have Talked with by the Fire," I discovered that any reference to apple blossoms (in the hair of the "glimmering girl" from Wandering Aengus) should not be tied with alchemy. According to W.B. Yeats: Metaphysician as Dramatist by Heather C. Martin (1987, pg 75) apple blossoms from Aengus' (of the Tuatha Dé Danaan) "island of the young" (Tir na Nog ?) induce dreams of forgetfulness. These dreams of forgetfulness are appropriately referred to as Danaan dreams. I'm glad I stumbled across this because while it is clear that the apple trees are no stretch, any alchemical connection I mentally made with the apple blossoms just seemed somewhat contrived. Does the girl wearing these blossoms in her hair signify that the author wants to forget about her later in life, that he won't forget about her, or that the girl would have been forgotten by all others b/c she disappears in mist as if she had never existed? I will have to dwell on this for a bit.

possible alchemy connection notes "song of the wandering aengus"

This is where I began to notice some connections to alchemy. You can see a lot of circling and underlining and line drawing ... it ends up that there were even more connections than my brain as able to pick up on as I ate pizza and sketched (Do not try this at home, pizza sauce and sketches can be a devistating combination. Like the Mythbusters, I have years of experience to keep me safe ... sort of). I was up until 2am Friday night finding more connections and making notes about all the symbolism I could find. Since those scribblings span a good six pages I will only post the poem text for now in an effort to not overwhelm you with detail!

brainstorming for "the song of wandering aengus" first initial and title page

These drawings were made pre-Yeats/alchemy "discovery." The initial is another version of a previous brainstorm. For comparison's sake I have posted the brainstorm #1 for the initial first. It was drawn a little over a month ago, and you can tell that the idea has been developed some but not much. I want to keep the fish and the berry but everything else keeps changing on me and the whole concept simply needs to mature more than anything. I love the title page brainstorm sketch and think I will use something very similar on the final product.

yeats and alchemy

The Tengwar Project has just gained another layer. Yesterday as I yet again studied the chosen poems for imagery I could use, I discovered a whole new dimension to Yeats that I had never seen before. The last two lines of The Song of Wandering Aengus read "The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun." The connection between silver/moon and gold/sun in combination with apple trees simply reeks of alchemic imagery. Desperately trying to remember what I had read in A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery previously this year, all the poems for this project got spread on the table and I went to work. It turned out that there was alchemic imagery to some extent not only in Wandering Aengus, but in every other piece I had chosen as well. Since my knowledge of historic alchemy is fuzzy at best (something that will hopefully be rectified in the near future) it seemed quite feasible that the subject may have draw renewed interest during the Victorian Era as part of the Gothic Revival. It is well known that Yeats had a strong interest in the esoteric beliefs - something that led to him joining The Rosicrucians, The Theosophical Society, and (most importantly) The Order of the Golden Dawn. Some digging on my part has shown The Order deemed alchemy to be one of three parts of Wisdom of the Whole Universe. Further searching turned up a scholarly article published in 1971's The Review of English Studies/No. 85 entitled W.B. Yeats: Artist or Alchemist? by Robert M. Schuler. In the article , Mr. Schuler states that, "Although Richard Ellmann pointed out over twenty years ago [Yeats: The Man and The Masks, 1948] that Yeats was fascinated by the alchemical quest of self-transmutation and that alchemy was one of the subjects studied by The Adepts of the Order of Hermetic Students of the Golden Dawn, no serious attempt has been made to eludicate the extended range of meaning contained in the poetic use of the symbols and doctrines of mystical alchemy as Yeats understood them." A lot has happened since 1971, and I would have to dig deeper in order to see if much else has been written on the matter of Yeats and alchemy since. The exciting thing though (I'm seriously giddy as I write this - it's like a connect-the-dot image with inumerable dots!) is that prior to yesterday I had never read anything that linked Yeats and the study of alchemy together. Not only was my "discovery" spot on, but now it has facts to back it up. Moreover, this is a huge breakthough in relation to the imagery that I design for The Tengwar Project. Instead of searching for arbitrary meaning within the poems to base the drawings on, I can now search for alchemic meanings. More importantly, this provides a window to include alchemical symbolism and iconography. For the past couple of years I have toyed on and off with the idea of creating a book of alchemy-informed pen and ink drawings. This revelation makes the latter null and void as that solo work can no be joined with the tengwar book already in progress.

Photographs of some notes created yesterday, as well as some drawings made pre-alchemy connection will be uploaded on the morrow.