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Enter The Magicians
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Title |
Enter
the Magicians |
Size |
30.3 x 35.6 cm |
Date Published |
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Reference |
Norman Lindsay Etchings: Catalogue
Raisonné (Odana
Editions and Josef Lebovic Gallery, 1999, cat.299) |
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Norman Lindsay's most celebrated veiled
woman is the figure representing life in Enter the Magicians. This
central
figure was
modelled by Rose. The transparent veil indicates life's eternal enigma
and the magicians represent artists, both creative and destructive,
revealing all the complexities of human passion. The surrounding
figures are the vast panorama of life from which art derives its
material. In a letter to publisher Charles Shepherd, Norman wrote
in detail about the symbolism in Enter the Magicians and outlined
why he was reluctant to explain his work: The Magicians of course,
are the artists - the creators, whose function is to create human
consciousness by revealing life in all its complexities of human
passion to mankind. The figure of Life is still veiled, but the veil
is transparent - already art has made its revelation and Life, since
Homer made its first analysis, is revealed to us. We know the passions
which motivate man, but Life will always be an enigma, and therefore
the transparent veil remains.
The dignified figure of the magician represents Creative Art - the
malicious small Magician represents the destructive element in Art,
of which we have plenty of examples with us today. The whirling image
of the five pointed star represents fire, the dripping figures emerging
from below represent Water, the Salamander and the Naiad - the elemental
symbols of the creation of biological life. The strong figure clasping
the boy and girl represent the bi-sexual construction of the human
entity - half man, half woman. Surrounding all these are just a series
of images, suggesting the spectacle of life from which Art draws
its material - the Bull with the primitive male figure symbolising
the fecundity of life. I don't mind giving you this rough interpretation of the symbolism
of the etching, though it is against my principle to explain my works.
Firstly, the explanation destroys the intellectual exercise of divining
the picture's motive, and secondly, it does not matter what intellectual
concept the picture arouses as long as it is emotionally and aesthetically
responded to. If a picture arouses interest, emotion, and gives an
aesthetic pleasure it has been understood, even if this understanding
does not take the precise intellectual form as above. I may add,
that I don't work out my pictures on an intellectual formula. I let
the picture evolve as an image in my mind and put it into pictorial
form, and then find out afterwards what it means. Which is merely
to say, that, as an artist, I think, in forms, which later I translate
into words ...
Technically this etching is a masterpiece. In a long letter to Harry
Chaplin about the technicalities of his etchings Norman said: ...
One's instrument is the most delicate that ingenuity can devise;
the point of a needle. One's material, copper, offers a surface which
can record the most delicate of tones in markings finer than hairs,
while it can go to the other extreme in the deepest blacks a pigment
may convey. With such a gamut it is impossible not to dream of achieving
a technical perfection.
... I will go so far as to say that there are two etchings which
remain in my mind as having achieved something of what I sought,
as against the intensely difficult technical problems they presented.
Enter the Magicians is one, and C Sharp Minor Quartette the other
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