Occult Art
Esotericism in painting, music, literature and film.
Painting
Room I · 20 articlesMusic
Room II · 20 articlesLiterature
Room III · 20 articlesArchitecture and sculpture
Room IV · 20 articlesFilm and theatre
Room V · 20 articlesDürer's Melencolia I: Saturn, Genius and the Magic Square
Dürer's 1514 engraving between humoral theory, the magic square of Jupiter, Ficino and Agrippa: a guide to the symbols of Melencolia I.
MusicErik Satie and the Rosicrucians: Composer to Péladan's Order
In 1891 Erik Satie became composer to Joséphin Péladan's Catholic Rose+Croix order: the Sonneries, the break with the Sâr and a church all of his own.
LiteratureShakespeare's The Tempest: Prospero, the magician who renounces magic
Prospero, Ariel and Caliban: Renaissance magic in Shakespeare's The Tempest, between the John Dee hypothesis and the magician's farewell to power.
Architecture and sculptureSanmartino's Veiled Christ: the marble that looks like a shroud
Giuseppe Sanmartino carved the Veiled Christ in 1753 for Raimondo di Sangro: the story of the work, Corradini's model and the alchemical legend.
Film and theatreRobertson's phantasmagoria: spectres and apparitions in the Paris of 1798
Étienne-Gaspard Robertson, the fantoscope and the Capuchin convent: how a projection show brought ghosts and spectres into revolutionary Paris.
PaintingPéladan and the Salons de la Rose+Croix: When Art Became Initiation
Sâr Péladan, the Catholic Order of the Rose-Croix, the rules of the 1892-1897 Salons, Khnopff, Delville, Hodler and the music of Erik Satie.
Occult art: esotericism in painting, music and literature
Occult Art tells how esotericism left its mark on the masterpieces of European culture. For centuries painters, composers, writers, architects and filmmakers drew on astrology, alchemy, Kabbalah and Renaissance magic, turning them into images, sounds and stories. This website traces that dialogue, work by work, with the aim of helping readers interpret esoteric symbolism without stretching the evidence and without invented mysteries.
The painting section starts with Dürer's Melencolia I and its magic square, moves through Bosch, Botticelli and Florentine Neoplatonism, Goya's witches and Fuseli's nightmare, up to the Symbolist painting of Gustave Moreau, the Salons de la Rose+Croix, Hilma af Klint and Kandinsky. The music section follows Mozart's Magic Flute and its Masonic symbols, the Faust of Gounod and of Berlioz, Liszt, Paganini, Scriabin, Holst and the ancient idea of the music of the spheres.
Esoteric literature has its place with Dante, Goethe's Faust and Marlowe's, the witches of Macbeth, Bulgakov, Meyrink, Yeats and the Golden Dawn, Borges, Eco and Calvino. Architecture and sculpture lead us through Gothic cathedrals, pavement labyrinths, the Sacred Grove of Bomarzo, the Quinta da Regaleira and the Veiled Christ in Naples. Film and theatre, finally, range from Méliès and Murnau to the commedia dell'arte, from nineteenth-century phantasmagoria to Houdini and the great age of stage illusion.
Every text, available in Italian and English, separates documented interpretations from the fanciful readings that often circulate about these works. The site is curated by the Studio Esoterico Cornelio and is meant for those who visit museums and churches, attend theatres and concert halls, or simply wish to better understand the symbols they meet in art. Each section can be read on its own, but together they form a short history of the European esoteric imagination, from the Renaissance to the present day.
Frequently asked questions
What does Dürer's Melencolia I mean?
Melencolia I is an engraving made by Albrecht Dürer in 1514. It shows a brooding winged figure surrounded by measuring instruments, a polyhedron and a four-by-four magic square bearing the date 1514 in its bottom row. Scholars such as Panofsky, Saxl and Klibansky linked it to the theory of the melancholy of genius set out by Agrippa, but the overall meaning of the work is still debated.
What are the Masonic symbols in The Magic Flute?
The Magic Flute, Mozart's last opera, premiered in Vienna in 1791 with a libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. Mozart had been a Freemason since 1784, and the opera is full of references to initiation: the number three, which returns in the three chords of the overture, the three ladies and the three boys, the trials of silence, fire and water faced by Tamino, and the Egyptian setting of the temple of Isis and Osiris.
What is the Sacred Grove of Bomarzo?
It is a monumental park in Lazio, in the Tuscia area near Viterbo, created by Prince Pier Francesco Orsini, known as Vicino, from the mid-sixteenth century. It is also known as the Park of the Monsters for its colossal sculptures carved into the rock: the Ogre, the dragon, the elephant, the leaning house. The enigmatic inscriptions beside the statues have inspired many interpretations. Forgotten for centuries, it was rediscovered and restored in the twentieth century.
Who was Hilma af Klint?
Hilma af Klint (1862-1944) was a Swedish painter who, drawn to spiritualism and Theosophy, created the Paintings for the Temple between 1906 and 1915, a vast series of abstract canvases. These works predate Kandinsky's first abstractions, and for this reason her figure has led to a rethinking of the history of abstract art. She asked that her most personal works not be shown until twenty years after her death.
Why was Paganini said to have made a pact with the devil?
Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) played the violin with a virtuosity his contemporaries considered almost impossible. His thin and pale appearance, his way of dressing and the aura of mystery he himself cultivated fed the rumour of a pact with the devil. The rumour had real consequences: after his death he was denied burial in consecrated ground for years, which he obtained only much later in Parma.
What is the Alchemical Door in Rome?
The Alchemical Door, or Magic Door, stands in the gardens of Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome and is the last remnant of the villa of the Marquis Massimiliano Palombara. It dates from around 1680 and is decorated with alchemical symbols and Latin inscriptions. A legend tells of a pilgrim who, after searching for the herb able to produce gold, vanished leaving a few flakes of gold and a sheet of riddles.