The Head of the White Crow

Arthur Bruso; The Head of the White Crow; 2 1/2" w x 5 1/8" H x 2 5/8" d; plastic, mat board, acrylic paint, steel wire, acrylic medium; Box Construction

Its blood is the most precious Medicine upon earth,

The same has not its like in the world.

For this blood drives away all disease

In the bodies of metals,

Of men, and of beasts.

From it the Sages derive their science,

And through it they attain the Heavenly Gift,

Which is called the Philosopher's Stone,

Possessing the power of the whole world.

Nicholas Barnaud Delphinas, Book of Lambspring 1599

In this passage from The Book of Lambspring, Nicholas Delphinas is explainimg the folkloric belief that the salamander was impervious to flames. It could not die in the fire because its blood contained a precious component that would cure all ills and could regenerate body parts. The salamander with its seeming magical abilities, immunity to fire, and its ability to renew itself became a symbol of the ultimate goal of the alchemist.

How this damp, soft-bodied, little creature, which is indeed very vulnerable to heat and dryness, was perceived to possess this extraordinary ability was because of association and misunderstanding. The salamander, being amphibious, with delicate skin that needs constant damp and shade, often finds a home in logs stacked for firewood. When the log that the salamander has chosen for safety from the harsh, drying sunlight, is then tossed into the fire of the household fireplace, the creature will scurry out of the flames in desperation to escape and find other shelter. People misunderstanding the salamander’s needs and situation misinterpreted this survival behavior. They believed that the salamander was being born of the flames and therefore immune to them.

Through this belief, the salamander became a symbol of fire and the purification property of fire. Alchemists took this symbol of the salamander and applied it to their work. It became the way of referencing the Rubedo, the final stage of the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone. After the material in the alchemical furnace has been purified through the Albedo stage, called the White Bird because the material in the vessel has been distilled to its pure whiteness, it was then ready for the intense red-hot heat that would convert it into the Philosopher’s Stone. Heating the pure white material to the red-hot stage to form the Philosopher’s Stone is called the Rubedo.

This small box is my interpretation of that final stage of success where the material in the alchemical flask has crystallized out of the flame into the “nature of the salamander” or to have become unaffected to further distillation, making it ready to become the Philosopher’s Stone. The small toy salamander is hovering over reddening (pink) material at the base of the box. It is held in place by the downward pointing stopper of the flask. The flask itself is represented by a painted silhouette on the back of the box.

I had become interested in the imagery of alchemy when my partner and I began looking for a name and a logo for the gallery we were founding. The imagery of alchemy seemed fertile ground to explore because we envisioned our gallery to be a workshop of transformation, a place where artists transform their raw materials and concepts into the distilled completeness of their art. We were also interested in the concept of the Cabinet of Curiosities where all the world’s wonders were collected to be seen in one place.

In researching the imagery, I became fascinated by the allegories and symbols that surrounded the Great Work of the alchemists. It was frustrating that much of the process was obfuscated behind these dense images and obscure terminology. But this mystery was also part of the appeal. Mystery allows a broader interpretation of an idea.

I keep a growing collection of varied odd objects that I hope will find places in my art. Coming upon the small salamander among my collected objects had my mind jump immediately to the folklore of the salamander. I had made the salamander when I was a child with my Creepy Crawlers Thingmakers set. The other objects came together out of my collection because they fit the purpose of the idea as it grew from the incombustible salamander to the alchemical symbolism of the process of purification. The presence of pink in the coloration of the plastic salamander allowed the pink (or as I propose, the reddening) objects to cohere into a visual whole.

It was never my intention to practice alchemy. Despite the many treatises and books on the subject, it did not appeal to me as a practice. It was clear that for all the words and philosophy written about alchemy, it was ultimately unsuccessful at turning base matter into gold or finding the Philosopher’s Stone. These two pursuits were it highest goals. The entire system was flawed from the start because of Aristotle. He believed in the philosophy that one element could change into another. He was convinced that metals grew inside the earth like plants, maturing from base metals like lead into perfect metals like gold. It became the lasting belief and understanding of the alchemical process. This is in contradiction to the contemporary scientific understanding of the extreme geophysical and astrophysical energy necessary for the creation of elements. I was mainly interested in the surfeit of highly imaginative images that we found through our research and the allegorical interpretations that accompanied them. My interest was purely atheistic. My toy salamander was the inspiration that provided the cascade of ideas fueled by the research I had been carrying out. This confluence of objects and images converged into this piece that is a culmination of my thoughts on transmutation and an impossible goal.

A Salamander Lives in the Fire, Which Imparts to It a Most Glorious Hue.

Arthur Bruso ©2026

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