The origin of Nigredo

The origin of Nigredo

Change begins here, from putrefaction
end and beginning
a leaf rots – it will give birth to new shoots
the forest burns – ashes for new life
one civilisation decays – will leave space for the next one
in alchemy it is called nigredo, black work
a mechanism designed to dissolve, liquefy and render everything a putrefied blur

Like today

the West as we imagine it has a process of putrefaction that starts very far back, in centuries lost in memory
and its art and literature and poetry have been mirrors of the process and prophecies of what was to come
In the beginning was unity, the One, indistinct
Christendom – a dream that never existed, kingdoms and empires imbued with nostalgia for the legendary memory of the ancient Roman Empire
the desire for the One held together a world pulverised into tiny realities, counties, duchies, city states, identities that changed every kilometre
every mosaic was made of tesserae
heroes fought for this mosaic representing the One, Art became the bridge to the Whole
ideal world, golden age of a civilisation that never existed, the West
the East had already made itself a Whole in the forgotten Constantinople
then someone broke the One
Martin Luther
progenitor of the nigredo
he broke the unity of the West, Christendom found itself with two faces
it was 1517
the processes are slow, but inexorable
children of this Lutheran break were the Puritans, from their struggles sprouted the first true western revolution, the English one, the one we almost forget
1649, a symbolic date, for the first time in history a king is tried and executed, the Puritans take power, Oliver Cromwell takes power
among these Puritans one emerges, he is a minister, John Milton
1667, John Milton publishes a book that will revolutionise the hearts of Westerners, even those who have not read it, even those who do not even know who it is
Paradise Lost
it tells the story of Adam and Eve
but the figures of God and Christ are weak, fake, spiritless, the devil on the other hand is the most interesting character in his entire poem, the devil is actually the new hero, the archetype of the revolutionary man, because he rebelled against God the father, against the creator
before him Tasso did it in the Infernal Council, from which he drew inspiration
there is a new devil, a devil who picks up the traditions of the Middle Ages and the apocryphal scriptures, but he is a devil who seems to embody Luther’s
‘Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven’, thus can be summed up the motto of the new hero
the most satanic statement imaginable
the most effective summary of the Lutheran dynamic that can be conceived
it is no coincidence that Paul Klee, in 1920, painted a watercolour, Angelus Novus, New Angel, which rather than an angel from heaven looks like a devil – like others he would make – with chicken legs and a face that seems to be traced back to that of Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet
and Klee superimposes, makes this watercolour adhere to another painting, we only discovered in 2015, this angel-devil actually covers a portrait of Martin Luther
the hero becomes anti-hero and vice versa
William Blake gathered from Gnostic theories, and from his madness, the bricks to build a thought, God is the bad guy, Lucifer the good guy because he rebelled against the creator
a world turned upside down
the hero of this upturned world will be installed in literature by Romanticism, with masnadiers, pirates, outlaws becoming heroes
Lord Byron, the genius who called himself the ‘avatar of a fallen angel’, will hide Milton’s devil behind his heroes, burying their names but keeping their form
narrative spaces are invaded by fallen angels and forge new aesthetics
such as that of the Pre-Raphaelites and Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which was to influence all subsequent Anglo-Saxon aesthetics
the work of David Lynch, for example, is its favourite child
but also involved in these aesthetics is that of the theosophist William Butler Yeats
the English Revolution, which culminated in 1688, energized the forces that wanted to establish a new West
De Sade, the satanic Marquis De Sade, almost certainly read Milton
De Sade, the satanic Marquis De Sade before so many others wrote a new anthropology, forged the new human hero in Milton’s Satanic pride,
‘I say that a man must dare everything, and that there is no other limit to his wills than those imposed by nature’.
it is also with these waters that the other two revolutions, both daughters of the English Revolution, sprang up
the American revolution, had among its fathers the satanist Thomas Paine, who was part of the satanic circle of the publisher Johnston of London
this does not make America a more satanic nation than Europe
but the darkest aspect of America, its ugliest side and its degeneration have their roots here
and so will come, much later, the emptying of art of all its transcendent and spiritual dimensions, the brilliant Andy Warhol will consider it mere ‘business art’ and give it as its boundary the simple logic of capitalism
but it will also be the French revolution that will take the West into another dimension, and among its offspring will be the Marxist struggle and its influences on artists, we will certainly have to talk about that
the encounter between revolutionary England, the newly founded Freemasonry and revolutionary France gave birth to the 19th century occultist revival
France lost its religion, a new one was built
Eliphas Levi, a name unknown to most, but we all carry a piece of him within us
he took up Blake’s legacy and the reversal of roles, he gave a face to the victorious devil of the revolution, calling him ‘Baphomet’
and he would irreversibly influence Baudelaire
the brilliant Baudelaire was the first in poetry to celebrate the devil as a God, praying to him
Leopardi had tried, but never published his hymn to Arimane
Baudelaire was to influence much of later French visual art and literature,
Breton in his surrealist manifesto makes explicit reference to him
and then Madame Blavatsky
Eléna Petróvna von Hahn, married Blaváckij
she took up the legacy of Blake and De Sade and Eliphas Levi and organised a new religion, theosophy,
her magazine was dedicated to Lucifer
she had many spiritual children
among them Gaugin, the brilliant Gaugin, who took the new religion to moral consequences and thus celebrated paedophilia
but his children and this whole process
with what degree of awareness is difficult to say
are the avant-gardists
the last stage of this long nigredo
Marinetti, Picasso, Kandinsky and Duchamp
but instead of marking the path to the end of nigredo and the beginning of the next alchemical stage, albedo, something happened