Research

Finding the Unicorn: Tapestries Mythical and Modern

The Unicorn Is Found Tapestry

Finding the Unicorn: Tapestries Mythical and Modern

17 April to the 1 June 201

An exhibition entitled ‘Finding the Unicorn: Tapestries Mythical and Modern‘ opens at the Fleming Collection this month in London.

Based around the medieval Hunt for the Unicorn tapestry series this exhibition will feature the work of West Dean Tapestry Studio and Historic Scotland’s recently completed refurbishment of James V’s Royal Palace at Stirling Castle. It has taken 12 years to weave the tapestries at the West Dean Tapestry Studio, part of the Edward James Foundation based near Chichester in west Sussex. The originals are at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

The image pictured above, from this series, is entitled ‘The Unicorn is Found’.

The exhibition is presented by Historic Scotland and West Dean Tapestry Studio at The Fleming Collection and will fun from the 17 April to the 1 June 2013.

Needless to say this is an exhibition that I will be visiting at least once this spring/summer.

The Fleming Collection is located near Green Park tube station in london at 13 Berkeley Street, W1J 8DU. For further information visit the Fleming Collection website.

Apr 08, 2013 | Categories: Research, Textiles | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The Brave Little Tailor and the Unicorn

The Brave Little Tailor & The Unicorn Illstration

This old illustration is one of those that has been collated to produce Taschen’s new book The Fairy Tales of the Brother’s Grimm.

The little tailor demanded of the King the promised reward; the King, however, repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get rid of the hero. “Before thou receivest my daughter, and the half of my kingdom,” said he to him, “thou must perform one more heroic deed. In the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and thou must catch it first.”

“I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one blow, is my kind of affair.” He took a rope and an axe with him, went forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to wait outside. He had to seek long. The unicorn soon came towards him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would spit him on his horn without more ceremony.

“Softly, softly; it can’t be done as quickly as that,” said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against the tree with all its strength, and struck its horn so fast in the trunk that it had not strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it was caught.

“Now, I have got the bird,” said the tailor, and came out from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the beast away and took it to the King.

The Unicorn in the Grimm’s tale about The Brave Little Tailor is much more akin to original records of the unicorn recorded by Ctesias (c.500BC) than the magical new age creature that is often presented to us today. Ctesias wrote that the unicorn is ‘the most fell and furious beast of all’.

In keeping with this old description the illustrator has depicted the unicorn as a horse like creature. However he has given the beast equine hooves rather than the elephant feet which Ctesias described in his ancient manuscript.

You can read ‘The Brave (Valiant) Little Tailor‘ in full here.

Apr 03, 2013 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Trans-gendered Unicorns

PBF Comics Unicorn Sketch

Cartoon via www.pbfcomics.com

Pink Unicorns

I came across this little sketch on Twitter earlier.

Having been reading up on unicorns and their symbolism for some time now I had gotten lost in the old beliefs about this creature. For centuries the unicorn has been held up as a figure of masculinity.Ancient Greek writers like Ctesias described them as ferocious beasts that would impale a man upon their horn as soon as look at him.

Having gotten lost in these old texts I had forgotten just how effeminate unicorns are imagined to be today. That is until I came across this sketch. Over the course of the last two thousand years the unicorn has been transgendered – their bodies are no longer white, their heads are no longer red and their horns are no longer black. Today’s unicorns are pink. They are feminine not masculine.

Androgynous Unicorns

I had been producing images of unicorns that I considered to be androgynous. As you can see on the homepage of this site my creatures bear women’s breasts, vaginas and the horn on their crown – a phallic representation of the penis.

Perhaps I have simply been producing images of women. Maybe I should colour my unicorns in pink?

Dec 11, 2012 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

The Naming of the Animals

The Naming of the animals by Adam from a Dutch bible illuminated c.1440. Adam blesses the unicorn whilst Eve stands behind him in prayer.

Nov 15, 2012 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The Unicorn from the Stars

FATHER JOHN: Tell me what you have seen where you have been.

MARTIN: There were horses … white horses rushing by, with white, shining riders … there was a horse without a rider, and someone caught me up and put me upon him, and we rode away, with the wind, like the wind….

FATHER JOHN: That is a common imagining. I know many poor persons have seen that.

MARTIN: We went on, on, on … we came to a sweet-smelling garden with a gate to it … and there were wheat-fields in full ear around … and there were vineyards like I saw in France, and the grapes in bunches … I thought it to be one of the town-lands of heaven. Then I saw the horses we were on had changed to unicorns, and they began trampling the grapes and breaking them … I tried to stop them, but I could not.

FATHER JOHN: That is strange, that is strange. What is it that brings to mind … I heard it in some place, _Monocoros di Astris_, the Unicorn from the Stars.

MARTIN: They tore down the wheat and trampled it on stones, and then they tore down what were left of the grapes and crushed and bruised and trampled them … I smelt the wine, it was flowing on every side … then everything grew vague … I cannot remember clearly … everything was silent … the trampling now stopped … we were all waiting for some command. Oh! was it given! I was trying to hear it … there was some one dragging, dragging me away from that … I am sure there was a command given … and there was a great burst of laughter. What was it? What was the command? Everything seemed to tremble around me.

FATHER JOHN: Did you awake then?

MARTIN: I do not think I did … it all changed … it was terrible, wonderful. I saw the unicorns trampling, trampling … but not in the wine troughs…. Oh, I forget! Why did you waken me?

FATHER JOHN: I did not touch you. Who knows what hands pulled you away? I prayed; that was all I did. I prayed very hard that you might awake. If I had not, you might have died. I wonder what it all meant. The unicorns … what did the French monk tell me … strength they meant … virginal strength, a rushing, lasting, tireless strength.

MARTIN: They were strong…. Oh, they made a great noise with their trampling!

FATHER JOHN: And the grapes … what did they mean?… It puts me in mind of the psalm … _Ex calix meus inebrians quam praeclarus est._ It was a strange vision, a very strange vision, a very strange vision.

MARTIN: How can I get back to that place?

from The Unicorn from the Stars and Other Plays by W. B. Yeats (1865-1939)

Nov 14, 2012 | Categories: Literature, Research | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

Eerie Unicorn Photograph


Despite a fairly thorough search I can’t find out anything at all about this image that was sent to me today. It’s a shame as it’s one of the most interesting unicorn related images that I’ve come across for quite some time. I love the creepiness that the image exudes.

All I’ve managed to find so far is some similarly uncredited blog posts featuring the image. If anyone can tell me anything about this picture then do get in touch.

Nov 13, 2012 | Categories: Photography, Research | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

The Book of Job (39: 9-11)


Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? Or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him because his strength is great?

From the 1611 King James’ translation of the Bible.

Nov 08, 2012 | Categories: Literature, Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The Unicorn Artist by Paula Rego

The Unicorn Artist by Paula Rego is one of four editions commissioned by the Curwen Studio to celebrate their 50th Anniversary in 2008. You can watch the Tate Shots video which documents the process that led to the creation of this print below.

Oct 16, 2012 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

John Tenniel’s Through The Looking Glass Illustration

John Tenniel's illustration for Through The Looking Glass

John Tenniel’s illustration for Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking-Glass” and “What Alice Found There”, originally published 1871

You can read “The Lion and The Unicorn” from “Through the Looking-Glass” by clicking here.

Sep 27, 2012 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Unicorn Fr. 1564

I’ve not been able to find much out about this lovely illustration other than that it is French and dates back to 1564.

Sep 18, 2012 | Categories: Illustration, Research | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The Alchemist’s Unicorn

Unicorn – the masculine, penetrating aspect of *Mercurius, the mercurial spirit. The third emblem in The Book of Lambspring shows the unicorn and deer in a forest. The accompanying text identifies the unicorn as the spirit, the deer (*cervus fugitives) as the soul, and the forest (i.e. dark place) as the body of the Stone. It advises the alchemist to ‘snare and capture… tame and master’ the unicorn and the deer ‘by Art,/To couple them together / And to lead them in and out of the forest’ (HM,1:280). Here the author is referring to the *distillation and *sublimation of the matter in the alembic, a process which leads to the second union of soul and spirit in the *chemical wedding.

The unicorn also appears in the an emblem in Johann Mylius’s Philosophia Reformata (316, 365), and in Andreae’s The Chymical Wedding, where Christian, in the company of ‘our Virgin’, witnesses the ‘snow-white Unicorn with a golden coller’ bowing down before a *lion standing on a fountain (73). In this set of images the fountain contains the mercurial waters and the Virgin represents the receptive feminine aspect of Mercurius. Jung argues that the unicorn and the lion on eiter side of the lady in the sixteenth-century tapestry La Dame à la Licorne (Musée de Cluny, Paris) represent the opposing qualities of Mercurius in the chemical wedding (PA, 463-4).

Source: Abraham, L. A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, Cambridge University Press 1998

Sep 14, 2012 | Categories: Information, Research | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave A Comment »

The Raynbow which shall overgoe…

The attainment of the *peacock’s tail stage which occurs after the black *nigredo and heralds the coming of the white *albedo. During the process known as the *ablution, when the cleansing showers of mercurial water descend from the top of of the alembic to purify the blackened body below, a rainbow appears to show that the testing time of the nigredo is past and the perfect white stage, the albedo, is in sight. When the albedo or white stone is reached the multi-colours of the rainbow are integrated into the single white colour, a sign that a state of pure stillness and receptivity of soul has been attained. sir George Ripley wrote that the peacock’s tail;

‘Shyning colours therin thou shalt espye:/Lyke to the Raynbow mervelose unto syght’ (TCB, 150), and ‘Pekok’s fethers in colour gay, the Raynbow whych shall overgoe…/ These shall appere before the parfyt Whyte’ (TCB, 188).

In some treatises, the dissolution of the body or bodies at the nigredo is compared to the advent of *Noah’s flood where the waters threaten to overwhelm the matter completely and drown it. The sighting of the rainbow and the landing of the *ark on dry land symbolises the alchemist’s successful arrival at the albedo when the matter in the alembic becomes dried and whitened.

Source: Abraham, L. A Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery, Cambridge University Press 1998

Sep 12, 2012 | Categories: Information, Research | Leave A Comment »