The Aesthetic Potential of the Element of Earth

Abstract

While trying to explain the source of human creative power one can find it inspiring and helpful to reconsider the very beginnings of cosmogonic reflection, regarded as a search for the ideal pattern of each and every creative act, both human and divine. Apart from the ideas of overcoming chaos and the separation of the sky from the earth, a conception of joining together or realising the creative energy out of the primordial elements that constitute the world is one of the most common and influential cosmogonic figures. However, it is hardly possible to elucidate a simultaneous appearance of this idea in ancient Indian, Chinese and Greek traditions as early as 600 BC. Some time later a unique capacity and attractiveness of this conception was fully proved, above all, by the alchemists. No matter which historical period we discuss, a holistic approach to all domains of life and a tendency to perceive both living and inanimate forms of nature as a harmonious unity, one which undergoes constant inner fluctuations and transformations, always accompanied the idea of the elements.