The Essential Universe

In the Flammarion engraving,** the famous wood engraving by an unknown artist,
the man who looks out beyond the boundary of the superficial world of the senses discovers a universe that appears as a purely mechanical clockwork.
In a variation of this, the wanderer in the picture – perhaps because he is looking in the opposite direction – becomes aware of a wondrous, intrinsically mystical universe in which a new earth, drawn by two celestial swans, with a new spiritual edifice that has a strong resemblance to Neuschwanstein Castle, approaches a medieval-looking earth.

** Published in 1888 by Camille Flammarion, president of the Société astronomique de France at that time

Original pencil-and-ink drawing
279 x 420 mm
part of the unpublished cycle of pictures and text entitled The 24 Hours of the Day

from a private collection