Alchemical Sequences Coloured by Adam McLean

This present volume brings together 546 of these coloured images from 34 series and is an amazing source book on the imagery of alchemical sequences. Adam McLean first became aware of alchemical symbolism in the 1960’s. At that time little source material was accessible apart from illustrations in the very few books then available. He became aware that there were many complex series of alchemical emblems, but it was frustrating that usually it was only possible to see a couple or so images from these. He tried to get others interested in this material through running a series of workshops, but was dismayed to find that people were just not interested in black and white woodcuts and engravings. This was a medium that seemed not to engage people. To most viewers these appeared old and obscure and despite McLean's enthusiasm, he was often met with a blank response. He decided to begin colouring these images by painting them in watercolours. McLean had undertaken much primary research and had seen many of the original manuscripts with hand coloured drawings and so he decided to mimic this in his colouring scheme. Thus he kept to a subtle naturalistic approach, blending and merging the colours. He immediately found that people became interested in the imagery and could then see much of the little details hidden away in the cross-hatched shading of engravings once these were sensitively coloured. Over the last fifteen years he has created nearly 1200 coloured images.