Iconographia Regalis — the Royal Iconography The Visual Corpus The Imaginal Library — evoking the imaginal realm specifically Liber Imaginum — Book of Images
The Book of Images of the Royal Art
The Western Mystery Tradition is not only a tradition of words. It is a tradition of images — a vast symbolic visual language accumulated over two thousand plus years of illuminated manuscripts, alchemical emblem books, astrological charts, tarot decks, Kabbalistic diagrams, sacred architecture, and devotional art.
The Iconographia Regalis is the visual corpus of the Royal Art — a curated and living archive of images drawn from this tradition, gathered, refined, and organized into a coherent visual language that illustrates the complete Royal Art Opus.
Where words approach the mystery through language, images approach it through direct symbolic perception. The alchemical emblem, the angel in the heavens, the crowned king on his throne, the Grail knight on the road — these images speak to the soul in a register deeper than argument or explanation. They are not illustrations of ideas. They are the ideas themselves, encoded in form and color and symbol.
This archive draws from the full breadth of the Western tradition — Hermetic and alchemical manuscripts, Kabbalistic diagrams, Rosicrucian emblems, medieval illuminations, Renaissance sacred art, astrological charts, Tarot imagery, and more — all gathered into one coherent visual world. Organized by the major themes and symbols of the Royal Art, they form a complete visual grammar through which the initiate can read the tradition visually.
Each image is a window into the same Mystery, approached from a different angle. Together they form one complete vision.
The Royal Art Image Aesthetic
Different styles for different aspects of the Opus
- Alchemical illustrations - in style of Splendor Solis, Rosarium Philosophorum, Daniel Stolcius, Lambspring, Johann Daniel Mylius, Basil Valentine, Ripley Scroll, Auroa Consurgens, Hermaphroditic Sun and Moon Child, The Crowning of Nature: Coronatio Naturae, ….
- The Tale of the Exile Prince - in high fantasy mythic artwork style - John Howe, Alan Lee, Ted Naismith, …
- Christ Mythos - Giotto and other reniassance artworks,
- Christic icons from the eastern orthodox tradition
- Old Testament Hebrew mythos - Gustave Dore, Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
- Cosmological diagrams - Robert Fludd, Khunrath_s Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, Georg Gichtel, Jacob Bohme, Athanasius Kircher
- Arthurian - Edwin Austin,Frederick Judd Waugh other good arthurian illustrators. Pre-Raphaelites — Rossetti, Burne-Jones, Waterhouse - possibly alos Gustave Dore, Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens
- Royal Art symbolic diagrams - reniassance rosicrucian style…
- Emblematta - Claude Paradin
- Tarot - Rider-Waite-Smith and Matruona Tarot
- … - William Blake
- Astrological images - from book of hours, from other medieval/reniassance books,
- Byzantine and Orthodox iconography
Major Artists to establish the aesthetic
- Gustave Dore
- William Blake
- Reniassance masters like Raphael, Da Vinci, etc.
- Giotto
- Rembrandt
Lesser importance, but still good
- Albrecht Dürer
- John Martin
Art Styles
- watercolor painting
- woodcut engraving
- …
Aspects
Alchemy & Hermetic Arthurian & Grail Astrology & Celestial Christ & Gospel Neoplatonic, Gnostic & Sophia Hebrew & Old Testament Kabbalah & Tree of Life Cosmology & Sacred Geometry Angels & Celestial Hierarchy Royal & Sovereignty Tarot & Divination Nature & Bestiary Templar Rosicrucian Masonic Mythology & Pagan Philosophy Sacred Architecture
The Divine
images of God, the Trinity, the supreme principle
The Celestial Hierarchy
angels, archangels, the planetary intelligences
Royal Art Opus
Images that depict the entire opus in one figure
The Three-Faced King Enthroned upon the Cosmic SphereCosmological Diagrams
creation diagrams, Tree of Life, the spheres, sacred geometry
Böhme illustration of the reconciling of the three forces in ChristThe Royal
kings, crowns, thrones, coronations, sovereignty symbols
The Quest
Knights, pilgrims, the road, trials, the Grail Castle
The Alchemical
The stages, the operations, the vessels, the Philosopher's Stone
The Mythic
The Prince, the Dragon, the Fisher King, the Wasteland
The Human
The soul in matter, initiation, transformation, death and resurrection
Sacred Architecture
Temples, towers, cathedrals, sacred space
The Natural World
Bestiary creatures, herbal plants, stones, the elements
The Symbolic Grammar
Individual symbols, sigils, emblems, diagrams
Portraits and Figures of the Masters
Hermes, Pythagoras, Solomon, Dante, the great lineage figures as visual hagiography.
Organizing by the Arc of the Prince where they fall in the story's journey. Creation and Paradise. The Fall and Exile. The Wasteland. The Call and Departure. The Quest and Trials. The Dark Night. Resurrection and Return. The Kingdom.
Organizing by correspondence By planet, by alchemical stage, by Sephirah. This works best as a secondary tagging system rather than the primary organization.