Image of the Week 023

In Philipp Otto Runge's The Small Morning, the dawn represents spiritual redemption and renewal. In the Hermetic tradition, it is a metaphor for Sophia, the cognitive principle that puts an end to the ignorance of the adept and achieves the purification of matter. The Black Sun at the bottom of the work alludes to the darkness of the soul and mind.

Philipp Otto Runge, The Small Morning, 1808.