Elemental

Before the Age of Enlightenment and the birth of science, many cultures across the world, attempted to classify all matter into variations of four elements, Fire, Water, Earth and Air. In addition, some of the Ancient Greeks, postulated a fifth element, Aether, to describe the heavenly, magical “quintessence” which made the stars in the Cosmos.

In the 1600’s Robert Boyle in The Sceptical Chymist in 1661, describes The Four Classical Elements as follows:

“If You but consider a piece of green-Wood burning in a Chimney, You will readily discern ... the four Elements, of which we teach It and other mixt bodies to be compos'd. The fire discovers it self in the flame ... the smoke by ascending to the top of the chimney, and there readily vanishing into air .... The water ... boyling and hissing at the ends of the burning Wood betrayes it self ... and the ashes by their weight ... and their dryness, put it past doubt that they belong to the Element of Earth.”

Bath Art Circle is a community of nearly two hundred local artists, established by Iasonas Bakas in 2023. This group show, Elemental, curated by Melissa Wraxall and Kate Cochrane, brings together an array of twenty-first century responses to these ancient principles, from the symbolic and descriptive to the expressive and abstract, in a diverse range of media.

© Melissa Wraxall, 2026