The fifth century Egyptian scholar Horapollo compiled approximately two hundred symbols and signs in his text Hieroglyphica. In the sixteenth century his catalogue was published in various translations and illustrated by artists such as Albrect Duerer. This publication encouraged many artists including Duerer, Albrect Altdorfer, Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Titian and Hieronymus Bosch to each create from this a symbolic language of their own. In this way, by mid sixteenth century, Horapollo's Hieroglyphica became the source for the development of emblems and symbols used in the Passion cycle imagery. These, together with a short motto and an explanatory commentary, became popular in the Baroque period as a teaching aid. Colin McCahon favored the works of the German and Italian artists of this period, uplifting their emblems and symbols to use in works that focused on Passion cycle themes using figurative and abstract modes.
In his later abstract paintings McCahon used the combination of symbol and motto accompanied by an explanatory note as in the Baroque teaching aids of the seventeenth century. This paper will examine a selection of works by McCahon that use stars, comets, meteorite and lightning strikes as metaphors for spiritual insight, as portents of death and to mark important events in his life.