Five Elements

The four elements—water, earth, fire/light, and air—were, for many ancient doctrines, the constituents of matter and explained the behavior of the world, to which the Aristotelian fifth element is added: the quintessence or aether or void. Each element has its own laws, and each exists in different proportions within the other. They combine, they mix, creating the universe, a system defined by its variety and heterogeneity.

Artist Cris Bartual has collected evocative and tangible manifestations of the elements, creating a compendium of natural phenomena and matter, presented here in an edition that restores their dynamism and complementarity.