Alchemists of old believed in a link between element and the seven “planets” of the sky and gave both the planets and their corresponding elements glyphs.
☉ = our Sun, Solar = Gold (this was when they believed earth was at the center of the universe)
☽ = our moon, Luna = Silver
☿ = Mercury = Mercury (that’s why this element is called Mercury)
♀ = Venus = Copper
♂ = Mars = Iron
♃ = Jupiter = Tin
♄ = Saturn = Lead
In later times, ♂ and ♀ later began to symbolize the male and female genders as well. Then again, Mars, the war god was like the epiphany of the masculine and Venus, the goddess of love, the epiphany of the feminine. Also recall the saying “Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus”.
Still I came to a realization this quarter that by adding copper and iron to glazes, aesthetically I was engendering them:
feminine = ♀ = Venus = Copper, therefore Copper was feminine by association!
masculine = ♂ = Mars = Iron, therefore iron was masculine by association!
It seems strange, but with this logic, a male glaze contains iron and a female glaze contains copper.
While working with these colorants within glazes I noticed that no other colorants behave quite the same way, and yet they behave so much alike. They both produce bright vivid colors under reduction firing while the other colors dull or remain basically unaffected.
Their similar behavior, and aesthetic / psychological links seem to coincide to set them apart from the rest of the group of elements.
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