When Fludd transitions from writing about Hyle itself, to writing about his own visual representation of Hyle, the disclaimers begin:
"...And here, honestly following the descriptions of Mercurius Trismegistus and Moses, we have painted an imaginary picture of this formless matter, as a black smoke, or vapour, or a dreadful gloom, or the darkness of an abyss, or, in a word, any kind of unfinished, raw, impalpable material."
Fludd freely admits the failure of his image to properly illustrate formlessness. "we have painted" (but it is actually a Matthäus Merian etching.) "imaginary picture" (a kind of double remove from actual stuff). hyle "as" a list of analogs (falls back on analogical adequation. a further [thrice] remove). Fludd is bracketing our expectations of the picture. Don't expect it to convey too much semiotic meaning.