The Dürer Files: 1b. Hendrick Goltzius & The Gods of the Golden Egg (Completed 9/14/24)

Sine Cerere et Libero friget Venus (Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze),
1600-1603, Hendrick Goltzius. Geometry: 2024, DS.

"When Goltzius created this so-called "pen painting," which combines pen and ink and brush with oil color, it caused a sensation in Europe and was immediately purchased by Emperor Rudolf II for his collection in Prague. Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze, c. 1600-1603, marks the critical moment when Goltzius, the most famous draftsman and printmaker in Europe, turned to large-scale painting."

- Via the Philadelphia Museum of Art page: A Masterpiece in Focus, a short article describing the unusual painting featured above and inset left which the museum acquired in 1992. Apparently, after the Dutch artist, Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617), completed it - and Goltzius was so secretive about his methods he never allowed anyone to see his work at an incomplete stage - it was snatched up by Emperor Rudolph, the "Mad Alchemist" of Prague. There's more to add to this post regarding Rudolph, but, suffice to say, he was also an avid collector of works by Albrecht Dürer. Meanwhile, Dürer was an artist that Goltzius felt motivated to "surpass," with the same competitive enthusiasm the old Master, himself, expressed regarding the Masters of his own time. 

So, did Goltzius surpass Dürer? Well, we shall investigate. But, before we go much further, allow me to mention that my first golden egg was found in Goltzius's odd Venus painting. Of the four golden eggs I've found, this appears to have the most perfect - albeit static - form. Interestingly, it is configured with the same arrangement of pentagrams as the former golden egg found in my previous file. But, note the star's differing orientation  (inset right).

The two ovoids are very similar; in some images they are almost interchangeable. The difference is shown inset right and below with phi-shells. I favor Ovoid 1 as superior in the Venus... image, but Ovoid 2 has a few things going for it, too.

So, which is the true ovoid in this painting?

Ovoids 1 & 2

In the last analysis, it doesn't matter. For Europeans living at the turn of the 16th/17th centuries, Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze caused "a sensation." It seemed to possess a kind of mojo. And one thing I'm going to be asking throughout this post - the bottom line - is whether or not the presence of phi in art, specifically via the pentagram, lends the work in question a certain kind of indelible magic... and why that might be. Keep in mind Dürer's iconic Melencolia I, Botticelli's Venus, Caravaggio's Amor, or that mysterious Italian lady painted by Leonardo da Vinci.*

Without Ceres and Bacchus, Venus Would Freeze is a weird (but charming) image, but it might be helpful to know something about the gods involved in this oddly luminous, intimate scene... thereby, learning a few things about Goltzius (& Dürer) as well...

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Bacchus

"In another version of the same story, Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Persephone, the queen of the underworld. A jealous Hera again attempted to kill the child, this time by sending Titans to rip Dionysus to pieces after luring the baby with toys. Zeus drove the Titans away with his thunderbolts, but only after the Titans ate everything but the heart, which was saved, variously, by Athena, Rhea, or Demeter. Zeus used the heart to recreate Dionysus and implant him in the womb of Semele (a mortal), hence he was again "the twice-born". Sometimes people said that he gave Semele the heart to eat to impregnate her."

"The legend goes that Zeus took the infant Dionysus and gave him in charge to the rain-nymphs of Nysa, who nourished his infancy and childhood, and for their care Zeus rewarded them by placing them as the Hyades among the stars (see Hyades star cluster)... When Dionysus grew up he discovered the culture of the vine and the mode of extracting its precious juice; but Hera struck him with madness, and drove him forth a wanderer through various parts of the earth."

"As a young man, Dionysus was exceptionally attractive. Once, while disguised as a mortal on a ship, the sailors attempted to kidnap him for their sexual pleasures. Dionysus mercifully turned them into dolphins but saved the captain, Acoetes, who recognized the god and tried to stop his sailors."

- Three interesting quotes from Crystalinks' Bacchus page. Inset right, above, is the Bacchus of Aldaia,

A second century, AD, statue unearthed in Spain during the late 19th century through the early 20th, now exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid..

***

We all know about Bacchus, the god of the grapevine and the ecstatic dance. But, we also know him as the Greek Dionysus, his slightly more mysterious counterpart, who was allegedly effeminately beautiful. Goltzius, however, describes him here as a leering, old drunk... a man most women take great pains to avoid. He almost looks like a drug dealer, displaying his wares - a handful of grapes - to the scantily-clad Venus as if he held gold in his hands. Then again, judging by the spiral's termination around his knuckle, he does.

But, we are reminded by one of Goltzius's peers, the artist - and court artist to Holy Roman (Mad Alchemist) Rudolf - Bartholomeus Spranger, that Dionysus was one of the prettier gods in the pantheon... and, didn't the Greeks invent pretty?

Spranger's Bacchus, Venus and Ceres (executed around the same time as Goltzius's) is posted inset right. Note the spiral mechanism - especially the grand triangle. Also the spiral terminates around the knuckle of Eros, who, in this image, holds the grapes (while whispering in his tipsy mother's ear). Meanwhile, Dionysus raises what appears to be a bowl or cup to honor the occasion. (See Spranger's Bacchus and Venus.**)

Perhaps, the figure of Bacchus in Goltzius's painting is a self-portrait in parody of the artist himself. (See his self portrait below.) BTW, note those 2 odd little stag horns emerging from his head; a nod to Dürer, who featured these same horns on two occasions.

So, we have Bacchus (more or less) propositioning Venus in the Glotzius painting, paired with the upturned face of the grain goddess Ceres, gazing at Venus in adoration. And, what is it about Ceres that might prevent "Venus from freezing"?

Why, grain alcohol, of course! And, should that fail, opium; Ceres is also the poppy goddess!

Magic, then as now, frequently depended upon altered states of consciousness. The ancients delegated these altered states to certain "gods," as the gods represented every possible state of being, and every aspect of earthly life... and the afterlife.

As for the magic... it lies in Goltzius's painting.

Inset left is his self-portrait, which he painted in his late 30s, 20 years before his death from a consumptive condition on New Year's Day in 1617. .

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Ceres

Ceres, the grain and poppy goddess.

"Caereris mundus ("the world of Ceres") was a hemispherical pit or underground vault in Rome, now lost. It was usually sealed by a stone lid known as the lapis manalis. On August 24, October 5 and November 8, it was opened with the official announcement mundus patet ("the mundus is open") and offerings were made there to agricultural or underworld deities, including Ceres as goddess of the fruitful earth and guardian of its underworld portals. Its opening offered the spirits of the dead temporary leave from the underworld to roam lawfully among the living, in what Warde Fowler describes as 'holidays, so to speak, for the ghosts'. The days when the mundus was open were among the very few occasions that Romans made official contact with the collective spirits of the dead...

Ceres bears a torch, sometimes two, and rides in a chariot drawn by snakes; or she sits on the sacred kiste (chest) that conceals the objects of her mystery rites. Sometimes she holds a caduceus, a symbol of Pax (Roman goddess of Peace). Augustan reliefs show her emergence, plant-like from the earth, her arms entwined by snakes, her outstretched hands bearing poppies and wheat, or her head crowned with fruits and vines. In free-standing statuary, she commonly wears a wheat-crown, or holds a wheat spray."

- Via the Wiki article for the Roman goddess Ceres. Her Greek equivalent is Demeter.(mother of Persephone), although Ceres is generally represented as a more youthful woman. Then again, there's those snakes... and "serpent" seems to be the vaguely operative term - background noise - in our inquiry. There is, of course, Hygeia and her snake, and the essentially pagan Virtue, Prudentia, with her serpent, sometimes depicted as a dragon. Ceres holds 2 serpents like a Minoan snake goddess. Snakes generally symbolize knowledge and health in most mythologies. This is reflected in phi-based art as the serpentine line, or spiral.

Regarding the images: Inset right (above), Ceres, goddess of Abundance, 17th century (oil on copper), Jan Brueghel the Younger; inset left, Ceres on her chariot drawn by serpents, Michelangelo Maestri, 17th Century, based on a design by Giulio Romano (c. 1499-1546). G - DS - 2024. Inset right, Prudentia, terracotta, Andrea della Robbia, 1475.

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Eros

"The body of Love is naked, but well is his spirit hidden, and winged like a bird he flits and descends, now here, now there, upon men and women, and nestles in their inmost hearts. He hath a little bow, and an arrow always on the string, tiny is the shaft, but it carries as high as heaven. A golden quiver on his back he bears, and within it his bitter arrows, wherewith full many a time he wounds even me. Cruel are all these instruments of his, but more cruel by far the little torch, his very own, wherewith he lights up the sun himself."

- Aphrodite describing her son, Eros, from a poem by the Hellenistic poet, Moschus of Syracuse, found in the article: Eros, the torch-bearer. Generally, his torch is referred to as the "torch of passion" when it is burning and an indication of death when it is not.

"In some versions the Orphic Egg which contains Eros is created by Chronos, and it is Eros who bore Nyx as his daughter and took her as his consort. Eros was called "Protogonos" meaning "first-born" because he was the first of the immortals that could be conceived by man, and was thought of as the creator of all other beings and the first ruler of the universe. Nyx bore to Eros the gods Gaia and Ouranos. Eros passes his scepter of power to Nyx, who then passes it to Ouranos. The primordial Eros was also called Phanes ('illuminated one'), Erikepaios ('power'), Metis ('thought') and Dionysus. Zeus was said to have swallowed Phanes (Eros), and absorbing his powers of creation remade the world anew, such that Zeus was then both creator and ruler of the universe. The Orphics also thought that Dionysus was an incarnation of the primordial Eros, and that Zeus (the modern ruler) passed the scepter of power to Dionysus. Thus Eros was the first ruler of the universe, and as Dionysus he regained the scepter of power once again."

- An excerpt from the Wiki entry for Eros, the more ancient primordial god of the Orphics and his interesting relationship with Dionysus. Apparently, Dionysus was the reincarnated Eros, Eros projected into the future, as is Glotzius's tilt-eyed angel-boy... projected into our time-frame... 

***

Eros is Amor; the god of Love. Once, near the very beginning of civilization, he was the Creator of all... until he transformed into a small boy with wings and became the god of love born from the goddess of beauty, Venus Aphrodite. He was her "sun" or "son."

And, so, it came to be that the great Eros - who originally emerged (alone) from the Egg of the First Universe - became a winged child roaming the earth with a bow and arrow, his weapons... and sometimes a torch which illuminated all the world.

In his painting, Goltzius has given us a portal through which we can interact with the Pre-Christian world. We can greet and be (warily) greeted by one of its star denizens... "Why are you here?" the winged boy seems to ask, revealing to us, by the light of the torch he brandishes in his right hand, a limited glimpse into his antediluvian world.

And, this is the "magic" I was alluding to earlier in the post; a magic made possible by a peculiar (and iconic) proportion, and an embedded geometrical symmetry; a logos considered by some to be mysterious and/or godlike and divine : the golden ratio generated by the pentagonal form.

Think of the spirals which construct the phi-Ovoid as metaphorical time-traveling devices. Of the two main spirals, one is winding in and one is winding out. In Goltzius's painting, the lower spiral guides us in, leading us to the figure of Eros, who is peering forward into the future at us, the spectators. He sees us. We look back. He is the only one of the 4 figures for which this strange communication and/or mutual acknowledgement is possible. The others are involved with each other - a perpetual involvement. But, he is with us in the here and now.

But, while we can only stare at him in wonder, it is with no wonder that we discover Rudolph, the Mad Alchemist of Prague, immediately purchased this image for his collection. He might not have recognized its "magical" symmetry as phi, but he intuited it. Perhaps, the golden meme perpetuates itself through our intuitive states... first the artist's and then the spectator's. It's a measure of the form language some of us have always sensed in a meaningful world... as well as the natural, corporeal one.

Interestingly, in Ovoid 2's interpretation of Eros (inset right, above), he stares at us above a golden triangle attached by its apex to his "third eye" chakra... the chakra of precognition, the ability to "see into the future."

And, that's not all. There is something oddly contemporary about the image. It might be a fantasy illustration from the past century, as opposed to being hundreds of years old. That, too, seems to be a pentagonal phi time-related characteristic: longevity.

One last thing, you may have noticed that the spiral underneath Eros tends to weave around the objects in the foreground of the painting; a technique Dürer used in Melencolia.

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Apollo

Apollo (detail), Hendrick Goltzius,1588. G - DS - 2024.

'Tis thine all nature's music to inspire with various-sounding, harmonious lyre: now the last string thou tunest to sweet accord, divinely warbling, now the highest chord; the immortal golden lyre, now touched by thee, responsive yields a Dorian melody. All nature's tribes to thee their difference owe, and changing seasons from thy music flow: hence, mixed by thee in equal parts, advance summer and winter in alternate dance; this claims the highest, that the lowest string, the Dorian measure tunes the lovely spring: hence by mankind Pan royal, two-horned named, shrill winds emitting through the syrinx famed; since to thy care the figured seal's consigned, which stamps the world with forms of every kind. Hear me, blest power, and in these rites rejoice, and save thy mystics with a suppliant voice."

- Excerpt  of  Orphic Hymn 34 to Apollo, (Greek hymns C3rd B.C. to 2nd A.D). Regarding Apollo - a god of music - and his lyre, his performance has an almost magical, mathematical and ritualistic nature. Perhaps, this is due to its "Dorian measure tunes."

"The elegant figure of Apollo strides forward on a swirling bank of clouds. The sun god's hair rises in the air like flames. The inscription, which would usually be in a straight line at the bottom of the print, here encircles Apollo's head like a halo. Such a bravura play on the conventions of engraving is a hallmark of Goltzius's Mannerist style. This engraving is one of his early displays of the so-called bulbous style, characterized by an unnatural exaggeration of musculature accentuated by the engraver's swelling and tapering lines that turn with the forms."

- Via the Met Museum. Many of the artists featured on this blog for the past few years were considered Mannerists, including Caravaggio, Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi. While pentagonal phi is never mentioned as a Mannerist device, tags like "bulbous style"  and "S-curve' are... something I will address at the end of the post (see: Figura serpentinata Revisited).

"By the 1580s, Hendrick Goltzius had radically altered the engraver’s formulas for producing shape, volume, and tone. Rather than a single contour around the figure, here lines terminate to form the figure’s outline. Lozenges made from crossed swelling lines on Apollo’s body are interspersed with dots to moderate the transition from dark to light. Also evident is the s-curve, a mark used by Albrecht Dürer, but now swelled to follow the complicated volumes of clouds and activate the surface with swirling movement. Goltzius’s inventiveness as a calligrapher is also on display in the inscription around Apollo’s head, which describes the Sun God’s ability to dispel shadows and illuminate the globe.

The exaggerated musculature of the sculptural Sun God and the twisting bands of clouds around the figure were inspired by the style of Bartholomeus Spranger, court artist to Emperor Rudolf II at Prague, whose drawings were sent to Haarlem."

-  A quote from The Brilliant Line Following the Early Modern Engraver, 1480-1650, a 2010 RISD publication. Here we learn the "S-curve" was allegedly used by Dürer.

***

Apollo, Hendrick Goltzius,1588. G - DS - 2024.

When Hendrick Goltzius was an infant his right hand was burnt in a fire and became permanently disfigured. Inset left is an image Goltzius created of his deformed hand... one of which, as we can see, is proportionately golden... although it's index finger is not; it has become fixed into a bent position. Had he been able to straighten it, it would've touched the golden spiral.

Admittedly, Goltzius's hand is unnerving, but, perhaps, he felt the world needed to be unnerved. At the same time he has immortalized and glorified his disabled hand - a handicap which would have daunted (or destroyed) a lesser artist - and his Apollo seems to attest to this.  Am I imagining things, or has Goltzius given the great Apollo a right hand which resembles his own deformed appendage? You'll note that Apollo's left hand (inset right, below) is also in an odd position... and Goltzius invests a lot of effort into the hands of his figures - his feminine figures, particularly his Venuses, have beautifully rendered hands - so, the meaning of Apollo's hands is unclear.

Then again, Goltzius had his own heroic (if not godly) victory - he trained his right hand to hold the engraver's burin and (via Wiki) "by being forced to draw with the large muscles of his arm and shoulder, he mastered a commanding swing of the line." And, that he did!

Apollo was, like Ceres, one of the more enigmatic gods. For many he was a sun god... but for others he represented a more occluded sun. He was the god of prophecy, of music. He was the god one called upon for protection from calamities... often ones that he, Apollo, may have created.

He was a swan-god, and this implies he traversed the realms of both the living and the dead, which, in itself, might imply the ability to time-travel. He was sometimes depicted riding a swan, as was the goddess Aphrodite. The swan was a vehicle as was the pentagram a vehicle and very often in ancient art the vehicle takes on the form and proportions of a golden spiral (Vitruvian Man in motion)... as it does in the painting of Ceres and her serpents in the Ceres section. Speaking of serpents, in some myths Apollo was either the father or grandfather of the goddess of health, Hygeia, mentioned earlier.

Apollo was considered beautiful. So beautiful, he was referred to as the twin brother of Aphrodite. This implies another connection between the two... and so there was. Apollo and Aphrodite, according to Matila Ghyka, were both depicted in art as standing beneath a pentagram.

Goltzius's Apollo is beautiful... and, yet, (possibly) maimed as Goltzius. Then again, his Apollo also occupies a most remarkable golden egg... with a spiral in each quadrant! And, there is no doubt this oval/ovoid is a golden egg - Goltzius distinguishes it for us by trimming the edges of his image to illuminate its golden perimeter. The ovoid sits so convincingly in the image's landscape, it almost appears like a cut-out.

There are a number of anomalies in this image; more than I can discuss here. One interesting feature is what appears to be a serpent biting its tail - the ouroborus - beneath Apollo's feet in the apex of the triangle.

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Fortuna Marina

Buona Fortuna, Hendrick Goltzius, late 1500s. G - DS - 2024.

Fortuna Marina or Fortuna of the Sea, was, essentially, a goddess almost interchangeable with Venus Aphrodite, and this was not lost on Goltzius, whose nude Fortuna figure in Buona Fortuna (Good Fortune) is big, bold, beautiful, and thoroughly in command. Her pose is so iconic, Bartholomeus Spranger eventually borrowed it for one of his golden Venus figures.

Then again, Goltzius's Fortuna may have also inspired Frans Francken the Younger when he painted Allegory of Fortune (Fortuna Marina) around 30 years later. While the setting is far different, featuring an allegorical crowd of spectators representing the fortunate (on the left side of the canvas) and the misfortunate on the right, Fortuna's sail seems to duplicate the same overall shape and proportions as the one held by Goltzius's Fortuna... and each with similar results. See a detail of the painting inset right and below with its corresponding spiral and potential ovoid.

The Ovoid below represents possibly the most fundamental of the Ovoids as well as components of Ovoids 1 and 2, but I'll discuss them at a later time in the third Ovoid post.

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Venus Aphrodite

Venus en Amor, 1575-1607, Hendrick Goltzius. G - DS - 2024.

Apparently, this Venus image was part of series devoted to Venus, Bacchus and Ceres. Two more images from the series can be found at the Philadelphia Museum and the British Museum,

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Figura serpentinata Revisited

Horatius Cocles, 1586, Hendrick Goltzius. G - DS - 2024.

"Figura serpentinata is a style in painting and sculpture, intended to make the figure seem more dynamic, that is typical of Mannerism. It is similar, but not identical, to contrapposto, and features figures often in a spiral pose."

"The recommended ideal form unites, after Lomazzo, three qualities: the pyramid, the serpentinata movement and a certain numerical proportion, all three united to form one whole. At the same time, precedence is given to the "moto", that is, to the meandering movement, which should make the pyramid, in exact proportion, into the geometrical form of a cone."

"Michelangelo once gave this advice to his pupil Marco da Siena, that one should always make the figure pyramidal, serpentine, and multiplied by one, two or three. And in this precept, it seems to me, is contained the secret of painting, for a figure has its highest grace and eloquence when it is seen in movement—what the painters call the Furia della figura (figure of fury). And to represent it thus there is no better form than that of a flame, because it is the most mobile of all forms and is conical. If a figure has this form it will be very beautiful...The painter should combine this pyramidal form with the Serpentinata, like the twisting of a live snake in motion, which is also the form of a waving flame... The figure should resemble the letter S... And this applies not only to the whole figure, but also to its parts...The figure will not appear graceful unless it has this serpentine form, as Michelangelo called it."

- Three quotes (emphasis mine) via Wiki describing the Figura Serpentinata or serpentine figure, a design device allegedly used by the Mannerists, and which allegedly originated during the 15th century. I mentioned it twice on this blog, notably in this Gentileschi post. Oddly enough, regarding that post, it was intended to be the last of the golden series.

I used the same image to illuminate this same quote - Horatius Cocles, an engraving of a legendary Roman officer found in the Wiki article - but, either I totally missed several paragraphs at the time or the article was expanded with the information presently posted here. Had I read about "figures in a spiral pose" or "a certain numerical proportion" initially, the game might have been over as was first intended! 

I also somehow missed the identity of the artist, Hendrick Goltzius; I was not aware of him and the extent of his work till recently. Nor was I aware that Albrecht Dürer allegedly used the "S-curve" in his work. Meanwhile, this mysterious curve so vaguely described as involving a "pyramid" also required a "certain numerical proportion." Was this the information concerning symmetry Dürer invested so much effort in obtaining and eventually secured?

What is certain is how easily the pentagonal golden spiral - and especially the ovoid - seem to fit the Serpentinata form both in theory and practice. Are they one and the same? If so, then one bit of information seems to be missing; the serpentine figure is much older than the Mannerist period and was borrowed from the ancient Greeks, and possibly the Syrians.

As for Hendrick Goltzius, I think I've shown enough examples of his work to establish that Glotzius was a master of this form. He was so good he was almost scary.

So, in answer to my own question, yes, Glotzius did surpass Dürer in this one respect - the "golden egg." But, I think he and Spranger, allegedly his mentor, owed a great deal to the northern artist who initially ferreted out the Italian Serpentinata form and made it his own, Albrecht Dürer.

But, before I forget, there is another (related) Italian term to know: Contrapposto.

"Contrapposto is less emphasized than the more sinuous S-curve, and creates the illusion of past and future movement. A 2019 eye tracking study, by showing that contrapposto acts as supernormal stimulus and increases perceived attractiveness, has provided evidence and insight as to why, in artistic presentation, goddesses of beauty and love are often depicted in contrapposto pose. This was later supported in a neuroimaging study. The term contrapposto can also be used to refer to multiple figures which are in counter-pose (or opposite pose) to one another."

Go figure.

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* "The Mona Lisa... is a half-length portrait painting by Italian artist Leonardo da Vinci. Considered an archetypal masterpiece of the Italian Renaissance, it has been described as 'the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, [and] the most parodied work of art in the world.' The painting's novel qualities include the subject's enigmatic expression, monumentality of the composition, the subtle modelling of forms, and the atmospheric illusionism."

- Via the Wiki entry for Mona Lisa. How many works of art created over 500 years still command our attention as much as this painting?

"The Mona Lisa is priceless. Any speculative price (some say over a billion dollars!) would probably be so high that not one person would be able or willing to purchase and maintain the painting. Moreover, the Louvre Museum would probably never sell it. The museum attracts millions of visitors each year, most of whom come for the Mona Lisa, so a steady stream of revenue may be more lucrative in the long run than a single payment. Indeed, the museum considers the Mona Lisa irreplaceable and thus spends its resources on preventive measures to maintain the portrait rather than on expensive insurance that can only offer mere money as a replacement."

- Via the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Mona Lisa, c.1503–1506, Leonardo da Vinci. G - DS - 2024.

"Many dreams have been brought to your doorstep

They just lie there and then they die there.

Are you warm, are you real, Mona Lisa,

or just a cold and lonely, lovely work of art?"

- Lyrics from the song, Mona Lisa, 1949, Ray Evans and Jay Livingston. The cover version by Nat King Cole spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard singles chart in 1950. Cole's version of the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992.

Regardless of all the hype that surrounds Da Vinci, I have never seen a great deal of phi-activity in his designs (with the exception of Salvator Mundi), but I thought I'd finally give the Mona Lisa a test in spite of my doubts. The spiral above was the best I could do presently. It isn't a remarkable spiral and it's falling outside of the canvas, but it's adequate in that it satisfies the thought experiment I've been entertaining recently: the ritual use of pentagonal symmetry in art and the consequences.

Then again, ritualistic is probably too strong a word in most cases, but I think there was a sense (or essence) of a kind of magic involved... that is, if any of the spirals or ovoids I've shown on this blog were consciously the artist's plan and deliberately fashioned that way. Of the images on this blog, only a small portion really measure up to being of that kind. But, I also think there are guidelines to determining this and the possibility that some form of AI might help.

Apart from that, well, this post has grown too long and it's time to quit. I'll leave you with one of my father's favorite artists (who, in adulthood I've come to appreciate, too) performing one of his signature, smooth-as-satin tunes.

A related article: Mystique of Mona Lisa and the Enigmatic Artist’s Inspiration.

**

Bacchus and Venus, 1597-1600, Bartholomeus Spranger. G - DS - 2024.

"Spranger's paintings for Rudolf mostly depict mythological nudes in various complex poses, with some connection to the Emperor's esoteric Late-Renaissance philosophical ideas. His paintings are the most characteristic of the final phase of Northern Mannerism. By far the best collection is in Vienna. His drawings have great energy, in a very free technique."

- Via Spranger's Wiki entry. For more information regarding Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf and his court see this article from the British Museum: Printmaking in Prague.

***

In his Bacchus and Venus, 16th century artist, Bartholomeus Spranger has invented a virtual Power Couple - the god of wine and the goddess of beauty - with (possibly) Eros, and the god's totem animals, a deer and a cheetah (or panther) much of which has been mercilessly cropped from the image. Incidentally, in legend, Bacchus and Venus did have a short fling, producing a son, Priapus.

Via Theoi, we have this version of the myth: "Aphrodite, it is said, had yielded to the embraces of Dionysus, but during his expedition to India, she became faithless to him, and lived with Adonis. On Dionysus' return from India, she indeed went to meet him, but soon left him again, and went to Lampsacus on the Hellespont, to give birth to the child of the god. But Hera, dissatisfied with her conduct, touched her, and, by her magic power, caused Aphrodite to give birth to a child of extreme ugliness, and with unusually large genitals. This child was Priapus."