"Da Vinci" and Other Codes - Part 2

Saviour of the World - 16th century, Giampietrino. Geometry: 2022, DS.

"In alchemy, the symbol for the perfected Great Work is the hermaphrodite - literally the god Hermes and the goddess Aphrodite blended in one person. Leonardo was fascinated with hermaphrodites, even going so far as to cover sheet after sheet of his sketchpad with drawings of them - some pornographic. And recent work on the world's most famous portrait - the enigmatically smirking Mona Lisa - has shown that 'she" was none other than Leonardo himself.

...During our travels to France, we repeatedly found that towns which had formerly been Templar property - such as Utelle in Provence and Alet-les Bains in Languedoc - subsequently became centres of alchemy. It is also significant that the alchemists, like the Templars, had a special veneration for John the Baptist."

- Two separate but related quotes from The Templar Revelation, 1997, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince; a non-fiction documentation of many of the elements which surfaced in the Da Vinci Code, plus a few dozen more. This compilation of facts, speculations, and anecdotes is enough to make your head spin!

Images: Inset right is Da Vinci's St. John the Baptist with his hand pointing heavenward in what is actually a very common position in religious images during that period. He is dressed in animal skins in reference to time he spent as a hermit in the desert. While, at a quick glance, he might appear androgynous, in reality - and in a clearer reproduction - he simply appears to be a romantically handsome man. Doubtlessly, Leonardo thought so, too. The model was his lover, Salino Giacomo, also known as Salai (see Mon Salai).

"In Psychology, C.G. Jung used the term to denote "an archetypal pairing of contrasexual opposites, which symbolized the communication of the conscious and unconscious minds, the conjunction of two organisms without the loss of identity." He used syzygy to liken the alchemical term albedo with unconscious contrasexual soul images; the anima in men and animus in women.

In Gnosticism, syzygy is a divine active-passive, male-female pair of aeons, complementary to one another rather than oppositional; they comprise the divine realm of the Pleroma (the totality of God's powers), and in themselves characterize aspects of the unknowable Gnostic God."

- Via this Mythic Imagination Institute page. Inset right is an example of one of many medieval "penitent Magdalene" paintings - this one by Giampietrino. His version shows the Magdalene as a hermit in a desert (or, possibly, a cave in the wilderness) dressed down in what appears to be her overgrown hair. According to some sources, the hermit-in-the-desert scenario may actually be the result of a confusion with a different Mary: Mary of Egypt.

"In the system of Valentinus, as expounded by Irenaeus, the origin of things was traced to two eternal co-existent principles, a male and a female... The whole Aeonology of Valentinus was based on a theory of syzygies, or pairs of Aeons, each Aeon being provided with a consort; and the supposed need of the co-operation of a male and female principle for the generation of new ones, was common to Valentinus and some earlier Gnostic systems. But it was a disputed point in these systems whether the First Principle of all was thus twofold. There were those, both in earlier systems, and even among the Valentinians who held, that the origin of things was to be traced to a single Principle, which some described as hermaphrodite; others said was above all sex."

- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for Aeon (Gnosticism).

"The Borborites...were an early Christian Gnostic sect during the late fourth century who had numerous scriptures involving Mary Magdalene, including The Questions of Mary, The Greater Questions of Mary, The Lesser Questions of Mary, and The Birth of Mary. None of these texts have survived to the present, but they are mentioned by the early Christian heretic-hunter Epiphanius of Salamis in his Panarion. Epiphanius says that the Greater Questions of Mary contained an episode in which, during a post-resurrection appearance, Jesus took Mary to the top of a mountain, where he pulled a woman out of his side and engaged in sexual intercourse with her. Then, upon ejaculating, Jesus drank his own semen and told Mary, 'Thus we must do, that we may live.'"

- Excerpt from the Wiki entry for Mary Magdalene. The Borborites were pretty outrageous... if Epiphanius the heretic-hunter is to be believed. (Probably not!) I must say though, that the odd scene with Christ, Magdalene and the semen sounds almost hermetic. Meanwhile, later in the entry, we are informed that  - according to St. Jerome - Mary Magdalene was actually married to John the Evangelist... which is often just another name for John the Apostle. It gets complicated.

***

I am not a conventionally religious person, but when I first lay my eyes on "Saviour of the World" (inset left and also introducing this post) by the 16th century Italian painter Giampietrino (See Part 1), I was very drawn to it. Unexpectedly, while one might assume that, for a painter of Christian images, the "Saviour" would resemble Christ, it seems Giampietrino was not envisioning Christ... at least not the archetypal Christ figure.* He was envisioning the quintessential youthful androgyny. It could be a boy. It could be the boy's twin sister. The expression on its face is gentle and, yet, guarded, inscrutable. It's as if it knows something - possibly everything - and it's testing us... challenging us. But, ultimately, its message is sub rosa and it may as well be an alchemical cryptogram. Perhaps, it is.

For example, instead of the expected crown or halo, there are three large, key-like structures surrounding the figure's head. They could be the upper portion of a cross placed in the background... or three embedded keys in a golden triangle (the horizontal type) array. Considering that the figure is positioned within a large GTS, we might choose the latter.

Meanwhile, the saviour holds the earth in its hand like a crystal ball it has just uncovered. What fleeting mysteries lie on its featureless surface? Once again, we are clueless...

Carlo Crivelli and the "Queen of Heaven"

 

Madonna with Saints Francis and Sebastian - 1491, Carlo Crivelli. Geometry: 2022, DS.

 

" Pacioli wrote Divina Proportione which is his name for the golden ratio...There is little new in Pacioli's book which merely restates (usually without proof) results which had been published by other authors. Of course the title is interesting and Pacioli writes:
'... it seems to me that the proper title for this treatise must be Divine Proportion. This is because there are very many similar attributes which I find in our proportion - all befitting God himself - which is the subject of our very useful discourse...

... just like God cannot be properly defined, nor can be understood through words, likewise this proportion of ours cannot ever be designated through intelligible numbers, nor can it be expressed through any rational quantity, but always remains occult and secret, and is called irrational by the mathematicians.''

- Via this Golden Ratio page from St. Andrew's University in Scotland. Luca Pacioli (1445-1517) was an Italian mathematician who was contemporary with a number of key artists... up to, and including Carlo Crivelli and Sandro Botticelli (whose Annunciation was created in the same year as Crivelli's Madonna, above). As it was, Pacioli chose his friend, Leonardo da Vinci, to illustrate Divina Proportione... (But, if you're thinking "da Vinci Code" - which, I confess, I've never read and only saw portions of the film - the actual pentagonal "code" in art and architecture  predated Christianity by, at least, several hundred years.) (And nobody had to die to keep it secret.)

 ***

The Golden Harp

Thus far, it seems we have two different time periods and two different countries in which a handful of artists were using the golden ratio - and predominately the pentagonal expression - in their work. There were the Dutch artists from the Baroque period (17th century) and the Italian artists from the (earlier) High Renaissance period (15th century). Of all the artists presented on this blog, however, Carlos Crivelli took pentagonal geometry to new heights with his Madonna with Saints Francis and Sebastian in that, he didn't merely use the geometry for structure in his design, he used it to encrypt information. He wasn't alone in this, but he was, perhaps, the most thorough and concise, as we shall see. But, we might not know any of this, if he didn't supply us with one important clue... a clue which other like-minded painters might also eventually use: the snail... which crawls enigmatically beneath St. Francis, and which has been the subject of debate over the years (detail, inset left).

We will begin our analysis with a large golden triangle... and immediately we see the "point" of Crivelli's exercise... and, by this, I mean literally: she is positioned - with her son - at the apex of the triangle; a triangle which intercepts our lowly snail. When we begin connecting the dots of the painting to the triangle, however - that is, finding  correspondences between the vertical and horizontal elements of the design - we discover a device I refer to as a "harp" (see here).

Is my harp perfect? No, it is not. If you look closely, the correspondences I made could've been tightened a tad. Then again, it's important to realize that while digital geometry is adequate, it can never be as spot-on as one might wish; circles and diagonals are not accurately supported by square pixels. On the other hand, without the advantage of digital tools I would never have discovered the pentagonal relationships presented here. So it goes.

That being said, note the basic correspondences between points on the harp and key elements of the overall image. It's as if the golden ratio - specifically based on the golden triangle - translates into visual art as elegantly - almost mystically - as it can in musical composition or architectural plans. Moreover, it gives the artist the benefit of encryption. For example, if one designates the harp as representing a musical scale, one might even encrypt sound into a visual image. How cool is that?

But, let's move on to Crivelli's next pentagonal manipulation - the harp is merely one of three - and I'm saving the best till last...

Because the Night - A Tribute to One Hell of a Girl Goddess

 

"Take me now baby here as I am
Hold me close, try and understand
Desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
Love is a banquet on which we feed
 
Come on now try and understand
The way I feel when I'm in your hands
Take my hand come undercover
They can't hurt you now,
Can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now

Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
 
Have I doubt when I'm alone
Love is a ring, the telephone
Love is an angel disguised as lust
Here in our bed until the morning comes
Come on now try and understand
The way I feel under your command
Take my hand as the sun descends
They can't touch you now,
Can't touch you now, can't touch you now

Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
 
With love we sleep
With doubt the vicious circle
Turns and burns
Without you I cannot live
Forgive, the yearning burning
I believe it's time, too real to feel
So touch me now, touch me now, touch me now

Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us
 
Because tonight there are two lovers
If we believe in the night we trust
Because tonight there are two lovers
Because the night belongs to lust
Because the night belongs to lovers
Because the night belongs to us"

- The lyrics to Because the Night by Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith, 1978. Translatable lyrics.

***

Because the Night was Patti Smith's first and last (commercially) Big Hit, but, listening to it today, it seems less like a mere pop tune and more like an ectoplasmic incantation worthy of the Eleusinian Mysteries. And, Patti Smith, like one of the key figures in those Mysteries - Persephone, the girl Goddess, beloved by her mother, betrothed to the King of the Dead - guides us through the Underworld to the Temple of Love; the gateway of immortality. That an almost pagan chant would be popularly embraced - and there have been a number of covers throughout the years as well - is not all that unusual. Love is our primary motivation; Love is our night-blooming flower (Sub Rosa) and that its power unfolds in darkness is a very primal conception. Eros, the God of Love, was born of darkness. We are all born of darkness: the womb, the birth tomb (with its secret passageway outwards).

Patti Smith has always struck me as a kindred spirit. She and I were both born during the last days of December, for one, and, regardless of whether you're astrologically literate or not, I find that people who are born at the turning of the year share specific traits... specifically, we're very often outsiders, and outside of time as well; as if being born on the cusp of a year endowed us with the ability to slip through time's cracks. And we have a strange relationship with death. Once again, we seem to be psychically placed at a portal. Psychologically, on the other hand, we're like Peter Pan; we can't really "grow up." We grow inwards.

(Inset right) is a photograph of Patti by Robert Mapplethorpe which appeared on her 1988 album, Dream of Life.

In any case, I'm guessing that for many an outsider artist, Smith's unexpected emergence into the rock world of the late 1970s was a many-splendored thing. She was the wild child of her time... and she never resorted to playing the gender card. It wasn't as if she couldn't, but, like an androgynous little kid - and we all start out that way - it quite possibly never occurred to her...

Sub Rosa (Another Interlude)

At the Garden Gate - digital - 2019, DS.
(Click-on post images for enlargements.)

"In the driest whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert, I lost my sanity and found this rose."

- Attributed to the Sufi mystic and poet Rumi.

“Mystery glows in the rose bed and the secret is hidden in the rose...”

- Attributed to the twelfth-century Persian poet and alchemist, Farid ud-din Attar, about whom Rumi once said: "Attar has traversed the seven cities of Love, We are still at the turn of one street."

"Le ciel clair de minuit, sous mes paupières closes,
Rayonne encor… Je suis ivre de tant de roses
Plus rouges que le vin.

Délaissant leur jardin, les roses m’ont suivie…
Je bois leur souffle bref, je respire leur vie.
Toutes, elles sont là."

(The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines....I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.

Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me....
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.)

- From the poem Les roses sont entrées (Roses Rising) by Symbolist poète maudit, Renée Vivien. I've written more about Vivien here. Inset right is Pre-Raphaelite John Waterhouse's 1908 painting The Soul of the Rose.


"Come into the garden, Maud, 

For the black bat, night, has flown, 
Come into the garden, Maud, 
I am here at the gate alone; 
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, 
And the musk of the rose is blown.

For a breeze of morning moves, 
And the planet of Love is on high, 
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves 
In a bed of daffodil sky, 
To faint in the light of the sun she loves, 
To faint in his light, and to die."

- From Alfred, Lord Tennyson's controversial 1854 "monodrama" Maud, which was eventually set to music. Part I of the poem can be found here, and Part II here. Inset left is the 1875 image Maud by the British photographer Julia Cameron.

"I am the dove whose wings are murder.

My name is love."

- From the short poem Au Revoir by the poet Charles Causley, the "most unfashionable poet alive." Like the symbol of the rose, the dove is also associated with Venus (Aphrodite), the goddess of love. The pentagram, on the other hand, is often associated with the planet Venus.

***

Spring is officially here, and, like most humans, my thoughts predictably turn to... well, love.   Suffice to say, while duty calls me back to my feminist artist series, my muse - who generally errs on the side of passion - has other intentions. And, for an artist, there is no dilemma involved. The answer is simple: follow the muse or be damned. Hence, another interlude.

Today's offering emerged from the image which introduces this post... an image which has haunted me this past month, inspired by a similar rose and pentagram motif on the ruined facade of a Templar church (found here). In my vision, it lies in shadow on the exterior of a garden wall flanking a wrought-iron gate. But, not just any garden, mind you; specifically a night garden... the garden of poets.

Inset left is another image I finished recently which had originally been intended for this post - a live scan of a bracelet - (added April 9).

Judging by his poem Maud, Tennyson would've known the night garden intimately... but, then, many critics and scholars came to regard his "monodrama" Maud as the work of deluded man with bipolar disorder. Meanwhile, Tennyson considered it his favorite and most successful composition. Inset right is an image of Tennyson reading Maud by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The moral to this story? For an artist or poet, attending to the opinions of critics and scholars is comparable to throwing ones body beneath a swiftly moving vehicle.

As it happens, my purpose of writing this post is not entirely clear to me. But, something about the relativity of love, roses... souls... and silence seems to be the underlying theme. Ultimately, it is silence which enables the ancient mystery of love to survive. For an artist, the allusion (and illusion) must suffice. And, yet, while I can't exactly elucidate, I can leave you with this: a definition of sub rosa I found in a book about Freemasonry:

"The rose, and especially the red rose had been from ancient times the symbol of Aphrodite or Venus, the goddess of love. It was symbolic of love, and making love was something private and not to be discussed openly. Cupid (Eros) therefore dedicated the rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence. Hence, the red rose of Aphrodite became the general symbol of silence and secrecy, and perhaps also of invisibility. Anything spoken sub rosa - under the rose - was confidential."

- From The Origins of Freemasonry, Scotlands Century 1590 - 1710  (via a discussion about the Rosicrucians) by David Stevenson, 1988.

On the other hand, from the Wiki article on Harpocrates we have: "One other tale relates the story about the Greek gods. Aphrodite gave a rose to her son Eros, the god of love; he, in turn, gave it to Harpocrates to ensure that his mother's indiscretions (or those of the gods in general, in other accounts) were kept under wraps. This gave roses the connotation of secrecy (a rose suspended from the ceiling of a council chamber pledged all present – sub rosa "under the rose"), which continued through the Middle Ages and through the modern era."