Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio (Part I)

Melencolia I - copper engraving - 1514, Albrecht Dürer. Geometry: 2022, DS

"Melencolia I is a large 1514 engraving by the German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. The print's central subject is an enigmatic and gloomy winged female figure thought to be a personification of melancholia – melancholy. Holding her head in her hand, she stares past the busy scene in front of her. The area is strewn with symbols and tools associated with craft and carpentry, including an hourglass, weighing scales, a hand plane, a claw hammer, and a saw. Other objects relate to alchemy, geometry or numerology. Behind the figure is a structure with an embedded magic square, and a ladder leading beyond the frame. The sky contains a rainbow, a comet or planet, and a bat-like creature bearing the text that has become the print's title.

The art historian Erwin Panofsky... wrote that 'the influence of Dürer's Melencolia I—the first representation in which the concept of melancholy was transplanted from the plane of scientific and pseudo-scientific folklore to the level of art—extended all over the European continent and lasted for more than three centuries.'"

- Excerpt from Wiki's entry for Dürer's Melencolia 1 (shown above). While many art historians seem to unanimously assume the robed, angelic figure is of the female gender, the figure is most assuredly male, and, judging by its facial expression, Dürer himself. Inset right: an early self-portrait (executed in 1498 at age 26) of the fashionable - but seriously introspective - young dude.

Regarding the central "ladder leading beyond the frame," note that it forms the apex of a large golden triangle.

Note: To give an example of how deeply this image continues to resonate over the years, Wiki mentions Peter-Klaus Schuster's 1991 publication, Melencolia I: Dürers Denkbild, an exhaustive history of the print's interpretation in two volumes.

"It should be noted that even Leonardo was unable to apply his own proportion and anatomical studies to his work given he painted little, or not at all, during the last decade of his life. Hence, the applicability of the study of proportion to practicing artists was still unclear. Dürer would spend nearly three decades working to remedy this ambiguity. He completed two treatises that would be the dominant basis for art theory in Renaissance Germany; their popularity and influence spreading with their subsequent translations. In 1525, Underweysung der Messung, or Four Books on Measurement, was published as a practical guide to geometric perspective for students of the arts; and, in 1528, Vier Bücher von Menschlicher, or Four Books on Human Proportion, appeared a few months after his death. Taken together, the studies illustrated the Renaissance belief that mathematics formed the firm basis and grounding for the arts."

- Excerpt from an commentary regarding Dürer's Vier Bücher von Menschlicher by Giovanni Paolo Gallucci found here. Inset left is one of Dürer's diagrams - a construction of a spiral - found in his Four Books on Measurement.

"There is much speculation as to why Dürer chose this construction rather than Euclid's construction which uses the 'golden ratio' proportion. The speculation stems from the fact that Dürer makes no mention of the golden ratio, although he was no doubt aware of its use in Italian art. It may be that Dürer simply did not feel comfortable with the precepts of the 'divine' ratio. The German architects had their own 'divine' ratio which was the vesica piscis ratio of  √ 1:3. In addition Ptolemy's construction is simpler than Euclid's and these constructions were just a preliminary step in his program."

- Excerpt - along with Dürer's diagram (inset left) - from The Polygons of Albrecht Dürer by G.H. Hughes. (.pdf)

Regarding the diagram, the pentagon is constructed within the mason's "Sacred" tradition utilizing the Vesica Piscis as its generative source.

"Divine truth alone, and no other, contains the secret of what the most beautiful form and measure may be."

- Albrecht Dürer, from his essay Discourse on A
esthetics published as a conclusion to the Third Book of his proportion studies. (See the Giovanni Paolo Gallucci link for the full quote.)

"The greatest miracle that I have seen in all my days, happened in the year 1503, when crosses fell on many people, especially on children more than on other people. Among them all, I once saw one in the shape which I have drawn here; it fell on the linen blouse of Eyer's maid, who was in the Pirckheimer's back-house. And she was so upset about it that she cried and wailed; for she thought she was going to die of it.

Also, I saw a comet in the heavens."

 - Albrecht Dürer from the last page of his 1503 Gedenkbuch regarding an episode of a phenomenon known as Red (or Blood) Rain. Dürer's drawing can be found on this page.

***

(Note: Originally, the title of this post and the title of the URL were one and the same. That is, till I realized that Melancolia I was one of three designated Master Prints. I am not quite sure who did the designation, but, after reviewing the two other prints involved, it seemed all three might have what I (now) refer to as hidden, occulted, or passive GTS. Unlike the more outrageously active spirals - e.g., those of Caravaggio, which seem as if they were deliberately designed - the passive spirals almost seem to creep into an image with the artist unaware. The thing is, it is logical to assume Albrecht Dürer did know about the golden ratio. Alas, the jury is still out.)

Albrecht Dürer (May 21,1471 - April 6 1528) is, in his own quiet way, possibly one of the most popular artists of the Renaissance period; certainly one of the most prominent. (You know you've arrived when there's a conspiracy blog written about your life!) After all, unlike many other artists, he kept a meticulously written record of his daily affairs. And, then, there were those self portraits... even while he was ill and nearing the end of his life, he sketched his ravaged body for posterity. Perhaps, he just desperately needed to be remembered. But, why is it that all of his self-exposure seems, in the end, superficial? Because, regardless of what we learn, Dürer remains as firmly screwed into his shell as the most resistant of mollusks; he is an enigma even unto himself. In fact, his vital nature seems very much like another cryptic element found in one of his most popular images: Melencolia I (below the jump). Observe...

The Golden Series - Contents (Updated 10/3/24)

 The Golden Series

Phi, the Pentagram & the Golden Spiral

(An informal investigation regarding the role of the pentagonal golden spiral in art history from the ancient, classical period till the present day... observations and discoveries recorded in real time.)

Posts are listed from earliest to most recent.

Reflections on Water

Fractal Unit 5

Botticelli & the Spiral

2022 - A Tentative New Year

The Power of Love

Nicolaes Lachtropius & the Golden Spiral

Five of One, One of Five

Judith Leyster and a Double Golden Spiral

Carlo Crivelli and the "Queen of Heaven"

Caravaggio's "Golden" Boy(s)

The Golden Egg

"Da Vinci" and Other Codes - Part 1

"Da Vinci" and Other Codes - Part 2

A Virtual "Can of Worms"

Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio (Part I)

Albrecht Dürer and the Divine Ratio (Part II) - Dürer Reconsidered

In the Shadows of a Golden Age: the Bentvueghels (Part I)

In the Shadows of a Golden Age: the Bentvueghels (Part II)

Judith Leyster Saves the Day (An Addendum of Sorts)

In the Shadows of a Golden Age: the Bentvueghels - Part III

The Gentileschi Spirals... and a series Afterword

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams: the Roman Dodecahedrons

Samhain, 2022; Leonora Carrington and the Philosophic Egg

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part II: The Quintessence: The Egyptian Duat

Chasing Ancient Pentagrams Part III: The Quintessence -The Fellowship of Pentalpha

Hygeia & the Pentalpha (post abandoned)

Venus in the Dovecote (Part I)

Venus in the Dovecote (Part II): The Ancient Sanctuary

Pentagonal Venus: the φ (phi) in Αφροδίτη (Aphrodite)

Gustave Moreau's Golden Venus

Five Spirals for December - #1 "Night Flight" by Michael Parkes

Five Spirals for December - #2   "Princenza Hyacinta" by Alphonse Mucha

Five Spirals for December - #3 One Winter's Night... by Erté

Five Spirals for December - #4 The Vision of St. Cecelia by Orazio Gentileschi

Five Spirals for December - #5 Song of the Morning by Nicholas Roerich

A Belated Christmas Spiral: The Annunciation by "Juan de Flandes"

The Heart Nebula & the Flaming Heart of Venus

The Universe in a Phi Shell

The Paisley Pattern & the Golden Meme

An Auspicious Day

The First of May

The Mirror of Venus: 5 Keys

The Dürer Files: A Series Introduction

The Dürer Files: 1. "Melencolia I" & The Golden Egg

Interlude with a Fallen Angel

The Dürer Files: 1b. Hendrick Goltzius & The Gods of the Golden Egg

The Dürer Files: 1c. The Bees & Keys of House Barberini

The above list is ever-changing... updated with live links as the intended posts are published.

Conjuring Up David

 

"Every chance,

Every chance that I take

I take it on the road

Those kilometres and the red lights

I was always looking left and right

Oh, but I'm always crashing

In the same car.."

I'm Always Crashing in the Same Car - Low - 1977, David Bowie

***

It's been too long since last I mentioned David.

A Virtual "Can of Worms"

Worm's Last Memory - digital - 2009, DS. Geometry: 2022, DS.

Admittedly, Grace Jones is a tough act to follow... but, what must be done, must be done.

It seems I have made an unwelcome discovery and this is it: yes, one can embed a golden spiral in a visual image without even realizing it... and I have proof!

The proof amounts to golden spirals found in 5 of my own images - 3 of them executed prior to 2010 and the other two created in 2015, and 2016. There's only one problem: I wasn't introduced to the pentagonal golden spiral until March of 2021!

Inset left and right (below), from 2016, is the side panel of the music box with 2 potential GTSs.

Question: Why is it that a golden (pentagonal) spiral will discreetly appear in an image when  - at the time it was created - the artist had no conscious knowledge of the particular spiral involved? Is our design sense somehow wired to the melody of the golden ratio? Is this why the ratio was referred to as the "divine" - in that it is subliminally embedded in our consciousness?

Finding a golden spiral is not exactly the same as creating one, but the twain do meet somewhere within the process. And, this might be a factor. In the case of finding a golden ratio in ones own work, while it allows an artist to remember more of the actual creative process, it also brings something else to the table, a sense of the mysterious; a connectedness. This is, at once, satisfying... but, ultimately, a bit spooky. Is it a muse thing? An encrypted message...?  If so, from what?... or who? 

I keep thinking of it as a kind of organic thing.. a more sentient form of Sacred Geometry; the sub rosa beneath the sub rosa... like a maze of underground catacombs inhabited by ghosts. Then again, maybe the spiral is just a design artifact, making its appearance wherever a golden triangle appears.

At the same time, well, what new madness is this? In other words, is it anything but a strangely human (and yet, inhuman) construct which is essentially of the imaginal realm?

And, how does this reflect on all the spirals I've been finding in other artist's work?

Yes, well, I am unable to answer any of these questions, but have posted all five images in which the GTS was found (3 are below the jump). As for the worm .jpg (above), I found it was imperative to replace the space of my own crop (!) to accommodate the spiral! The image isn't working perfectly within the spiral but it's very, very close... and it is working with the golden triangle.

100 Degrees in the Shade

 

"Driving down those city streets waiting to get down

Won't you get your big machine somewhere in this town?"

I was compelled to get online this morning and listen to this 1981 song. I am now compelled to post it to this blog. No, it's not exactly a traveling tune... more of a summer-in-the-city kind of thing. 100 degrees in the shade and counting. Ladies & gentlemen, Grace Jones!

Oh, and Grace's cover of La Vie en Rose is to die for. More Grace... and more!

Via the Telegraph: Hula-hooping topless at 74, Grace Jones launches Meltdown with a thrilling sense of danger 

"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...

"Da Vinci" and Other Codes - Part 1

Leda With Her Children (Leda con i loro figli)- 1520, Giampietrino. Geometry: 2022, DS.

 

"In Medieval and through to Renaissance works of painting, sculpture and literature, Saint John is often presented in an androgynous or feminized manner. Historians have related such portrayals to the circumstances of the believers for whom they were intended. For instance, John's feminine features are argued to have helped to make him more relatable to women. Likewise, Sarah McNamer argues that because of his status as an androgynous saint, John could function as an 'image of a third or mixed gender' and 'a crucial figure with whom to identify' for male believers who sought to cultivate an attitude of affective piety, a highly emotional style of devotion that, in late-medieval culture, was thought to be poorly compatible with masculinity. After the Middle Ages, feminizing portrayals of Saint John continued to be made..."

- Via the Wiki entry for John the Apostle. I don't necessarily agree with the above paragraph, but I thought I'd add it to the mix. Inset left is an utterly adorable young John painted by Fyodor Bruni (1801-1875). I don't know that women would identify with him, but little girls (and some little boys) might like to "jump his bones." Also appearing in the image is an eagle - one of John's symbols - which kind of looks like a griffin.

"The prevalence of these iconic displays of the beloved disciple resting on Jesus’ breast provided justification for same-sex male intimacy long before the contemporary search for a gay Jesus. Before the words gay or even homosexual were used to describe same-sex male relationships, those men whose sexual desires were oriented toward boys and other men pointed to this understanding of Jesus’ relationship with the beloved disciple. King James I of England (reigned 1603-1625), who was clearly homosexual, justified his sexual relationships with young men to his privy council by saying, 'Jesus had his John and I have my Peter.'"

- Via (Pastor) Frank Senn's web-page. Inset right is a statue from Germany (circa 1310) also found there.

  

***

In a previous post, I mentioned never having read The Da Vinci Code, which was true at the time, however, two weeks ago - and almost 20 years after it was written - I finally did get around to it! And, (surprise, surprise), it wasn't a half-bad story; a well-researched stew of speculation melding numerous, esoteric symbols - many of which have appeared on this blog - into one cohesive action-tale with enough suspense, espionage, counter-espionage and bloodshed to satiate the most demanding of audiences. And, yes, the hero gets the girl; what more could one ask for?

The thing is, the bulk of Brown's ingredients have been hashed and re-hashed by a number of (speculative) non-fiction authors in the past and will continue to bubble away on the back-burner. Alchemy, Freemasonry, the Rosicrucians, the Templar Knights, Rosslyn Chapel, the Cathars, the Black Madonnas, The Holy Grail, etc., are subjects that various researchers seem compelled to cobble together into one vaporous, homogenized form or another... as if all things of an esoteric nature must be intimately connected. Dan Brown attempted to accomplish the same feat with his fictional tale by adding several more symbols to the mix - the pentagram, the rose, the Fibonacci series, and the anomalous presence of (what appears to be) a female figure amid the disciples in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper - all in support of the tale's major premise: the clandestine marriage of Christ and his "womb," Mary Magdalene, the alleged progenitors of the French Merovingian dynasty. And, to show his heart was in the right place (that is, the 21st century) Brown added a healthy pinch of Goddess-worship to the mix. In other words, even feminists could climb on board his train of thought.

The problem is, while Brown didn't actually invent his own symbolic definitions, he tailored the existing ones to fit his tale. While attempting to somewhat mitigate the (wrongfully) tarnished reputation of the pentagram - and it's about time someone did - he also referred to it as an exclusively pagan symbol which represented the Sacred Feminine. What he fails to mention is that it was an early Christian symbol as well, and, in a former incarnation, was (metaphorically) indicative of both genders (as was the triangle); in it's upright position it represented masculine (aggressive) qualities and forces and in its "inverted" position represented the feminine (passive) counterparts. Inset left (above) is the stunningly beautiful (north) rose window at Amien's cathedral in France featuring an inverted pentagram.

The larger problem, however, rests with the enigmatic feminine figure in Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper; a figure (shown below the jump) which a number of speculators assume is a woman and Mary Magdalene the logical choice. As for Brown, his novel's entire theme is hinged on the womanhood of this figure, all interpretations to the contrary are ignored...

The Traveler Takes a Dive

 

 

"Kill the headlights and put it in neutral
Stock car flamin' with a loser and the cruise control
Baby's in Reno with the vitamin D
Got a couple of couches sleep on the love seat
Someone keeps sayin I'm insane to complain
About a shotgun wedding and a stain on my shirt
Don't believe everything that you breathe
You get a parking violation and a maggot on your sleeve
So shave your face with some mace in the dark
Savin' all your food stamps and burnin' down the trailer park
 
(Yo, cut it.)
 
Soy un perdedor
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me?"

- Lyrics from I'm a Loser (Soy un perdedor) - 1993, Beck, Carl Stephenson.

"Forces of evil in a bozo nightmare"

I haven't listened to this song by Beck in a long time. And, then, about 2 days ago - like a bolt from the blue - it started running through my head non-stop.

So, as these (spontaneously emerging) tunes are generally the kinds of tunes I tend to post, I put it up. But, first, I listened to it on YouTube because I did wonder about it. Usually, an unconsciously inspired tune relates to some aspect of my life I haven't really expressed as of late... and, as is also usual with these tunes, they don't stop running through my head until I pin them down and decipher the message.

"Loser" was always an ironic video (and it has a good back-beat), but, now, in 2022, I detected a darker aspect I hadn't really noticed in 1994. Oddly enough, the first thing I surmised was that Beck had once been homeless. My second idea was that I was merely projecting.  But, as it turns out, I was right the first time. According to Wiki, he had become homeless just before he wrote the song, "Loser."

"(In 1989...) daunted by the prospect of another homeless New York winter, Beck returned to his home of Los Angeles in early 1991. 'I was tired of being cold, tired of getting beat up,' he later remarked. 'It was hard to be in New York with no money, no place... I kinda used up all the friends I had. Everyone on the scene got sick of me.'

...By 1993, Beck was living in a rat-infested shed near a Los Angeles alleyway with little money. Bong Load issued 'Loser' as a single in March 1993 on 12" vinyl with only 500 copies pressed. Beck felt that 'Loser' was mediocre, and only agreed to its release at Rothrock's insistence."

Of course, this may just be something out of a press kit, but I think it's quite possibly true. I think I recognized this song and, for a homeless person, it's actually a very powerful song. In fact, I would say it's a Traveler's song... conveying the sort of attitude that, perhaps, the  world's refugees should share: if you imagine I am a lesser person because of my present fate,  then, wake up. Bad luck is like a car crash... a flood... a tornado... or being struck by lightening; you're in the wrong place at the wrong time; there's no reasoning with it and it's impersonal. Or, as my friend, Moo, once planned to use as her epitaph: "But, whatever was good... didn't happen."

And, it's not happening to a lot of people these days. Including me.

Welcome to the New Mexican Lottery...

The Golden Egg

Original photo found here - Geometry: 2022, DS.

If any day is for celebrating eggs, it'd have to be Easter. But, when you think about it, one of the first fundamental shapes we learn to recognize in childhood is that of an egg, and, when we do the math, the shape of an egg - that quintessential oval - is golden! 

Some eggs are shaped more perfectly golden than others, but, it's probably safe to say that Phi - via the golden triangle - comes to us at the beginning of our lives in the most simple and primitive form we can imagine... and we never have to think about it.

It's also a beautiful marriage of symbols... the egg represents life itself... the spiral represents eternity... and Phi? Phi is a measure of perfection.

Have a great holiday!

 Afterword

"The 'goose that lays the golden eggs' is a reference to a tale told in an Aesop fable. Aesop was a slave and a storyteller who lived in ancient Greece. He is famous for creating tales that illustrate timeless truths. These short stories remind us of simple lessons that everyone should know about life. For instance, in the story The Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs, a farmer comes into possession of a goose that literally lays one golden egg, everyday. Greed overcomes the farmer, and he becomes convinced that if he splits open the goose he will come upon an enormous sum of gold that he may have all at once, rather than waiting to receive a smaller amount of gold everyday in the form of golden eggs. He slaughters the goose and finds nothing inside except the usual entrails common to all geese. The moral of the story is: Those who have plenty want more and so lose all they have."

- An excerpt taken from this Grammarist page regarding a fable allegedly penned by the ancient Greek writer known only as Aesop (620–564 BC) - who may have been the first black author of the western world.  Inset right is a lovely little goose named Lucy who lives at the Secret Gardens of Helgian in Cornwall, England. You can read about her here (but don't be April-fooled; that egg is golden, and we have proof...)

 

Caravaggio's "Golden" Boy(s)

Amor Vincit Omnia - 1602, Caravaggio. Geometry: 2022, DS.

"Caravaggio employed close physical observation with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro that came to be known as tenebrism. He made the technique a dominant stylistic element, transfixing subjects in bright shafts of light and darkening shadows. Caravaggio vividly expressed crucial moments and scenes, often featuring violent struggles, torture, and death. He worked rapidly, with live models, preferring to forgo drawings and work directly onto the canvas. His inspiring effect on the new Baroque style that emerged from Mannerism was profound. His influence can be seen directly or indirectly in the work of Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, and Rembrandt. Artists heavily under his influence were called the "Caravaggisti" (or "Caravagesques"), as well as tenebrists or tenebrosi ("shadowists")."

 "Caravaggio displayed bizarre behavior from very early in his career. Mancini describes him as 'extremely crazy', a letter of Del Monte notes his strangeness, and Minniti's 1724 biographer says that Mario left Caravaggio because of his behavior. The strangeness seems to have increased after Malta. Susinno's early-18th-century Le vite de' pittori Messinesi ("Lives of the Painters of Messina") provides several colourful anecdotes of Caravaggio's erratic behavior in Sicily, and these are reproduced in modern full-length biographies such as Langdon and Robb."

- Two separate quotes from Caravaggio's Wiki entries (linked to in the image caption above) from which all images in this post have been sourced. Inset right is Caravaggio's Narcissus at the Source, 1599... another "golden" boy, as we shall see... which begs the question: Did Caravaggio actually "forgo drawings and work directly into the canvas" or was that merely another element of the mythology which surrounded the tragic life of this artist?

***

By most accounts, "tragedy" is not the operative word in Michelangelo da Caravaggio's life story. He was a swaggering, brawling, hot-tempered man, but he also happened to be the most celebrated artist of his time. His violent nature was, if not celebrated, accepted. After all, isn't knocking a few heads around - and other forms of assault - a manly thing to do? That his police record was as long as his right arm (or longer) and included several homicides shouldn't deter us; we love our dark heroes.

Inset left is a pastel portrait of Caravaggio (1621, Ottavio Leoni).

He was said to have created art in much the same way as he lived: spontaneously... as if he just splashed his paint on the canvas with nary a plan - nor a preliminary drawing - in mind; once again, a very manly, masterful approach. And, yet, he managed to create a number of exceptionally vibrant, cohesive images that dazzled the public of his time and continue to impress us to this day; by all accounts, his should have been a brilliant success story.

The downside is this: he spent the last years of his short life as a paranoid refugee... running scared, as a result of the murder and mayhem he had created previously. Karma caught up with him in the form of family members of one of his victims - I might add that his crime involved a "botched" castration (but, try not to dwell on this) - and, due to an infected wound he died at age 38.*

As if that wasn't bad enough, his sworn-enemy, worse critic and arch-rival - fellow artist, Giovanni Baglione - somehow - and, most likely, by nefarious means - became the author of Caravaggio's first official biography(!). Of this Wiki tells us: "Baglione, his first biographer, played a considerable part in creating the legend of Caravaggio's unstable and violent character, as well as his inability to draw."

So, keep this in mind (and make no mistake) when reading about Caravaggio: in some insidious way, Baglione's poison ink still flows...

...a matter I will attempt to circumvent.

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 * Other possible causes of death include lead poisoning and syphilis... but, then again, well, there was that Knight of Malta...! (See this Smithsonian article.)

 

 Love Conquers All 

I may as well tell you now that since the time I first posted Amor Vincit Omnia (Love Conquers All), and, presently, as I write these words, I made an important discovery. And, it is due to this discovery that I can state, without any hesitation, that the spiral in this painting was no accident.* That is, Caravaggio was well-informed of the pentagonal Divina Proportione and deliberately used its spiral to design this painting. Moreover, amongst his contemporaries, he wasn't the only painter to do so.. nor was he the only painter to use the spiral in this context. That being said, of all the golden spirals I have found, this one (inset right) is quite possibly my favorite. Really, what's not to love? Caravaggio almost challenges us to contemplate the mechanics of his design.

Once again, we merely have to look at Cupid's physically impossible posture; it is only through the spiral that his stance is made clear. He has become the golden triangle and its spiral... poised precariously on an area no larger than a dime. And, Caravaggio has neglected no detail: even the fret-board of the lute in the background aligns with Cupid's triangle.

As might be expected, much has been made of the eroticism in this image, but, with this, I can't quite agree. Judging by Cupid's expression - as he bends his head down and grins at us through his triangle - Caravaggio may have been celebrating the joy and playfulness love brings to human lives... and/or possibly his own love for the boy who was his model for Cupid - the diminutive, child-like form of Eros - a boy named Cecci with whom Caravaggio lived. As Caravaggio is generally considered bisexual, they may have been lovers... but they may have, instead, shared a different sort of love. As it so happened, Caravaggio was left an orphan at age 6 when his entire family was lost to the Black Death and, let's face it, an orphan of age 6 has to grow up painfully fast. Maybe Caravaggio, remembering his own past, felt protective of a boy like Cecci.

Cecci, on the other hand, as audacious, bodacious and jovial as he may be, has a certain gleam in his eye. Possibly it represents the Catch-22 of any variety of love. Can we ever fully trust another person? On the other hand, Cupid was known to be a trickster, and Cecci may have been merely modeling "in character."

In any case, utilizing Cupid/Eros, son of Venus, is a classical way to feature a GTS and this was not Caravaggio's last nod to the classical usage of the pentagonal Divina Proportione. Behold the spiral of Narcissus...