Davinci's Last supper paradox!

Last supper as viewed through Leonardo's dissection
www.davincisecret.itgo.com (for pictures)

"Every painting that can be justifiably attributed to Leonardo is included. A treasure."

                     The Good Book Guide, London

This is a thread dedicated to the investigation of the correlation between Da Vinci's Last supper painting and his mirrored dissection. As I am sure most of you are familiar with the Last supper painting, I would venture to guess that the same amount of people have never heard of a mirrored dissection. Da Vinci's mirrored dissection can be found in the Codex Atlanticus. This particular dissection (one of many) is an image of two identical shapes that when divided in the three sections forms a 2 x 4 rectangle. Also understand that the dissection is a very difficult math riddle that is not easily solved, so for anyone to solve this must be an expert in the field of mathmatics. Once the solution to the dissction has been solved into three sections the section fit together to form a 2 x 4 rectangle, which coincidently happens to be the proportions of the Last Supper painting. At this point you may be asking yourself well how come no one else has ever mentioned the fact, that when solved, the dissection forms the same shape as the painting. The answer to that is simple, the mirrored dissection is nearly impossible to find. Unless you fly to England and visit the winsdor library. For some reason any text from the Codex Atlanticus is not readily available to the public, the only way I even knew it exsisted was through the book "Leonardo's mirror and other puzzles" by Ivan Moscovich. It is a book full a math riddles and math brain teasers. So needless to say, that particular mirrored dissection was placed before me by chance. I immediatly reccognized the 2x 4 rectangle and then went and made the connection with the painting and this is what I found.



The first thing I noticed is that the six sections (six because there were 3 pieces to each part of the dissection), is that the sections seperated the disciples into four groups of three just as the painting does. I then noticed that the Christ is seperated into two equal sections.

 

 It was then that I really looked at the painting closely and began to notice that not only were the disciples seperated and balanced on either side of the Christ, but the whole painting itself is balanced perfectly. What I mean by that is, not only do the lines in the painting balance perfectly according to the golden mean as you can see here by the designated lines,

a fact that is recognized by today's Authorties on the subject.   Then I noticed something else. While the balance of the painting is easily noticible there is an underlying theme to the painting that is not so recognized, in fact it's not recognized at all. The theme represented is the balance of nature. The good/evil, dark/light, give/take, man/woman, red/blue aspect of the painting. In other words, it may as well of had a yin/yang symbol hanging from the ceiling. We notice the dark shading on the left and the light shading of the wall on the right. We notice the woman on the left of the Christ and the Man on the right. The woman listens to the "voice" while the man on the right holds firm. We may want to take a moment to acknowledge that to this day the Church still makes the claim that "John" does not posess any feminine qualities and could not have possibly ever been meant to represent a woman. Look at the Photo and make your own judgements, at the risk of arrogance, I find this argument laughable and therefore will spend no more time on the subject. We notice the Christ figure wearing the oppostie colors of red and blue, interesting color choice since it was a supposed entirely random choice . We then look closer at the hands of Christ the hand on the left takes while the hand on the right gives. I also do not find it chance that at the time, in partriarchal culture, that the left side was associated with evil, perversity, and women...THE LEFT SIDE WAS ASSOCIATED WITH EVIL PERVERSITY AND WOMEN.  At this point we clearly see the Yin/Yang aspect, now what does it mean. Now that we have recognized the yin/yang aspect we have to ask "What does the Yin/Yang mean and what does it have to do with the dissection?". Lets take a closer look at Yin/Yang.

The meaning of yin and yang

Traditionally within Chinese medicine, the health of a patient is defined as a balance of the body's yin and yang. These two terms relate to the opposing, yet complimentary, qualities which make up all that is present in the natural world. Thus, yin and yang would represent such aspects as night (yin) and day (yang), male and female, or other complimentary as well as opposing factors.



In Chinese medicine it is believed that some organs of the body are yin organs, while others are yang organs. The central idea of this form of medicine is prevention. Even 2000 years ago, Chinese physicians were putting great emphasis on moderation of diet, exercise and lifestyle to aid their patients with maintaining a healthy, balanced life which it was believed was a preventative of illness.



In ancient times the physicians of China were also philosophers with their theories firmly rooted in Taoist tradition. The Tao stresses a oneness in nature of all things. This would mean that the human body would operate by the same principals. Traditional Chinese medicine first became known through an ancient book, "The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine", which was said to be written by Huang-di two millennium ago. It is believed that this text was amended by unknown authors over the years but it was identified as the first attempt to codify Chinese Medicine.



With yin and yang, the harmony that health depends on, also depends on the balance of these two aspects. Since our bodies externally and internally are in dynamic balance with nature, they are constantly making changes in response to everything we come into contact with to maintain that balance. It is during those times that we cannot adapt to these influences that we become ill. According to Chinese medicine our organs operate in pairs. For instance, there are five zany organs which include the heart, kidney, spleen, liver and lungs. These are paired with the five fu organs which are the small intestines, stomach, large intestines, bladder and gallbladder. The fu organs which work predominately to transform food into energy and eliminate waste are our yang organs. The zany organs which control the storage of vital substances are our yin organs.



The term organ in Chinese medicine refers to a complete network and not just a single organ. This network will include the skin, tendons, tissues and bones which form an energy network in the body. Thus, in order to have a healthy balance of yin and yang, all aspects of the entire network must maintain a consistent and even flow of vital energy that relates equally to the forces of nature. This is done by treating the whole person by combining healing practices such as herbal medicine, moxa cones, acupuncture, rhythmic exercise and food therapy to insure a balance of yin and yang.

So we begin to see the relationship between the between the yin/yang and the symbolism of the painting. This still does not explain why the painting correlates to the dissection form in the yin/yang aspect. But we have yet to apply the painting to the dissection. So far we have only applied the dessection to the painting to see the the image matches the dimensions of the painting and seperates the disciples in such a way that corresponds exactly the way the painting seperates them. So now that we apply to painting to the dissection we see that the image formed is two intersecting yin/yangs with a Vesica Piscis in the middle, in abstract form of course, but the image can be viewed by "filling in the blanks" with your minds eye. We obviously understand the significance of the symbolism of balance and Harmony represented by the interecting yin/yang and the Heart that forms above the vesica piscis and naturally associate them with the aspects of the painting, but what signigicance could the Vesica Piscis have with the painting? What kind of relation does it have to religion or art? Well let's find out.

vesica ancient symbol
This symbol, called the vesica pisces or "Jesus fish," has an unusual history. Used almost exclusively to denote membership in the Christian religion, the symbol once held a very different meaning.



The shape of the Vesica Pisces (literally 'vessel of the fish') is derived from the intersection of two circles, a pythagorean symbol of the intersection of the world of the divine with the world of matter.




In Pagan times, this glyph was associated with the Goddess Venus, and represented female genitalia. How it came to be associated with Christianity isn't entirely clear, but early depictions of Christ depict him as an infant within the vesica (usually called a mandorla, meaning 'almond shaped.'), which represented the womb of Mary. As such, it is also a doorway or portal between worlds, and symbolizes the intersection between the heaven and the material plane. The shape of arches in gothic architecture is based on this shape.


Curiously, he New Testament story of the loaves and fishes secretly reveals the geometric formula for the fish shaped device. You can read more about this hidden symbolism here.

Last but not least is the V symbol in the painting. To put this very briefly the "V" has an angle of 52 degrees. The significance of this particular angle dates back to the ancient egyptians and the pyramids which were also built on a 52 degree slope which was and still is considered sacred. The 52 (51.827) degree angle slope of the sides of The Great Pyramid in Cairo, Egypt embodies the Golden Mean which is the ratio that is used in Nature to generate growth patterns in space. Sacred Geometry studies such primal systems which reveal the unity of the cosmos by representing the relationships between numbers geometrically.  This in and of itself is facsinating. But take notice on the bottom of the photo page how a 52 degree pyramid is generated by forming a vesica inside another...please view photo page at this point...... I belive that the angle was intentionaly applied to the painting to connect it to the mirrored dissection through the relevance of the correlating angles.






 



So what does all of this mean?  Since Da Vinci is dead and as far as we know never left an explantion, than all we can do is try to interpret what it was he was trying to say. Some people believe the Da Vinci code, and that has to do with a secret bloodline of Jesus Christ or some connection to freemasonry. The people who believe this stuff obviously have not  researched any of Da Vinci's notebooks to get a grasp of his personal beliefs and feelings towards religion and the church in general, which were not positive. So to say that the V shape in the painting is representive of a womb or "grail" or bloodline is ,in my opnion, ludacris based on the simple assumption that Da Vinci did not even believe in the Divinity or historical aspect of Jesus. What I find amazing  is the fact that America is so fixated on the idea that Jesus is the true son of God, born of a virgin, that to even approach the idea of a "secret" in the painting on the assumption that Jesus never even existed, or to question his divinity would stir up so much controversy in and of itself that it would ultimitly distract from the true point of the inquiry which was the correlation of the painting with the dissection and deciphering, what I believe to be, another small hidden treasure from Da Vinci. Shining the light on the true origins of Christianity to be that of pagan sun god worship. Most American's still believe that Jesus is the reason for Christmas. So I personally believe the correlation to be intentional, whether my interpretation is correct is a matter of disscusion.  I believe that Leonardo his a tiny little math secret in his painting that once applied to the dissection translates through meaning of symbolism, the shedding of light on the paganistic adaption of symbolism by the church but its actual melding of the pagan religion of Sol Invictus in 300 a.d. by Cornelius the great. A tiny little secret the church doesn't want its ignorant congregation to discover. Which is why the church vehemently discourages any investigation of other religions. And if that right there doesn't sound a little alarm in your head as a congregation member then just sit in your pew and continue to daydream. So I think ultimitly Da Vinci who was first and formost a scientist in a time when it was heresay hid another little secret that merits a more in depth analysis by Authorities on Da Vinci and his beliefs, although little personal info is known about him, a lot can be gathered by reading his notes on nature, morals, phlisophy, and Allegories all which can be found in his published notebooks that you can pick up at Waldens. Once an undertanding of his view of beliefs through his notes on the above formentioned, a DISTANCT message is accompanied through various symbols and there meanings and origins in history and mathematics.  But like I said there is no proof that would confirm or deny these assumptions. In the end, we are the one who must decipher the truths the become self-evident. We see what we want, and that goes both ways. That is why I believe an objective approach must be made by an outsitde party. For more info on The melding of Christianity and Sol Invictus then please go here www.themystica.com...

That is just one of many sites that documents the melding of paganistic religion with Chistianity to form unity in the land and the formation of the one religion. In the end it is my personal belief that the connection between the dissection was to be made by any astute mathematician to shine the light so to speak on the true origins of the Church and there motive of dominitve authority of the people through fear tactics and ignorance, by exposing the adaptation of pagan symbolism into what was then modern Christanity. Da Vinci sums it up with a quote from his notebooks by saying      "Many may think by alleging that my proofs are opposed to the authority of certain men held in the highest reverance by their inexperienced judgements; not considering the my works are the issue of pure and simple experience, who is the one true mistress.  These rules are sufficienct to enable you to know the true from the false-and this aids men to look only for things that are possible and with due moderation- and not to wrap yourself in ignorance, a thing which can have no good result, so that in despair you would not give yourself up to melancholy."   We begin to understand that Da Vinci relized that the only things that we can trust are those things that can be proven. The Balance of Nature is one of those things. Religion is not. So we begin to gain insight on the relationship to the balance of the painting to the balance of the dissection and the balance of Nature who Da Vinci considered his true mistress .  And if we delve further into the laws of the time, which were decided by the church, we find that they condemed everthing Da Vinci stood for. Including the dissection of over 30 cadavers which at the time was considered whichcraft. Of course once the church relized that Da vinci did dissect over 30 dead people and being the artist he was, he was able to draw what he discovered, they were shall we say, extremely interested in what he discovered, but for the "good of the congregation" decided to keep this particular "whichcraft" a secret. That is the reason that for over 300 years after his death Da Vinci was only known as an artist not a scientist and inventor which were his true passions. And so I applaud anyone investigating the works of Da Vinci but I must hesitate to believe the hypothesis of anyone who's knowledge of his work comes from a book about a secret bloodline of Christ. I have read Da Vinci's notebooks from front to back and have studied his writings extensively. For anyone intersested in learning more about the man himself then I would recomend any work by Carlo Pedretti. The proportions of the human body and the connection to phi that Da Vinci discovered is enough to give any true student of science a reason to think. Da Vinci regognized the connection between humans plants and animals, down the the matching of the veins of plants to the veins of animals, and recognizing the connection way before Darwin, although voicing that opinion at the time would have cost him his head courtesy of the church. So to say that his views on the existence of life and what sustains it would have been in stark contrast with the views of the church.








In conclusion, I believe it was the intention of Leonardo Da Vinci to incorporate the last supper with his mirrored dissection to shed light on the fact that the Church, who at the time was also the government, created a religion by combining christianity and the pagan sun worship of Sol Invictus for the sole purpose of controling the population. Da Vinci incorporated the Vesica Piscis into the equation to shed light, not only on the adaptation of the "fish" but many other paganistic symbolism and core beliefs, in turn exposing the church for what it was and what it is today. That being nothing more than the combination of early Essene belief or early christian traditon, with that of the pagan sun god worship for the purpose of population control through fear tactics and superstition. I would invite any congregation member to investigate the historical accuracy of Jesus. If you want to know what your church won't tell you then visit here www.nobeliefs.com...


The information above has been presented in the most historically accurate way possible, with an entirely objective viewpoint. I have been accused by many church members as attacking the church. In reality the above info is nothing more than facts based on nature and historical accounts from other generations and countries that were not given the choice of convert or die. The church made every attempt to destroy any evidence of scripture or text contradicting their belief for the purpose of military domination in a time when the church and government were of one accord. We call this period the Dark ages, and it is no wonder. What good could come of eliminating choice, reason, and rationality. Da Vinci understood very well what the implications of such a barbaric act. I will leave well enough alone with a quote that, in my opnion sums it all up.


"He was like a man who woke up too early in the darkness, while everyone else was still sleeping"


Dmitri S. Merezhkovsky, 1901

*Added source for quote*

[edit on 2-6-2005 by dbates]

AnAbsoluteCreation--Wow, that was a long but very interesting read. Much of it I hadcome across before, but never in such a straight forward package as in the link to Jesus. I'm copying it for further reading and prep for my constant wars with Christian sheeple. Thanks for your work. You get a way above from me.

[edit on 2-6-2005 by kazi]

Jesus that was a hell of a post but definitely worth the time to read. Glad you took the time to type it all out as it really gave me some good reading. I see your a deep thinker. Keep thinking and keep writing good posts

Great Stuff! MFA in art history here we come.

excellent post. a very good read.

Does anyone know why Pope Leo X (16th century) was qouted, "It has served us well, this myth of christ." Had he ever explained his words? Does the church explain them anywhere? AAC

While I did enjoy the post, I'm not sure you gave proper credit to the fact that the entire thing was cut and pasted from www.davincisecret.itgo.com...

Some of it seems a bit of a stretch, like the geometry related to the Vesica Pisces. You could probably apply the same argument to a huge number of pictures or paintings.

I would concentrate more on the following: What is around Jesus' neck? Zoom in on it at milano.arounder.com... and tell me it isn't the virgin holding the baby. Next look at the medallion around Mary/John's neck. Notice that where the red ribbon is covered by a blue cape on Jesus, it is covered at the same point by a white cape on Mary/John. Now look at the windows behind Jesus and Mary/John. Notice that the landscape in the background connects the scene together between the two windows if you follow the lines of perspective back from the cape/ribbon intersections into the background.

There are 12 cups on the table. Jesus is reaching for Mary/John's cup while she/he has hands clasped together in submission and Jesus is looking down at his own empty hand. Judas is clearly reaching for the same cup.

Make what you will of these symbols.

Name one painting that the Geometry can be applied to. Let alone with such direct religious significance. The Vesica = the fish= Christ. And the claim regarding the virgin holding the baby, is nothing more than paint chip. So if you see a virgin there then you can thank father time, not Da Vinci. And as far as I can see, Christ and Judas are both reaching for seperate peices of bread. Both belonging to the woman. I tried to see what you were trying to say about the landscape, but it looks continues for me. Nice website reference though.

First of all it is absolutely ridiculous to look at a painting of an event, and use it as truth when the event and the time the painting was made is seperated by 1,400 years.

Second, if DaVinci did not believe Jesus is the Savior and the Christ, then of course his painting is going to be reflective of that viewpoint.

There are people who hated Jesus when He was on earth and 1,400 later there were some who hated Him and in 2006 the are still people who deny Him.

Did you even read the post? It has absolutely nothing to do with hating Jesus! It seems to me that you have pre-concieved notions about what the website was discussing and you are unable to take an objective look at information that contradicts your religious beliefs. Not a great way to reach conclusions on a hypothesis. Would if we took that approach with science?

First of all, compliments on the well researched post!
You are right about left and right, it was infact said that Jesus's right hand was the divine one where the left was his human one..
The fish is not just female in its flat shape, it is phallic in its moving shape.
To this day in neapolitan slang "u pisciu' (the fish) is a reference to the male member.

Whilst I do not want to enter into the discussion of Jesus's historycal existence his name is often used to simbolyze the Trinity:

The tetragram (God/Jahwe) is IHVH into which descends the Holy Fire Sh (the letter shin in Aramaic).

Thus you have the Father : IHVH
increased by: Sh, the Holy Fire
giving you IHShVh : Jeshua/Jesus the son

In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... One secret to the profane in one word.

Osbert+

Very interesting. Thanks for the input. I would love to hear you personal take on the historical evidence as Jesus the man and the Christ.

If I may direct everyone's attention to some of the volumes of writing that Leonardo da Vinci left behind.... www.gutenberg.org...

That's the complete translation of The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci.

You can find it in your local library or buy it from Amazon -- and I encourage you to do so for the sake of the illustrations there.

If you read it, you'll quickly find out that Leonardo was a scientist first and foremost. Many of the things you talk about are things that he talks about in terms of science.

A good overview of his life and his works and some of his letters are here:
www.lairweb.org.nz...

The earliest biography of him (1500) says that he was so irreligious as to be considered a heretic -- not a mystic or a mystical person with heretical ideas. Today we would call him an athiest, or at most vaguely theistic:
www.straightdope.com...

The proportions and so forth in the paintings come from scientific measurement, and you can see the basic principles in his Notebooks. It may appear to be gnostic or mystic -- but once you've read his notebooks you can see how he derived them.

Compare his writings to the mathemetician, Pythagoras. Pythagoras talked about religous topics (not science). He tried to fit his mathematics into a religious view.
www.answers.com...

But not so da Vinci.

Originally posted by kleverone
Very interesting. Thanks for the input. I would love to hear you personal take on the historical evidence as Jesus the man and the Christ.

I am sorry to say that I am very disillusioned with evidence, it really amounts to nothing. The story is exactly that of Horus. It is an allegory, a very beautiful one.

If I could add an extra set of coincidences to the Last Supper painting:

1) As I said earlier Jeoshua is IHVH exalted by the sacred fire Sh, but like all fires even that is going to be consumed to return to its original status. It is a sign of death to come.

2) Jesus is the number 13 and fulfills the role of the two headed god Janus that sees the past 12 months and by his death/sacrifice facilitates the transition to the next 12 month period, it is also a sign of impending death.

3) Jesus is between 6 on his left and 6 on his right, his own age 33.
666, I can feel you cringe, so i'll be quick; amongst other things 666 is the number of abundance and full extention, like a beautyful firework before it collapses..
Another symbol of impending death.

It is the Last Supper!

Osbert+