"Every painting that can be justifiably attributed to Leonardo is included. A treasure."
The Good Book Guide, London
This is a site 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.