Mystery of the Mona Lisa:

I was convinced that Leonardo da Vinci had carried out similar experiments to my own, and was of course pleased to find evidence of it. Over the years I have found seven passages in his surviving written works that mention rays of vision and say that only the central rays are strong and true, while those surrounding weak (debole) and deceitful (bugiarde). Studying the Mona Lisa painting, I could see how the soft shadows of the cheeks lead our focus and moveable attention to the left eye, and how the shadow of that eye leads them right inside it, a clear and delicate point of contrast pleasing to our moveable attention. And why does the Mona Lisa have no eyebrows? This may have been the current fashion, but it may also have been one that pleased Leonardo, as lack of eyebrows lays more emphasis on the eyes. Leonardo made very sure, in all ways, that we would look into the eyes of the Mona Lisa, and doing so be rewarded by a loving smile.

Mona Lisa 1 / Mona Lisa 2

When the eye of a woman is given so much importance, it must have special significance. What if the Mona Lisa is not only a lively and accurate portrait of a Florentine beauty, but also an allegorical embodiment of seeing? This woman is looking at us, and we are looking at her. She is looking and being looked at, thus seeing both in the active and passive form. We see with our eyes, and for this we need light. Her eyes occupy the center of the upper part of the painting, while the brightest part of the painting area, namely the shine on her breast, lies just above the very center of the painting. The dark green-brown hem of her garment may bee seen as the horizon, while the bright shining spot may represent the rising sun, and the lines of the veil thrown over her left shoulder would symbolize the trajectories of the sun traveling over the sky. We see the Mona Lisa sitting in a dark room, close to the bright opening of a small balcony. If the lateral columns were still there, we would have the strong impression that it were a window. We stay inside the dark chamber, looking out: the chamber may well symbolize the chamber of the eye. If so, the opening of the balcony would represent kind of a pupil (square instead of round). The windows are to the house what the eyes are to the body. Inside the virtual eye, the Mona Lisa would occupy the so-called natural point hailed by Leonardo: namely that wonderful interface of the eye where all rays of light received from seen objects meet and join at one single point. The woman is turning towards us from the picture plane. Her legs are parallel to the balcony, but the upper part of her body is rotating in our direction, her face first: but her eyes have already reached us, and gaze straight out of the picture at the viewer, joining the plane of vision with the direction of view. Her upper part body forms a kind of circle, and her head forms a second, smaller one around her left eye in the center of the upper part of the painting.

To the left and right of the woman mountains, lakes and river valleys can be seen. They form an almost prehistoric landscape which, in its dreamlike breadth, may symbolize nature itself. It has well been noted that in the painting we are looking down upon the left lake, but are on the same level as the right one. You will recall the two perspectives that we found in the Last Supper. Here we have another pair of perspectives, and they communicate to us the same thing: that we can never really understand the world and life by looking at it from just one point of view. Leonardo himself concurred with the antique understanding of the living being as a tiny cosmos. The Mona Lisa, by representing the natural point in the eye, may refer to the ancient belief of microcosm within macrocosm (this belief may appear strange belief, but the modern theory of fractal geometry teaches us that the same forms may appear on the highest and deepest level of structures). In the picture we have nature; a living being; and artificial objects: a veil, a dress, a stool, a balcony, a house, roads, a bridge. The woman is depicted in obvious balance with the nature surrounding her, while the artificial objects occupy a modest place and accompany and suit her; they also form a kind of artificial pupil (window) in an artificial body (house). All of this may be a symbol of art as the harmony of the artificial world with life and nature. And yet the house lifts the Mona Lisa high above nature: it hovers above the landscape in the background, much as would a balloon. This may symbolize that our artificial trappings lift us higher than the lives and necessities of common animals. In a mysterious and frequently mistranslated passage, Leonardo wrote that humans are distinguished from the animals by our use of tools. In one of his drawings he depicted objects falling to Earth. Above he wrote: Adam here, Eve there; and below: Oh human misery; of how many things you make yourself the slave for money. In other passages of his writings he praised the human eye. It would not be too difficult to find a quote for every element of my above interpretation.

May I also mention that Leonardos writings are full of geometrical sketches? He considered his art to be a science, and said that no science can do without mathematics. Furthermore he praised proportions, and compared his way of putting together a picture with that of composing a piece of music: e se ti dicessi la musica essere composta di proporzione, o io con questa medesima seguito la pittura and if you say that music consists of proportions, I as a painter also use that means (namely proportions).

Take me, thus, take a look at the underlying geometry of the Mona Lisa painting. If the columns on the sides of the balcony were still there, the inside format would be 4:3, a much-used proportion during the Italian Renaissance. The unit is given by the breadth of the womans head on the height of the small fold in her hair veil (nearly on the level of her eyes). Move one unit to the left and one to the right of her head and you obtain the original width, while the height measures 4 units. The left line of the balcony sill divides the height 4 units in the ratio 2:3 (or into 1.6 and 2.4 units). Draw two arcs of the radius 4 units around the lower corners of the inside format. Now draw a circle, whose radius should measure 1,5 units, around the center of the inside format. It will seize the edge of Mona Lisas hair. Draw another pair of arcs with a radius 4 units around the upper corners of the inside format. The four arcs will touch the circle in four points: the very points where the two diagonals of the inside format 4:3 cross the circle. These four points are very important in the geometry of this composition. Their horizontal distances measure 1.8 units, their vertical distances 2.4 units, and their oblique distances 3 units. Now imagine circles around all four points. Their radii shall measure 0.1 / 0.2 / 0.3 / 0.4 / 0.5 / 0.6 / 0.7 / 0.8 / 0.9 / 1 / 1.1 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.5 / 1.6 / 1.7 / 1.8 / 1.9 / 2 / 2.1 / 2.2 / 2.3 / 2.4 units. Apply the circles as very fine and precise grooves on a transparency and place this over a reproduction. If seen from below and from the sides the circles joining into S-lines. Two vertical lines follow the cheeks of the woman, cross on her breast and follow the upper arms, while a horizontal S-line explains the shifting of the landscape. It is all as if the figure of the woman were created by the circles; as if Leonardo, who had carefully studied all motions of the water, had anticipated the wave-nature of light and matter! Moreover, four circles meet at the point where the parting in her hair begins: a very close double point on the height 3.5 units (half a unit below the upper edge of the inside format). The left radii measure 0.8 and 2.8 units, the right ones 1.1 and 2.9 units, while the horizontal distance of the two very close points measures 1.8 minus the square root of 0.55 minus the square root of 1.12 = 0.00007962 units. The numbers are based on the equations 55 = 8x8 3x3 = 28x28 27x27 and 112 = 11x11 3x3 = 29x29 27x27. The very small distance marked by the double point may, once again, symbolize the two mental perspectives of our human life: coming very close but never really meeting.

May I plead for the reconstruction of the original inside format 4:3? One might simply add a pair of narrow panels and color them according to the sky, the columns and the balcony. A new frame should have a strength of one unit and measure 6 by 5 units (inside measurements 4 by 3 units). Paintings by Leonardo, Raphael and others gain much when displayed in their original formats. Leonardos Last Supper is a ruin of a painting, in that it has lost much of its original color. However, its composition has survived undamaged and still has a strong effect on its viewers.

Mona Lisa 1 / Mona Lisa 2

Mona Lisa, an Allegory of Seeing / © 1974-2003 by Franz Gnaedinger, Zurich, fg@seshat.ch / www.seshat.ch

Poussin's Enigmatic Painting

According to Gerard de Sede, L'Or de Rennes-le-Château, the enigmatic reference to "shepherdess no temptation that Poussin Teniers hold the key" in the second parchment refers to the the works of Nicolas Poussin (1593-1665) and David Teniers the Younger (1610-1694), who had painted The Temptation of St Antony.

Poussin reportedly travelled to Paris to verify his discovery and while there visited the Louvre to obtain copies of Poussin's Les Bergers D'Arcadie, Tenier's The Temptation of St Antony and a third painting, a portrait of Pope Celestine V, artist unknown.

"There is a famous painting by Poussin entitled Les Bergers D'Arcadie (the Arcadian shepherds) which shows them around a tomb containing the mysterious inscription 'Et in Arcadia Ego...'"
"This tomb appears to be a virtual replica of one not too dissimilar to it right outside of Rennes-le-Château. Saunière 's church indeed contains a 'daemon guardian' which is a representation of the Biblical Asmodeus, who helped Solomon build his Temple; and some say the rays of the sun at midday passing through the glass create an optical effect they call 'blue apples'."
     - Steve Mizrach, "The Mysteries of Rennes-le-Château and the Prieure du Sion"

Th phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego" translated into English has been interpreted to mean "Even in earthly paradise, I (death) exist."

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