Friday, May 9, 2008

Da Vinci - Genius, Conspiracist, or Pervert?

Over the past several years there has been an increasing interest in the work of Leonardo Da Vinci. Much of this attention is due to the controversy which arose out of the fictional claims of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Lately I too have taken an interest in Da Vinci's work. I researched many views on what his work entailed. One of the favorite things people like to do is to impose mirror images of Da Vinci's work on top of the original and make images out of those results. They claim that these images are what Da Vinci was attempting to hide in his work. I am not convinced. I think a lot of times people assume since what they put together was so easily accomplished on a computer then naturally it could be accomplished just as easily in hand. But this is not so. In order for Da Vinci to impose mirror images on top of each other he would have had to create his masterpieces several times to accomplish this. I don't see him going through all that trouble. What did spark my interest is that Da Vinci enjoyed mirror writing. Which was simply writing backwards. This he could easily have accomplished by placing a mirror directly beside his notebook. And then I began to wonder... what if he did this with his paintings. What if instead of imposing images... he simply mirrored a story - a story that could only be finished when aligned with its mirror reflection. And so I began to twist and turn his photos aligning them in mirror forms...and here is what I found.



This is the painting known as the "Virgin on the Rocks". This is only one mirror image of the painting. When reversed to view the opposing mirror image a different picture takes form. But focus a minute on this painting and see if you do not find something rather odd about the formations as they come together. If you are female and you feel the need to blush then you have indeed found the hidden image. In the reverse mirror image a different picture emerges.




So my question I pose to anyone who will take the time to analyze is this: What was Da Vinci intending to convey in these paintings? I do not think the images emerging are accidental. I attempted the same thing with remakes of his works and the pictures do not form as they do in his originals. Many of his paintings yield results in coming together to form interesting new stories. This is the only one I will focus on today but what do you think he intended the viewer to find? This painting in particular was contracted by the Roman Catholic Church to depict the Immaculate Conception. Does it do that? Or does it tell a different story? There is no right or wrong answer; I am merely curious as to how others would interpret this.

P.S. No, there is no spiritual take away from this. It is merely the result of an extremely boring day.


1 comment:

Deborah Downs said...

We have one vote for his motive being to mock the church. My mother seemed to think that was his intent with this painting.