Dangers Of "The DaVinci Code "

[Senthil Kumar]

Hi..................................!!!

Dangers Of "The DaVinci Code"

(Conspiracy Nation, 05/04/06) -- Christians are hunkered down, prepared for the arrival of a new movie based upon Dan Brown's book, The DaVinci Code .
 

Numerous faith-based Internet web sites warn readers: "Do not go to see this movie!"
 

The Catholic Church dominates the boycott fervour, with other denominations also in the vanguard. Millions of illegal immigrants, overwhelmingly Catholic, could bring hopes for the film's success to its knees.
 

Registered illegal-immigrant voter Ruy Lopez has received his orders from the local Bishop. "He say, I must no go see thees film," revealed Lopez.
 

With the controversy surrounding DaVinci Code (DVC) about to reach new heights, Conspiracy Nation has discovered startling, lesser-known facts regarding Dan Brown and his novel.
 

In Secrets Of The Widow's Son, veteran journalist David A. Shugarts wanders through the back-alleys and hidden coves of Brown's bestseller. Shugarts unearths the following, which even case-hardened conspiratologists may not know:
 

There is a secret code hidden in the dust-jacket flaps of the book itself. Letters in slightly bolder type spell out, "ISTHERENOHELPFORTHEWIDOWSSON."
 

"Is there no help for the widow's son," is a distress cry uttered by Free Masons in peril. It is a plea meant for the ears of any nearby Mason. Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon Church, uttered the phrase -- his last words -- before being murdered by an angry mob.
 

Mysterious Free Masonry dances on the fringe of historical incidents. Mozart's "Magic Flute" is said to be a Masonic allegory. Benjamin Franklin and notorious Voltaire together belonged to the Lodge of the Nine Sisters. Elizabethan Dr. John Dee tutored his disciple Francis Bacon, who went on to become a secret chief of Free Masonry.
 

But a suggestion sure to have Christians aghast is that Jesus Christ Himself was a Free Mason. He is known to have been a carpenter and the son of a carpenter. But the original word seems to have been mis-translated: it actually means "craftsman," not "carpenter." Note also how, in a sense, Jesus was "the widow's son," since Joseph was not physically the father.
 

Other blasphemies sure to evoke howls simmer beneath the surface of Dan Brown's world, if Shugarts is correct. George Washington did not pray in the snow at Valley Forge. That myth began with Mason Locke Weems' book, Life Of Washington. Weems fomented other tall tales, for example the legendary Cherry Tree incident. The Book Of Mormon "borrows heavily from the Freemasons." Early Christians, persecuted by the Romans, may have been Free Masons.
 

Are we having fun yet? Already greatly upset by unprecedented marches by foreigners demanding the rights of U.S. citizens, the nation is on the brink of yet another stunning controversy, about to unfold with the release of the DVC film. Many exclaim, "Enough! I just can't take any more!" Yet this is only the opening salvo of a long, hot summer.
 

-------
Conspiracy Nation
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/cn.html

http://www.shout.net/~bigred/DangersDaVinci.html

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Da_Vinci_The_last_supper_detail_Da_Vinci_code.jpg (40KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) 
Detail of the 

The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci. 
As explained by Leigh Teabing to Sophie Neveu, the figure at
 the right hand of Jesus is supposedly not the 

apostle John, but Mary Magdalene, who was his wife and pregnant with his child. The absence of a chalice in the painting indicates

 that Da Vinci knew that Mary Magdalene was actually the Holy Grail (the bearer of Jesus' blood). This is reinforced by the letter "M" that is created with the bodily positions of Jesus, Mary, and the male apostle (
Saint Peter) upon whom she is leaning. 

Saint Peter is also positioned with the blade of his hand next to Mary Magdalene's throat in a threatening gesture. This is supposedly because Peter is jealous of Jesus' greater love for 

Mary Magdalene than for his disciples. Mary Magdalene and Jesus also create a 'v' shape - the female symbol, for feminity, womanhood and fertility. They are also mirror images of each other - Jesus in red robe and blue cloak, Mary Magdalene in

 a blue robe and red cloak.
 
 
 
Aesthetics




 


Detail of the face, showing the
 subtle shading effect of sfumato, particularly in the shadows around the eyes
Mona Lisa is famous for her beautiful changing smile and eyes that continue to stare and follow you no matter in which direction you turn.
The portrait presents the subject from just above the bust, with a distant landscape visible as a backdrop. Leonardo used a pyramid design to place the woman simply and calmly in the space of the painting. Her folded hands form the front corner of the pyramid. Her breast, neck, and face glow in the same light that softly models her hands. The light gives the variety of living surfaces an underlying geometry of spheres and circles, which includes the arc of her famous smile. 
Sigmund Freud interpreted the 'smile' as signifying Leonardo's erotic attraction to his dear mother; others have

 described it as both innocent and inviting. It is said by some that the painting is centered on the 

heart, as is illustrated in this version.

Many researchers have tried to explain why the smile is seen so differently by people. The explanations range from scientific theories about human vision to curious supposition about Mona Lisa's identity and feelings. Professor Margaret Livingstone of 
Harvard University has argued that the smile is mostly drawn in low spatial frequencies, and so can best be seen with one's 
peripheral vision 

[5]. Christopher Tyler and Leonid Kontsevich of the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute in 

San Francisco believe that the changing nature of the smile is caused by variable levels of random noise in human 

visual system [6]
. Dina Goldin, Adjunct Professor at Brown University, has argued that the secret is in the non-static position of 
Mona Lisa's facial muscles, where our mind's eye unconsciously extends her smile; the result is an unusual dynamicity to the face that invokes subtle yet strong emotions in
 the viewer of the painting 

[7].
It is also notable that Mona Lisa has no visible facial hair at all - including eyebrows and eyelashes. This is probably because it was common at this time for genteel women to shave them off, since they were considered to be unsightly. For modern viewers this adds to the slightly mysterious semi-abstract quality of the face.


 


Detail of the eyes




 


Detail of the mouth
In late 2005, Dutch researchers from the 
University of Amsterdam ran the painting's image through an "emotion recognition" 
computer software developed in collaboration with the 

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [8]. The software found the smile to be 83 % happy, 9 % disgusted, 6 % fearful, 2 % angry, less than 1 % neutral, and not surprised at all. Rather than being a thorough analysis, the experiment was more of a demonstration of the new technology. The faces of

 ten women of Mediterranean ancestry were used to create a composite image of a neutral expression. Researchers then compared the composite image to the face in the painting. They used a grid to break the smile into small divisions, then checked it for each of six emotions: happiness, surprise, anger, disgust, fear, and sadness.


 


Detail of the bust




 


Detail of the hands
Although utilizing a seemingly simple formula for portraiture, the expressive synthesis that Leonardo achieved between sitter and
 landscape has placed this work in the canon of the most popular and most analyzed paintings of all time. The sensuous curves of the woman's hair and clothing, created through 
sfumato, are echoed in the undulating valleys and rivers behind her. The sense of overall harmony achieved in the painting�especially apparent in the sitter's faint smile�reflects Leonardo's idea of the cosmic link connecting humanity and nature, making this painting an enduring record of Leonardo's vision and genius.

 

 

 




 


Detail of the background (left side)




 


Detail of the background (right side)
The enigmatic woman is portrayed seated in what appears to be an open 

loggia with dark pillar bases on either side. Behind her a vast landscape recedes to icy mountains. Winding paths and a distant bridge give only the slightest indications of human presence. The blurred outlines, graceful figure, dramatic contrasts of light and dark, and overall feeling of calm are characteristic of Leonardo's style.
The painting was one of the first portraits to depict the sitter before an imaginary landscape. One interesting feature of the landscape is that it is uneven. The landscape to the left of the figure is noticeably lower than that to the right of her. This has led some critics to suggest that it was added later.
The painting has been restored numerous times; X-ray examinations have shown that there are three versions of the 
Mona Lisa hidden under the present one. The thin poplar backing is beginning to show signs of deterioration at a higher rate than previously thought, causing concern from museum curators about the future of the painting.
 
 
 
MONA LISA = SOL + ANIMA.
This title is a rebis of fundamental alchemical antimony
 of Sun (Sol) and Moon (Anima, soul), two basic symbols for opposing forces that are united in alchemic genderless hermaphrodite. There are many alchemic texts concerning this subject that obsessed a lot of artists during with philosophy inspired Renaissance. 

 
Sun & Moon 
... Sol and Lune, the male and female, two sperms, heaven and earth, and two, as I may say, Argent vives, and out of which alone the philosophers say their stone is made; which pitiful fellows mistake for crude mercury. But that mercury is all metals, male and female, and an hermaphrodite monster in the very marriage of the soul and the body, which I call solution; and the putrefaction of the philosophers. The earth of gold is dissolved by its own spirit, which you shall discover in these proportions. 
Marsilio Ficino on the alchemical art
If one third of the circle, that outlines the composition, is taken for a module ( = two oncia), the ratio of rectangle that defines the figure is 9 : 12. Both numbers are symbols for previously mentioned antinomies, for number 9 symbolizes Moon, and 12 stands for Sun. This number is also the number of '12 compositional circles' that could parallel 12 zodiacal signs through which Sun traverses. This traditional symbolism is also recorded by Agrippa in 
De Occulta Philosophia, a dictionary of magick from 1510:
... The number nine belongs to the Moon
 , the utmost receptacle of all Celestiall influences, and vertues, as also it is dedicated to the nine Muses, as also to Mars, from whom is the end of all things. The number ten is Circular, and belongs to the Sun, after the same manner as unity; also it is attributed to Janus, because it is the end of the first order, and from whence begins the second unity; it is also ascribed to the world. In like manner the number 
twelve, because the Sun going round twelve signes, distributes the yeer [year] into twelve moneths, is attributed to the world, the Heaven, and the Sun ...
 

LEONARDO
"Non mi legga chi
 non e matematico."
(Let no one read me who is not a mathematician
.) 
 
Slide 15-1: Self Portrait

 Outline:
 
 
 
 The Ultimate Renaissance Man
 
 
 Leonardo's mathematics
 
 
 Leonardo's Treatise on Painting
 
 
 Perspective
 
 
 Summary


Reading
The Ultimate Renaissance Man
Slides 15-2 Leonardo's Birthplace


 
Leonardo (1452-1519) is considered by many the ultimate renaissance man, skilled in mathematics, philosophy, civil and military architecture, engineering,
 painting, sculpture, science, music, invention, and the design of weapons.
Slide 15-6: Lorenzo de' Medici. The Magnificent. Terra cotta bust, Verrocchio. 


 
Leonardo got his start in Florence, but he left that city in 1482, at the age of 30. Why did he want to leave Florence, and why did Lorenzo let him go and make no attempt to get him back once he was famous? 

Lorenzo encouraged exportation of Florentine artists in 1480's. It provided prestige and opportunities for exchanges, but this exodus caused Florence to lose the artistic lead it had held for 200 years.
Other reasons for leaving were severe competition, war, plague, taxation. Further, Leonardo had contempt for the doctrines of Savonarola. Finally, Leonardo had no use for Lorenzo and his neoPlatonists.
The Plato Academy
Slide 15-7: Bust of Ficino, by Andrea Ferrucci da Fiesole, in Florence Duomo. Encyc Ren p. 134


 
Most humanists of the Renaissance had a reverence for Plato, and Cosimo de Medici (Lorenzo's grandfather) resolved to make Florence the center of neoPlatonic learning. 
In 1463 Cosimo commissioned Marsilio Ficino to translate Plato's 
Dialogues into Latin, and had a villa built for him at Careggi in which to work. There Ficino burned an eternal lamp in front of a statue of Plato. He could recite an entire Plato dialog but, according to his nieces, couldn't remember where he put his slippers. Ficino was the first of the so-called 
Plato Four, the main members of the Medici Platonic Academy, which attracted scholars form all over Italy. 
Another was
 Cristoforo Landino, well-known commentator on Virgil, Horace, and Dante, who looked upon Lorenzo the magnificent as Plato's "Ideal ruler."
Slide 15-8: Poliziano, with Lorenzo's son Piero, From Ghirlandaio's fresco cycle in S. Trinita. Encyc. of Ren. p. 260


 
A third member was Angelo Poliziano, ugly but brilliant, publishing in Latin by age 10 and translated Homer by 16. And the fourth was Pico della Mirandola, young and attractive, read and wrote in 22 languages, aspired to hold in his mind the totality of human learning. He wanted to reconcile all religions, and attempted to reconcile the creation stories in the 
Timaeus with Genesis.
These four, the most brilliant minds in Italy, would meet in Lorenzo's studiolo, often inviting Michelangelo.
Leonardo vs. the NeoPlatonists
Legend has it that Leonardo was Raphael's model for Plato in the School of Athens, and he would probably been appalled if he knew of this, for the scientific and artistic Leonardo apparently had little sympathy for the lofty poetic Neoplatonism of the Medici court. 
Rohatyn writes, Platonic aesthetics he had no time for; he was too busy creating perfection to sit back and idly contemplate it.
And the man often called the greatest genius of all time felt 

inadequate!
Leonardo, says Italo Calvino, had a difficult relationship with the written word. He was, in his own estimation, an omo sanza lettere, an unlettered and uneducated man. His knowledge, continues Calvino, was without equal in the world, but his ignorance of Latin and grammar prevented him from communicating in writing with the learned men of his time. Learned men looked down on him, so he in turn

 shunned their ideas about the route to wisdom, preferring observation, experience, and experiment to contemplation. In his notebooks he wrote;
"I am fully conscious that, not being a literary man, certain presumptuous persons will think that they may reasonable blame me; alleging that I am not a man of letters. Foolish folks! do they not know that I might retort ... that they, who deck themselves out in the labors of others will not allow me my own ... they do not know that my subjects are to be dealt with by experience 
rather than words, and experience has been the mistress of those who wrote well."
The phrase ... they who deck themselves out in the labors of others must certainly be a jab at the neoPlatonists, decking themselves out in the labors of Plato.
Leonardo's Mathematics
Non mi legga chi non e matematico. "Let no one read me who is not a
 mathematician
." 
Recall Plato's inscription over his academy door, Let no one enter who is lacking in geometry? This phrase taken from Leonardo's notebooks gives some idea of the importance he placed on mathematics. He also wrote, 
"There is no certainty in sciences where one of the mathematical sciences cannot be applied ... .
The Platonic Solids 
Slide 15-11: Leonardo's Illustrations
, Reti p. 70
 
Leonardo studied Pacioli's Summa, from which he copied tables of proportions and multiplication tables. Luca, 7 years older than Leonardo, arrived in Milan in 1496, probably at Leonardo's suggestion, and by 1497 they were collaborating on Pacioli's 
Divina Proportione, Published in 1509.
Pacioli devoted the entire second part
 of Divina Proportione to the Platonic solids. relating the Platonic solids to the golden ratio like this: 


"As God brought into being the celestial virtue, the fifth essence, and through it created the four solids ... earth, air, water, and fire ... so our sacred proportion gave shape to heaven itself, in assigning to it the dodecahedron ... the solid of twelve pentagons, which cannot be constructed without our sacred proportion. As the aged Plato described in his Timaeus."
 
Here Luca equates God with Plato's divinity, and wraps up the Platonic solids, the golden ratio, the creation of the universe, and God, in one neat package.
This section of the book has little relation to the earlier part and was apparently stolen from Piero and tacked on, without credit. Vasari (1550) had some harsh words for the good friar. 
"The man who should have tried his best to increase Piero's glory and reputation (since he learned
 everything he knew from him), instead wickedly and maliciously sought to remove his teacher Piero's name and to usurp for himself the honor due to Piero alone by publishing under his own name - that is, Fra Luca del Borgo all the efforts of that good old man ... "
 p. 163
Luca credits Leonardo with the illustrations in De divina proportione. He wrote,
"the most excellent painter in perspective, architect, musician, and man de tutte vertu doctato, Leonardo da Vinci, who deduced and elaborated a series of diagrams of regular solids ... 
."
Troubled by his lack of education, Leonardo had an ongoing program of self-study in language and mathematics, studying Pacioli's Summa, and Euclid as well. 
In his early forties this obsession with mathematics overtook him, and his notebooks began to fill up with geometrical sketches and diagrams. One page shows his studies of the Rule of Three for a problem about weights in a

 balance. Elsewhere he gave a proof of Pythagorean theorem and gave a rusty-compass construction of 15�. He found the center of mass of tetrahedron and attempted to duplicate the cube.
To make the rosette patterns and for other geometric studies, Leonardo used and even invented a wide variety of compasses. He designed a proportional compass that would form a figure similar to, and in a given proportion to another figure. Leonardo gives an interesting way to draw an ellipse, and gives drawings of an ellipsograph
Slide 15-12: Ellipsograph, Reti p. 270
 


Knots and Meanders
Slide 15-13: Sala delle Asse c.1495-8 text pics Reti p. 37.


 
Leonardo's knot designs anticipate the modern interest in knots, in the branch of mathematics called Topology. In his famous arboreal decoration for the ceiling of the Sala delle Asse in Sforza's castle, Leonardo made the branches of the trees form an elaborate system of interlacing, like those in his 
Academia engravings. To these he has added a single, continuous rope that intertwines throughout the entire vault.
Leonardo's knot patterns are similar to the Celtic designs such as in the Book of Kells, but more probably were inspired by Arabesques from the middle east.
Vitruvian Man 
Slide 15-19: Reti p. 79


 
According to Augusto Marinoni, 'The problem in geometry that engrossed Leonardo interminably was the
 squaring of the circle. From 1504 on, he devoted hundreds of pages in his notebooks to this question of quadrature ... that so fascinated his mentor Pacioli ... While his investigations produced no appreciable gain for mathematics, it did create a multiplicity of complex and pleasing designs." 
Slide 15-20: Vitruvian Man Wasserman p. 43
 


Vitruvius wrote, 
"...in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the

 soles of the feet to the top of the head, and them apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height ..." 
Clark writes, "It is impossible to exaggerate what this simple-looking proposition meant to the men of the Renaissance. To them it was far mor than a convenient rule: it was the foundation of a whole philosophy. Taken together with the musical scale of Pythagoras, it seemed to offer exactly that link between sensation and order, between an organic and a geometric basis of beauty, which was the philosopher's stone of aesthetics."
Chaos & Fractals
Slide 15-30: Deluge, c. 1514. Mannering p. 68


 
Finally, Leonardo appeared to anticipate the current interest in chaos and fractals with his drawings
 of turbulence and of the deluge, which he described in great detail in his notebooks. And listen to him talking about the stains on a wall. 
"I cannot forbear to mention ... a new device for study ... which may seem trivial and almost ludicrous ... [but] is extremely useful in arousing the mind ... Look at a wall spotted with stains, or with a mixture of stones ... you may discover a resemblance to landscapes ... battles with figures in action ... strange faces and costumes ... and an endless variety of objects ... According to Augusto Marinoni, confusedly, like the sound of bells in whose jangle you may find any name or word you choose to imagine
. 
It almost sound like a description of a fractal pattern.
Leonardo's Treatise on Painting
Slide 15-24: The 
Trattato
 
Leonardo da Vinci was of the few great artists to leave a large quantity of writings; large and small notebooks, pocket books, and separate sheets. They were written in Leonardo's famous mirror-image script, with his left hand. All were left to Francesco Melzi, Leonardo's pupil, friend, and heir, who began the frustrating job of editing the jumble of notes with the aim of publishing them. 
Melzi's first and only, project (c. 1550) was to compile a treatise on painting, the Trattato, which he never finished, and after Melzi died in 1570 Leonardo's original manuscripts were soon dispersed. Some given away, some stolen, some lost, some sold. Some were cut up for their drawings. Martin Kemp estimates that about three quarters of Leonardo's manuscripts are lost.
Melzi's unfinished manuscript for the Trattato found its way to the Urbino Library of Federigo da Montefeltro in 1472, the library we already
 mentioned that Piero and Luca used to walk to. After Federigo's death the contents of his library wound up in the Vatican Library under the name 
Codex Urbinas Latinus 1270, or simply the Codex Urbinas where it lay forgotten until 1817, when Guglielmo Manzi had it published. 
The Need for the Book

In the Middle Ages, seven branches of learning were recognized as liberal arts. For a Bachelor of Arts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric: the trivium. For a Master of Arts: geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy: the 
quadrivium. But the visual arts had been classed among the crafts and mechanical arts because they were "handiwork," and lacking a theoretical basis. 
Renaissance artists wanted to break this distinction and towards the end of the 15
th century the botteghe or workshops of Piero della Francesca, Mantegna, Bramante, Bellini,
 Verrochio, Pollaiuolo, and so forth, had become small centers of scientific study, where mathematics, anatomy and perspective were learned in an attempt to raise the status of their profession.
There was a lot of empirical knowledge available, but there was no systematic framework in which to organize it. The scientific texts of antiquity and of the Middle Ages were not adequate.

Artists no longer wanted the studio recipes taken from ancient texts. Thus there was a real need for Leonardo's treatise on painting.
The Trattato may be subdivided into the following sections:
The Human Body: proportions, anatomy, motion, posture, expression, decorum, and drapery.
The Depiction of Nature: light, distances, atmosphere, smoke, water, horizons, mountains, plants, and trees.
Painters Practice: ethics, judging works, advice to young painters, the
 painter's life, the studio, aids, wall painting, invention and composition, allegories and emblems.
The Science of Vision in Painting
: properties of the eye and of light, color, perspective of size, color, and disappearance, and light and shade, or chiaroscuro, and linear perspective,


Perspective 
Of all the topics in the Tratatto, we are mainly interested in perspective. Leonardo had said that "perspective is the rein and rudder of painting." Invented by Brunelleschi, codified by Alberti and Piero, it was perfected by Leonardo. 
Slide 15-25: The Adoration of the Magi, 1481 Reti p. 224
 

Leonardo's notes on linear perspective are apparently lost, but he made great use of perspective in his own paintings,
 such as this study of the unfinished Adoration. Note the strict Albertian grid on the pavement. 
Slide 15-26: The Annunciation c. 1472 Ufizzi (Cat. # 1074)


 His Annunciation shows a carefully worked out perspective framework. Incised lines beneath the paint on this wood panel show his construction. Note though that the Virgin's arm appears too long. Studies have shown that Leonardo departed from the correct perspective here for the sake of a more expressive gesture, a common practice in the Renaissance. 
Slide 15-27: The Last Supper. c.1497. Mannering p. 42 (Cat. 3818)


 
Leonardo's most famous perspective painting, like all the other Last
 Suppers, this one is placed in a refectory or dining hall, here in the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan. The vanishing point is placed at Christ's right eye, where he dominates the foreground. Even Christ's arms reinforce the perspective, with his arms along the lines of the visual pyramid.
Atmospheric Perspective 
Slide 15-28: c. 1508, Nat. Gall. 


 
Slide 15-29: Detail Cole p. 28 
 
Leonardo also describes another kind of perspective, now called atmospheric perspective. His writings on atmospheric perspective, the 
perspective of disappearance, have survived. For Kenneth Clark they anticipate the
 doctrines of impressionism. Distant objects appear smaller, less distinct, paler, and bluer, as seen in The Virgin of the Rocks
.
 
Yours...
Senthil...