Leonardo's 'Last Supper' Hides Musical Score

[Colm Chomicky]

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/11/0 ... vinci.html

According to the article, Leonardo was an accomplished lyre player who also enjoyed hiding puzzles in his work. The tablecloth features horizontal lines but also vertical lines in correspondence with the pieces of bread, similar to musical notation but looking at single details wasn't the correct approach to decoding. The Apostles, represented in groups of three, give a hint that the piece should be played in 3/4-time, like much 15th-century music. But the Apostles hands, always in relation to the breads on the table, that provided the real score -- to be read from right to left, in line with Leonardo's writing.
Placing a pentagram over the scene between the tablecloth and Jesus's head is part of the decoding sequence. The music when played is solemn, almost like a requiem. The article goes on to reveal other discoveries also.

[Jon Light (deceased)]

Yep. I read this yesterday. Fascinating. But it's one of those things that we will never truly know---is this part of Leonardo's genius or is it extreme creativity of 'connecting the dots'--pretty literally--by some modern minds. I love the idea of it but there will always be 'an asterisk' on the attribution of this work to LDV.
Cool stuff.

[Tucker Jackson]

Yeah, I saw an article about this today.

I think it falls under the category of "Looking for Things That Aren't Really There." For example, the article said, "The Apostles, represented in groups of three, gave him (the author of the book on this theory) a hint that the piece should be played in 3/4-time."

Uh-huh.

This theory assumes that, before composing the painting, Da Vinci wrote the music to be used... and then -- here's the hard part -- laid out the positioning of the hands and bread to match a (virtually superimposed) musical staff.

Not that this is impossible, of course. But It's hard enough to paint something like "The Last Supper" without this kind of restriction. Why would he go to the trouble to vastly complicate his work by painting this way? To what end? What's the point if it takes over 500 years before anybody ever figures out that there's music hidden there? And now that we hear the music... how does that really enhance the meaning of the painting?

I don't see where the pay-off would have been for Da Vinci to paint this way. As the actors say, "what's my motiviation??"

[Kevin Hatton]

This is a lie. Its more anti-Christian propaganda put out there by anti-Christian biggots. Did it ever occur to you that the particular senario could be interpeted in dozens of ways according to the evil mind that wants to create the dots? Its totally bogus. Give me any Van Gough painting and I'll create dots for a song on it. Pentagram? Give me a break. This is evil B.S. Satan is a liar. He was defeated 2000 years ago. This ia a pure example of the lies and deception that he tries to create.

[Colm Chomicky]

Scepticism is certainly appropriate and such findings are debatable. However I don't see the evil, even if it is true that Da Vinci did hide a musical message. In regards to the pentagram, my understanding is that it had no connection with evil in Da Vinci's time. The evil association with Pentagram is a much later invention.

In terms of what the payoff to Da Vinci was for doing this, maybe he didn't really care if anyone would solve his puzzles. I believe Da Vinci was a religous man but he saw God's works in the universe around him as opposed to accepting the teachings of the church in that day, his thinking at that time was heresy in that the the earth was not the center of the universe but revolved around the sun.

[Edward Meisse]

In response to the book of historical fiction, "The Da Vinci Code," some documentaries have been put out about some of the codes that were supposed to have been in Da Vinci's paintings. All of them were, in fact, anti Catholic Church. They would still be considered heretical by conventional Christians today. But I did not find the evidence presented for them in these documentaries very convincing. But at least I can see what the motivation would have been for them. I don't see that here. If I could start life over I might be one of the historians who tries to figure this stuff out.

[Henry Nagle]

I'm probably stepping over the line here, but..... It seems to me that being "anti-catholic church" need not make Da Vinci any less religious or ethical.

Many would disagree, but it seems to me that any organization made up of men, does not have exclusive rights to describe the nature of the universe, let alone the nature of a deity.

I would like to add that I certainly don't mean to belittle anyone's religion or beliefs. I come from a catholic family and I understand what the church can mean to a person.

I just felt moved to stick up for Leo! No small brain or heart in that guy!

[Mike Perlowin RIP]

Played a lot of C6 too. (Picture courtesy of Dave Van Allen)

[Donny Hinson]

Well, it sells. But you could probably do the same thing with any landscape painting.

[David L. Donald]

Coincidentally I am at present reading a newer bio of Leonardo.

Seems one of his best hooks to get invited
into the best homes, and social gatherings,
to then sell his other talents, was his
violin playing, but not really on a lyre,
but a violin with extra sympathetic strings.

He could improvise songs on the fly of current events,
even those happening with in the same evening,
as well as construct humorous takes on major figures
of the day.

Though he never considered himself a wordsmith,
or a major musician, he did make good use of
music and lyricism in his life.

As to hidden constructs in his work:
He did it in almost EVERY picture of his that still exists.

This theory assumes that, before composing the painting, Da Vinci wrote the music to be used... and then -- here's the hard part -- laid out the positioning of the hands and bread to match a (virtually superimposed) musical staff.

If you consider the amount of encoded info in the top layers of ANY of his great works,
and the intense design strictures he layed out,
this is easy enough to imagine.

The table the hands and other parts easily can be drawn to match a 2D framework as simple as a
melody line with one or two harmonies.
Especially at the level he worked at.

And Ermine in a lady's arms was not just an Ermine.
He worried about the type of tree behind a person, so that IT reflected the mental and familial workings
of the person, or the allegory attaching to them.

For patterns, well the pentagram for instance is a very
logical geometric pattern, and resembles many existing object juxtapositions in life.

The reason the pentagram was adopted in wickan
or other naturistic pre or non-church groups,
was because of it's very natural occurances in
the natural world.

Only later in times was it labled 'evil',
but only in conjunction with the attempts
to supress a competing life philosophy,
not because of any inherent evil in the
design itself.

So it's not surprising that many types of
geometric patterns,and musical notation can
be seen that way also, is very logically found
in the work of a master painter and designer of his level.

So those with an agenda to see what they wish
have a fertile ground for hypothosys.

[Leroy Riggs]

I don't see anthing wrong with having a little fun with 'possibilities' such as music in the painting.

But...

This is a lie. This is evil B.S. Satan is a liar.

Kevin, you're going to have to stop holding back! Tell us what you really think!

[Jim Phelps]

Sometimes we think we see things that aren't really there.

Sometimes something is there, and we don't see it.

BTW, a round of applause for Henry and DD.

[Bob Hoffnar]

I had a chance to see the painting in Milan a few years ago. Absolutely astonishing ! In person it is in very vivid 3D. It was like seeing the Grand Canyon in person the first time after thinking it was a cool post card. There may be something to Da Vinci putting in some riddles, hidden meanings and extras into his work. It was pretty common practice at the time.

[David L. Donald]

A classic DaVinci portrait of Sforza mistress.

The ermine, a symbol of Sforza ruler,
is clawing the red of her dress possessivelly.
This was his young mistress shortly to be pregnant
with his first son.
But apparently painted as her younger self.

Throughout the Renaissance, the ermine was a very important symbol of purity.
The ermine is depicted in heraldic symbols,
royal gowns, and in significant portraits of the Renaissance.

Painted in 1482-83, Leonardo da Vinci's
Lady with the Ermine
is famous for its beautiful depiction of his patron's mistress,
Cecilia Gallerani. The other very famous portrait depicting an ermine is The Ermine Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I,
by William Segar in 1585.
There are many possibilities for the significance of
the ermine in Leonardo's painting. Upon moving to Milan, Leonardo was employed by Lodovico Sforza
(or Lodovico il Moro) and quickly commissioned to paint
Lodovico's mistress, Cecilia Gallerani.

It has been inferred that the ermine was chosen because Gallerani is
a derivative of the Greek (galèe,) the Greek word for ermine.
Because of this, Lodovico, in order to express his love for Cecilia,
would use the ermine as his badge or emblem (Douglas, 79).

The ermine does, of course, serve double-duty in this sense, as it maintains its symbolism of purity and chastity.
This is very fitting as Cecilia is very young in this portrait,
conjectured to be only 9 or 10 years old at this time of the painting.

It seems to me that though the ermine looks particularly large in Cecilia's arms,
we must remember that she is very young in this painting,
and thus it makes sense for an animal of that size
to fill a little girl's arms.
It has been proposed that this is not even an ermine,
that it is too large and too dark. However, given the
age of Cecilia, and the irony of her name and Lodovico's badge,
it is almost undisputable that this is, in fact,
an ermine in the portrait.
The ermine is posed as a very noble creature, portrayed as being very attentive and loyal to Cecilia.

As you can see just one element of the picture can have multiple meanings.
And Leonardo was a master of the alegorical portrait.

[Mark Lind-Hanson]

Whether or not the implied design of the painting "hides" some cryptic musical phrases, what the analysts HAVE done is to expose yet one more layer of Da Vinci's clever compositional genius. There are many other things happening in The Last Supper on the level of perspective and spacing, and this just throws a little more fuel onto the pyre of Art History majors around the world, who will have heaps of fun writing their own papers about it...