This blog (by Zeev Barkan) is dedicated to the Star of David, its history, its various meanings and usages in different cultures. It includes thousands of pictures of Star of David, six-pointed stars, hexagrams, Solomon's Seals, Magen Davids and yellow badges,and served as a resource for three books and four art exhibitions.
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
JNF Torah and Certificate stamp
Jan Vermeer
Some critics claim that the Dutch master artist Jan Vermeer (1632-1675) used a secret geometric formula to compose some of his masterpieces. It included the hexagram as a compositional guide.
Vitruvian Man Hexagram
This drawing by Leonardo da Vinci illustrates the mathematical proportions found in human anatomy as described in the Golden Section or Mean. The hexagram framing the Vitruvian Man is more perfectly shown in the pentagram of Pythagoras, which can be broken into Golden Rectangles. At the bottom of the drawing is a coded message from Leonardo.
From: http://www.shoshone.k12.id.us/renaissance/math.htm
(and see the illustration there)
Note: Vitruvian Man is from 1492 . Named after a treatise on the proportions of the male human form by Vitruvius who was a Roman architect.