I've got nothing today.
But I don't like to go a day without posting, so I thought I'd put up Albrecht Durer's famous engraving, "Melancholia." It suits my mood.
This is a strange and mysterious picture altogether, especially cryptic because of the "magic square" pictured behind the goddess's right shoulder. It looks like this:
16 3 2 13
5 10 11 8
9 6 7 12
4 15 14 1
Please note that the numbers of each of the vertical files and each of the horizontal ranks add up to 34. There are also six other groupings of four contiguous squares, each of which adds up to 34.
And that's not all, because the digits in 34 = 3 + 4 and that makes 7.
And all those 14 groupings of four numbers, if you reduce the digits as in 3 + 4 = 7 add up to 7. For example, the first vertical column is 16 which is 1 + 6 = 7 + 5 = 12 which is 1 + 2 = 3 + 9 = 12 which is 1 + 2 = 3 + 4 = 7. Try it for yourself.
But what does it mean?
The nice folks at Madison Technical College in Madison, Wisconsin, tell us that the square contains the year the work was executed, 1514. Okay, that's in the middle at the bottom, but what's with the "construction rule" they're talking about?
2 comments:
Also, the corners add up, as do the squares one clockwise from the corners, and one counterclockwise.
I think there are several "construction" solutions. [checks] Ah, yes, Wikipedia has some of course.
Meaning? Who knows. Angels, Jupiter, names of forbidden gods.
And, oh dear. At the end in the "see also" section, there's a link to the magic square containing my nom de blog.
Cheers Cboxx,
SA
Yeah, I've noticed the configuration of your blogmark before. 25-cell square. I do card readings with a 9-card square.
In Durer's square, here's another thing I noticed. You can, starting at the lower right-hand corner, draw an arc connecting 1-2-3-4 and ending in the opposite corner. Then you can do the same, only in the opposite direction, starting with 13. So the lowest and highest numbers in the thing are rainbows.
Then you can do the same with 5-6-7-8 and 9-10-11-12, closer to the middle, and the arcs there are shallower. The whole thing would look kind of like a Star of David or a Godseye.
I don't know if what I'm seeing is these "construction solutions" or not.
The whole thing is just amazingly symmetrical, and very mysterious and kind of scary.
Wonky,
DB
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