Saturday 6 February 2010

A Musical Mural? Hidden music in Da Vinci’s The Last Supper

Now I thought that Dan Brown was clutching at straws, but, in my opinion, this guy is taking handfuls of hay bales. See what you think…

Italian musician and computer technician Giovanni Maria Pala claims that by drawing a musical staff on Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’, the hands and buns on the painting correspond to the positioning of musical notes on the stave which, when played from right to left, produce a 40-second long ditty that sounds ‘like a requiem’. Giovanni has written a book on his theory entitled La Musica Celata (The Hidden Music) and, interestingly, the sceptics seem to agree that his premise is entirely plausible, pointing out that Da Vinci was an avid musician.



A deliberate positioning of hands and bread? Or an entirely unintentional, but entertaining, coincidence?

On a similar ‘note’ (ha! see what I did there…?) I love this little video by Jarbas Agnelli entitled 'Birds on the Wires'. Here’s how Agnelli describes his inspiration for the piece:

‘Reading a newspaper, I saw a picture of birds on the electric wires. I cut out the photo and decided to make a song, using the exact location of the birds as notes (no Photoshop edit). I knew it wasn't the most original idea in the universe. I was just curious to hear what melody the birds were creating.’



More about this video and Agnelli can be found here


Right, I'm off to find a ruler and dig out some old holiday photos…;)




1 comment:

  1. I loved reading your post. It's a lovely blog, and have great resources. Just keep it updated with fresh posts like this.

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