Paulo Veronese's 'sunflower matrix'

Paulo Veronese's 'sunflower matrix'

John Bjarne Grover

The article 'Giotto, 'The Endmorgan Quartet' and the blue metre' is a first discovery of the relation between TEQ and the blue metre. Why is that such a giant discovery?

In the article 'The sunflower matrix' I discuss the abstraction called a sunflower matrix in ancient egyptian tomb culture: It is the area between the two boats, above the hippopotamuses, which seems to constitute a sort of formalism resembling our modern time-frequency transform. It seems to have been frequent in much tomb art of the ancient Egypt and could have had the function of providing a formalism for the idea of how to transcend the semiotic limitations of the human historic reality for stepping into the transcendent world after death.

In the article 'Some formal aspects of the sunflower matrix' I point to the potential importance of the number '34' (search for '34') - the data from the tombs of Nakht, Djeserkaseneb and Horemheb - for the idea that the ancient egyptians had solved the problem of transcending the Turing boundary - for example by symbolism on the poetic-numeral relation between cardinal and ordinal decimals in the Catalan constant - and that is evidenced in the number '34'.

My TEQ ('The Endmorgan Quartet') goes up to book 16 which means 16 local and global functions = a total of 32 functions, while I wrote PEB ('POLAKK English Bloggi') = the blue metre in 2008-2010, which was immediately after I had completed TEQ book 16 in 2008. Hence PEB is a sort of book 17 - for the number '34' if it is conceived as an extension of TEQ.

The egyptian solution in terms of '34' as a transcending of the Turing boundary (say, when Tutankhamon steps across the border to the afterworld) appears from my speculations of a role for the Catalan constant.

This is the reason why the article 'Giotto, 'The Endmorgan Quartet' and the blue metre' can be such a giant discovery - since it shows how TEQ and PEB can be intrisically related - that is, how PEB can be considered a '17th' poetic function - for that numeral '34' if all such poetic functions are both local and global. PEB is the historic time, TEQ is the transcendence.

It is also this phenomenon which can lead to major progress in the study of medieval modistic philosophy - such as I suggest towards the end of the article with the example of Thomas of Erfurt's 'Grammatica Speculativa' which was written in exactly the years when Giotto decorated the Scrovegni Chapel in Padova.

Now for the essential contents of the present little article:

In the article 'Chiesa di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti' I discuss this artwork by Paulo Veronese - it is his 'Crucifixion' just in on the righthand side of the entrance to the church. Here is another URL for the same artwork (from this source under this location).

The interesting observation is that Veronese's 'Crucifixion' exhibits a 'sunflower matrix' - even with the hippopotamus at the foor of the cross, the character down left (the chest, throat and face looks like an open hippopotamus gap), while the character down right is in his bodily posture the counterpoint to Christ on the cross. The number of 'putti' heads above the cross seems to be 32 - and adding the two historic characters at the foot of the cross takes it to 34. The two fish on the spear are the two feet of Christ penetrated by a nail. The INRI sign corresponds to the hieroglyphs above the two characters of the sunflower matrix.

This is why Veronese's 'Crucifixion' can be seen as a 'sunflower matrix' of ancient egyptian kind. It suggests that the hippopotamuses are not just a coincidental animal of ancient Egypt but apparently essential also for the christian symbolism, at least in its historic (= 'blue-metre'?) rooting. The shape and colour of the puttis in Veronese's work suggests also that 'sunflower' could be an equally essential symbolism. 'Senbi' on the righthand side of the sunflower matrix holds three birds in his hand - relating to the birds of the central matrix - that could correspond to the three white strokes of collar and sleeve on Veronese's work relative to the white colours of the cloud formations. Senbi's wife standing in the front of the boat with one bird in her hand could then correspond to the white loincloth of Christ on the cross.

For the theory of religion, this could mean that the essential religious symbolism in the christian cross can be traced back to ancient Egypt - via the historic role of the jewish people who had resided in Egypt for a considerable time before they escaped in their Exodus.

For the current political situation it is important to notice that this apparently original rooting of the symbolism in the christian cross must not be automatically transferred to a political role for Norway on basis of the isomorphy in the norwegian-icelandic history as compared to the egyptian-israeli. For the idea of 'aurora borealis' imported to England from the far north beyond Norway (when the 'european swastika' turns), it is likely to be about a quasi-mysticism based on the same role of puttis, sunflowers, curtain-textiles etc. It is particularly important to avoid a sanctification of Hitler on such a basis. Clearly the political problem of an 'opening of the infant head' can be understood from this point of view - by the 'opening' beyond Christ in Veronese's crucifixion, the sharp and penetrating tool for the fish and the role of the white of the collar and sleeve.

I wrote the article 'Chiesa di San Lazzaro dei Mendicanti' in 2021. It was when I was back into the church today 6 february 2024 that I suddenly recognized the 'sunflower matrix' in the Veronese work. It is not impossible that my study of this work in 2021 was part of the reason for my later understanding of the sunflower matrix of ancient Egypt.

Added 12 february 2024: Yesterday I saw the Chagall exhibition in Venice and found his Study for 'The Holy Family' 1950 (my own photo) which exhibits nearly the same elements as Veronese's work. I found this on the internet - it anyhow is on the exhibition (source).

9 february 2024

Source:

Blackman, A.M.: "The rock tombs of Meir", part I. London 1914.