VITRUVIAN MAN, ACTUALLY pt. 2
Literally the next page, this nonsense happens.
So after renowned art and symbol expert Robert Langdon figures out from a half-completed image that Saunière intended to die like a Da Vinci, we once again do a little callback to the imagery Langdon decided was there.
I have already sort of touched upon iconography and how Dan Brown is allergic to that word and Panovsky's entire life's work in pioneering the study of it (also the sole method of analysis art historians use to stem directly from art history, as opposed to another academic field), but I'll mention it once again: Dan Brown hates iconography in this book, because it ruins his entire premise.
While I also kind of want to talk about how we're constantly told how Langdon feels, I don't even have the time or the energy for it. There is no male and female harmony left within my core after all of this, let me tell you.
Also yes, I am aware that we could be having a whole discussion about gender here, but since this book was published in 2003, I think I'm going to have to let it slide. Just know that I'm eyeing Judith Butler's Who's Afraid of Gender? as I'm working through this section.
To start with, WHAT is Dan Brown saying Da Vinci's meaning was when he was drawing up the Vitruvian Man?! "Male and female harmony".
CITATION NEEDED.
In my previous posts on this issue, I explained that the concept of the Vitruvian man is derived from an ancient text. This is the Renaissance, so it should be not surprising to you in the least that they were reading Roman and Greek shit.
Sometimes, these texts that had no pictures required a lot of tinkering on the Renaissance side, because they had no idea what the ancient author was talking about. Many such cases, though I mostly know of this one.
Langdon asks a question inside of his own head, and Fache somehow instantly spits out an answer. Fine. Whatever. Thing is that the premise is not just wonky, but completely made-up.
Brown has a habit of doing this. He'll have his self-insert state something with absolute confidence while being completely wrong. Here's a brand new concept: an older white guy being confidently incorrect. Never before seen, truly.
And again, the worst part for me is the real-life plothole that Dan Brown at least studied art history in passing. Now, while I don't hold a degree yet either (hopefully in a year or so), a year of studying it formally, which Brown did, should be sufficient to snuff out any tendency he has towards making things up as he goes.
As it stands, he's a guy who took classes for a couple of semesters and subsequently decided he was an expert in it. Kind of hits the same as those physicists laughing at Elon Musk posting pictures of his first semester physicist homework as if he was somehow good at it, all while being able to figure out that people who hold master's degrees and have jobs in the field have eyes and can see those images too.
And we all feel the same way when people who know next to nothing about our special interest prance about the place like our actual knowledge on the subject doesn't even matter.
You might be wondering why I included that bit about Da Vinci being into the "dark arts". I left it in, because I'm fairly sure it's a prelude of things to come. Kind of the bell that tolls my mental doom, in a way. If it starts approaching territory like that one author who made family-man Johannes Vermeer out to be a cheater who didn't care so deeply about his wife that he made her faith his own and included it in his own work all the time, I don't want to hear it.
But we all know I'm going to have to deal with it, because it is absolutely going to be in this book. Da Vinci has been dead since 1519, but in 2003, Dan Brown probably decided his grave could use a little dancing on for whatever reason.