Madonna del Grandogma
This is based on two very famous images: Heinrich Hoffman’s amazing photo of Hitler climbing the steps of a stadium rally, and Raphael’s “Madonna del Granduca” (so-called because it was owned by a grand duke). The first thing you notice about this is that there’s a grid of some kind superimposed on the scene, apparently connecting the Nazi banners and their leaders. But the lines are actually part of the second image. Art historians have used this Raphael Madonna for centuries to illustrate the formula of ideal beauty used by renaissance artists and based on the ideal proportions of the Golden Rectangle. You can find this same diagram in dozens of art history books, often overlayed on this same Madonna. But who decides what the ideal proportions are and what makes it a universal standard, especially if those standards don’t apply to other races or cultures ? To imagine the potential gravity of that question, one need look no farther than the primary image, and remember what these guys thought about ideal human standards. So the message here is simple yet crucial: don’t try to force abstract formulas, no matter how compelling, onto the human condition.
