The Vitruvian Woman Genesis

It was on Feb 2005, whilst perusing through "De Architectura" by Marcus Vitruvius that the idea landed of becoming a "digital surgeon" and putting Leonardo's Vitruvian Man through a sex-change operation via computer graphics. Brimming with curiousity, I took to patiently re-drawing the iconic image (at times, literally, pixel by pixel) into a convincing, stylistically identical and anatomically accurate 'Vitruvian Woman'. I wanted it to be as if Leonardo himself had drawn it.

To that purpose and after several trials, I decided that the only satisfactory method would be to use suitable elements of the original picture in order to recreate it. This eventually involved extensive use of "cloning" or duplication of tiny segments of lines and other parts of the picture, then moving and pasting them into new positions. As well as distorting, stretching, shrinking, tonal adjusting, etc.

The original male face (which I started to re-draw using the same technique described above) was eventually replaced by Mona Lisa's face; the iconic portrait by Leonardo. This meant not only a lot less work but also that a whole new level of symbolic reading was possible. In order to achieve a realistic result I still had to tweak a lot Mona Lisa's face until it blended gracefully into the picture, which I think it does quite convincingly.

The whole project was - and still is, for I'm not yet fully satisfied with some aspects of it - a challenging if very rewarding labour of love. It was done over a period stretching some 9 months from May 2005 to February 2006.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hermetic and Symbolic Significance of the Vitruvian Woman (Coming soon)

Vitruvian Woman Detail Samples

Vitruvian Woman Prints