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The man who solved the DA VINCI CODE
6 Jan 2008 | Rajeev Olickel
 Nigel, the Kerala Travel Centre founder, and I met the great painter at the residence of Vicky Raj, who owns one of Kerala's best boutique hotels and who has been kind enough to host us for lunch today. It's not a planned 'interview'. We are in Calicut, in the North of Kerala, on an exploration tour to research travel opportunities to this beautiful part of the state. Kerala never disappoints. Location after location fills you with a sense of elation and being in harmony with nature. We sit huddled around a table with exhibits and prints of Francis's works, sipping a refreshing Kerala drink. We settle back in our comfortable traditional chairs enjoying the hospitality that Keralites are known for and start chatting with Francis.
Did he take up painting professionally when he was young? we ask. He answers in the negative. Francis Antony Kodankandath is a self taught painter and actually works full time as the Superintendent of Customs Intelligence & Investigations unit of the Customs & Central Excise Commissionerate in Calicut in Kerala. Surprised? Well, read on...
We skim through painting after painting, thoroughly mesmerised by the depth of logic behind each one of them. We hear account after account of how each one came into being…the stories….the inspiration behind each of them. In the end we greedily hasten back to the one painting that has got him International attention. The series he called 'Decoding Da Vinci'. We quiz him on what made this painting so controversial and sit on the edge of our seats listening as he unravels the mystery.
"I am no one to evaluate Da Vinci. Francis says.. It is just that when someone like (Dan) Brown tries to misuse da Vinci for his own personal gains, I am urged to put in a humble attempt to explain and expose the positive aspects of the works of one of the greatest artists the world has seen,"
 Francis began researching Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings much before the release of the controversial Da Vinci Code. He had long been trying to study each of Da Vinci's paintings to understand his style, patterns and logic behind the paintings. One painting that always puzzled him off course was the 15th century painting of the last supper that hangs in the Graza Maria delle Grazie monastery in Milan, Italy. Countless number of copies of this painting are in circulation around the globe.
According to the Bible, Francis explains, Jesus passed around one chalice, the legendary Grail, during the meal he shared with his disciples on the night before his death. Leonardo Da Vinci's masterpiece shows 13 cups but no chalice. The painting raised raging debates after its completion in 1498 and has since puzzled many in terms of why Da Vinci had deliberately hidden the Chalice- the Holy Grail.
In Dan browns book, his protagonist, a religious symbology professor decrypts symbols in Da Vinci's paintings to find the hidden chalice. The book claims that the disciple sitting on the immediate right of Jesus is a woman with 'flowing hair, delicate folded hands and a hint of bosom'. Drawing on Da Vinci's propensity for mirror images the book claims that Jesus and this disciple are clothed in inverse colours- Jesus wearing a red robe and blue cloak and Magdalene wearing blue robe and red cloak. Yin and Yang. Since Da Vinci was in the habit of using reflection techniques, it reports that Jesus and his bride appear to be joined at the hip leaning away from one another to create a space between them forming the shape of a V.
Brown inverts the insight that a woman's body is symbolically a container and claims that the Holy Grail was actually Mary Magdalene who was allegedly pregnant with Jesus' child at the time- she was the vessel that held the blood of Jesus Christ in her womb.
Francis pauses as we take in all this information then smiles quizzically and throws a question at us. One that catches us off hook. Why are all the people in the picture sitting on one side of the table? He quizzes us. His question is met with blank faces. Valid Point! Why? We ask in chorus.
The painter points to the original copy of the painting. He motions to the whole frame and points out that in painting Jesus and his disciples, Da Vinci has only used 50% of the total canvas. The other 50% is used to draw the ceiling. He narrates about his initial puzzlement over why an artist of the calibre of the great Da Vinci would waste so much space on the canvas.
The third point that further puzzled Francis was the portrayal of one of the disciples who is shown to be making a gesture with his finger pointing towards the ceiling. On first impression it looks like the disciple is making a rude gesture, but on reflection it is a highly debatable possibility that a disciple should express anger in such a manner in front of the Christ. Francis spent months investigating the painting based on Da Vinci's style of work and realised that Da Vinci had a style of hiding clues in his paintings. What emerged was a very logical unravelling of the actual puzzle. The finger pointed upwards was an indication that the clue was in the ceiling.
There is definitely a presence of the Holy Grail in the painting, Francis explains, but instead of it being a female presence (as pointed by Dan Brown) the mystery lies in the ceiling. Francis used the same reflection technique that Brown used to prove his Yin Yan relationship but instead of using the reflection technique between Jesus and his disciple (the so called woman) he used the reflection technique by holding the mirror on top of Jesus's head. The outline created from Jesus's hands, arms and head, when reflected, creates an inverted triangle which touches and extends to match the precise lines and angles at which the ceiling beams have been drawn. (The Holy Grail). On extending lines from the beams into the triangle you get exactly twelve parts- symbolising the twelve levels of wine for the disciples. The lines start making perfect sense as symmetry after symmetry comes together perfectly. Even when a circle is drawn around Jesus, based on similar theory, it perfectly holds the Vetruvian Man, another of Da Vinci's master pieces. The circle symbolises the holy bread and the 'V' symbolises the chalice. Together they stand for the wholly mass.
That's not all, Francis explains. He is also dismissive about Brown's yin and yang theory and says the rules of anatomy, of which Da Vinci was a master, would never have allowed the depiction of a female figure in the manner done in the painting where she appears to be taller than Jesus. Furthermore countering the inverse color theory, Francis highlights that the color of 'Mary's' robe is not red but burnt sienna, quashing the theory with a simple but well studied observation.
We are convinced beyond doubt now. We can see now why Francis calls Browns theory as being simplistic. We pause to admire the greatness behind this thesis-, which Francis modestly points, was possible because he was a painter himself. We sip on our cool summer drinks, our heads still dazed by all that we have heard, humbled to be in the company of such a master. While we are still in the 'Da Vinci mode', Francis questions us about our 'almost fanatical' passion for Kerala and about what we have discovered on our tour of North Kerala – his home place.
At the end of our meeting he congratulates us on our own achievements. We mumble our thanks, more than flattered, by the praise from a man whose achievements have got him international acclaim.
Rajeev Olickel |
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