Personificatie van Geometrie 1640 - 1708

Lucas Kilian's "Personification of Geometry", an engraving, depicts a female figure standing on a pedestal. She holds instruments of measure and calculation. This image speaks to us of the enduring human quest for order and understanding in the cosmos. The plumb bob, a symbol of verticality, echoes the human desire to find balance and stability. The compasses connect the celestial and the terrestrial, mirroring the Hermetic idea "as above, so below". Recall the Egyptian Sekhet, depicted with surveying tools, or the Babylonian Nabu, the scribe of the gods, who measures the heavens. The underlying psychological need for orientation and the imposition of structure upon the world manifests itself in our art, science, and architecture. This search for meaning is an unconscious drive deeply rooted in the psyche. Geometry’s instruments, far from being static tools, are dynamic symbols that evolve in response to our ever-changing understanding of the universe. The symbol lives, adapts, and resurfaces across the epochs.