Representations in Modern Times
The Vitruvian Man remains one of the most referenced and reproduced artistic images in the world today. The proportions for the human body, as proposed by Vitruvius, have inspired many other artists in drawing their version of the Vitruvian Man:
- Cesare Cesariano (1521) who edited the important 1521 edition of De Archtectura of Vitruvius (Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have provided the illustrations for this edition).
- Albrecht Dürer (1528) in his book Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (four books on human proportions)
- Pietro di Giacomo Cataneo (1554)
- Heinrich Lautensack (1618)
- William Blake (1795) "Glad Day" (now known as "Albion rose"). This representation is without the circle and square.
- Susan Dorothea White's version Sex Change for Vitruvian Man (2005)
The Vitruvian Man has been used in a variety of fictional and non-fictional media, for various symbolic purposes. For example, the image appears on the national side of Italian 1 euro coins, chosen by the Economy Minister (and later President of the Italian Republic) Carlo Azeglio Ciampi for its high symbolic meaning of "man as a measure of all things".
Initial copies of the Season of Mist reissue of Gorgoroth's 1997 album Under the Sign of Hell bear the image as part of their cover art.
Particularly when used in fiction, the image of the Vitruvian Man is commonly modified to suit the setting by featuring a character, a skeleton or a non-human (such as a robot in science fiction or an animal). The easily-recognisable image lends itself to being referenced.
A space-suited figure in the same superimposed poses of Vitruvian Man appears on a patch worn on the right shoulder of the American Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) space suit used by NASA. This patch, called the EVA patch, is also awarded to spacewalkers for use on uniform jumpsuits as an indicator that the individual has completed a spacewalk.
The drawing was parodied in the movie poster for Mike Judge's 2006 film, Idiocracy. A version of the Vitruvian Man with the proportions debased by extensive invasive cybernetics is featured in the Dark Heresy rulebook in the section on bionic upgrades.
A simplified version of the image is used as the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society logo. Stylized Vitruvian Man figures have been adopted for the icons representing accessibility in the Mac OS and Gnome desktop computer interfaces.
- Modern representations
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The Vitruvian Man on the Italian 1 Euro
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The Skylab III (Skylab 3) patch shows a Vitruvian Man, with a globe and sun in rear
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3-dimensional Vitruvian Man in Belgrave Square, London
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Promotional computer wallpaper from computer game Neverhood's Klaymen in Vitruvian Man style
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