Monday, July 31, 2006

Franz Rosenzweig


There's a photo of Franz Rosenzweig ((1886–1929) cut in the shape of the Star of David on the cover of his book The Star of Redemption (ISBN 0-299-20720-X).
There's another on the cover of the first edition of this book published on 1921 (in German).
In this book Franz Rosenzweig builds his philosophy around the shape of the Star of David, composed of two conceptual triangles which together form the basis of Jewish belief: Creation, Revelation, and Redemption; God, Israel, and World.

The Shape of the Star

This is a partial list of potential possible designs of the Star of David (not including materials and colors):

  1. Superimposing two triangles
  2. Superimposing two triangles so that their lines are interwoven
  3. Three superimposed congruent parallelograms or rhombuses
  4. A regular hexagon with six equilateral triangles upon each of its edges
  5. Three “butterflies”
  6. “paper hat” mirrored along a horizontal axis
  7. Six Alpha letters (Hexalpha) or six A letters
  8. Made from 3 W's
  9. Star of David leaning on "two legs" (two triangles instead of one)
  10. Star of David made from curved lines instead of straight lines
 See : Black, Max (1979). More about metaphor. In: Andrew Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 19-43.
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Also:
Double Lined
Drawn by hand
Drawn by pair of compasses
Embossed
Empty or full (circumference only)
Engraved
In a circle
In a hexagon
In a lattice
In a square
In two intertwined squares
Made from dots
Made from letters (micrography)
On a round object
Partial Star of David (made from unconnected triangles)
Surrounded by inscriptions
Surrounding a circle
Surrounding a flower
Surrounding a lily
Surrounding a pentagram
Surrounding a picture (like Theodor Herzl)
Three dimensional (like Yevu Yashir's design)
With a dot (like in alchemy)
With inscription inside (like Zion)
What I learned from this partial list is:
That there is no uniform shape that everybody has to obey (like in the flag).
That there is no limit to the designers' imagination…