This illustration pays homage to the famous drawing "Vitruvian Man" by Leonardo Da Vinci. In the drawing, Da Vinci portrays the proportions of man, or the "Canon of Proportions." The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometric proportions described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in his treatise "De Architectura." Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the classical orders of architecture. In this illustration, the figure of a man is replaced by that of a woman. Additional elements include a depiction of the molecular DNA double heli; the cascade of foreground molecules represent the molecular structure of the four nucleotides present in the organic base pairs of DNA: thymine, cytosine, guanine and adenine.
