Hey, quick question.

[conuly]

The Star of David. Is that two triangles placed atop each other, or is it a hexagon with a triangle on each side? Yes, I know, it's both, but intuitively what do you think when you see it?

Comments

[ysobel]

Two triangles interwoven.

[cheyinka]

I see it as one triangle on top of another triangle. It takes work for me to see it as a hexagon with a triangle on each side. If there weren't the lines in the middle, I'd see it as a six-pointed star (rather than a hexagon with the sides stretched to points).

[steorra]

Two triangles.

[velasco.livejournal.com]

One triangle up, one triangle down, are the shapes I've always broken it into.

[pne.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[queenlyzard.livejournal.com]

ditto

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

urrm. You're going to hate this.

Neither.

I see 6 straight lines arranged with geometrical precision.

[conuly]

No, I don't hate it. I'm annoyed I didn't list it or think of it (being incomplete? THAT, I hate), but not the comment itself :)

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

That's what I figured you'd hate. Incomplete list.

[azarias.livejournal.com]

Two triangles, as that's how it's easiest for me to draw.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Me too; that's how I first learned to draw it. But I can draw either a pentagram or a hexagram with interlocking bars, and when I do, I start by drawing the shape in the middle, then the triangles.

[darkpoole.livejournal.com]

I see two overlapping triangles.

[flamingtoilet.livejournal.com]

Definitely 2 triangles. I barely even register the hexagon in the middle.

[siderea]

It is conventional in art to depict it as two triangles, often interlaced. I can't recall ever having seen it as a hexagon with six triangles.

[conuly]

Well, that's what it is when it's just solid lines, though. I mean, it's two triangles, but they *make* a hexagon in the middle.

[interactiveleaf.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but artists can choose to emphasize either two triangles or a hexagon with additional triangles, and I've never seen a representation that didn't go for the first rather than the second.

In the Middle Ages, that same symbol flapping above a door would have meant something like "beer sold here". It didn't become a symbol for Judaism until (I think) the last century or so.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Two triangles. I mean, there obviously is a hexagon, but since I learned to recognise and draw it as two interlocked triangles when I was a kid, that kind of turned into the default setting. ;)

[caprinus.livejournal.com]

I always think two triangles. Logos and Chaos.