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Math and Golden Ratio in Art Summary

           

 

            The late great Albert Einstein once said “the fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious; it is the fundamental which stands at the cradle of true art and science he who knows can no longer wonder.” This is the same Albert Einstein who gave us so many ideas in mathematics and physics, his intelligent is truly among some of the most brilliant minds in history and will remain among them for years to come. His ides were well thought out and were also proven, however he put not only hard work into his ideas but he put a high level of passion into his work. Going back to the quote we can clearly see that Einstein is talking with a deep passion for his work, to be more specific Einstein is talking about the golden ratio. The ratio of equal proportion, a simple example of this would be: eight is to four as is four is to two. This idea was first introduced to the world by Euclid of Alexandria when he came up with, “as the whole line is to the greater segment as the greater segment is to the lesser segment.”

            In 1228 A.D. Leonardo Fibonacci ran an observation experiment by placing two rabbits into a cage over a span of one year, he wanted to know how many offspring the rabbits would reproduce. The results were at the end of one month they had reproduced two offspring, after the second month there was three offspring, and at third month he found five offspring. With the number of offspring increasing every month with respect to the previous month (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 ,13…..) the result is what we know as the Fibonacci sequence i.e. the golden ratio.

            The golden ratio is an amazing number sequence that can be found in our everyday lives, for example the arrangement of branches on a tree, the alignment of florets on a sunflower. On an even grater scale it can be found in the spiral of galaxies across the universe more over it can be found in our very own Milky Way galaxy. The golden ratio can also be found in man made objects as well, famous artists such as Leonardo Di Vinci and more resent Salvador Doli. Both found the ratio so intriguing, they decided to incorporate it into their art.

            During the renascence many new ideas were introduced into the field of art, artists were trying to recreate reality from what they saw and transfer it on to a canvas. Artists now wanted to create a three dimensional affect, in order to do so, techniques such as vanishing point and point perspective were invented. The golden ratio comes into play when creating depth to your painting; one will make the closer objects larger and more detailed while the farther away objects get you by using equal proportion make them smaller and less detailed. Piero della Francesca from around the 1400’s. Artists also found the proportion when drawing the human body, more over the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo Da Vinci which portrays and man with out stretched arms and legs, he Da Vinci also wrote a book on the subject that the human can fit equally in a circumference showing divine proportion.         

            All in all the golden ratio can be found in many painting and drawings from the past and will be found in many artist works in the future as well. It is nothing short of miraculous that the number sequence can be found in all walks of life, that would appear to be some what of a cross road in which many of our concepts cross paths. Coming from a traditional theist point of view one would have to say that this strengthens the idea of a divine creator, that even mathematics can draw a conclusion of a designer.       

 

Andrew Salas