![]() When you look at medieval art, you might find it disproportionate and flat, as though everyone is facing the wrong way. Whilst Da Vinci did know about the golden ratio and used it in his lovely mathematical diagrams, he did not need it for his art. Photographers may use it in their photographs, but so many beautiful pictures don’t require mathematical levels of precision and people definitely don’t need to conform to such a bizarre beauty standard in order to look good! As for the shells and galaxies, they can produce logarithmic spirals, but are never in this exact ratio, and are in fact usually quite far off. Online, you will find golden rectangles and spirals superimposed onto Renaissance paintings, but they are grabbing at straws. ![]() Unfortunately, the beauty of the golden ratio is probably only a mathematical one. Even galaxies and shells grow in ‘golden spirals’. Modern photographers might use a golden spiral to compose their pictures and legend has it the most beautiful faces have eyes, noses and mouths aligned in this magical ratio. Called in Renaissance times the ‘Divine Proportion’, it is supposedly exhibited in Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, as well as other artists’ work. The golden ratio is one piece of mathematics said to be found in many artworks. ![]() So, I pose the question: could visual art be linked to mathematics the same way music is? Drawing, painting and sculpture are thought of as the antithesis of rigid mathematics: they capture beauty and emotions which cannot be defined by equations. While music is viewed as having inherently mathematical aspects, the opposite is often said about visual art.
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