Golden Proportion and Golden Mean
Renaissance art is replete with examples of Phi (pronounced like "fly"), often called the Golden Proportion or Golden Mean.
Leonardo and others paid careful attention to this proportion not because they invented it, but because it is already there.
It exists in beautiful natural creations to include the human body, and was therefore deemed to be worthy of replication in their art.
They accurately depicted Phi by developing for themselves their own instruments like the Golden Mean Gauge.
Simply put, Phi is a proportion which is repeated with stunning accuracy and frequency in nature itself.
The proportion is 1.
618, which is (not so coincidentally?) the ratio of, for example, the distance from a person's head to fingertips in relation to his/her total height.
In other words, a person's total height is 1.
618 times the distance from the top of their head to the tips of their fingers.
It's also the proportion of the total height of the head as compared to the distance from the chin to the eyes (or bridge of the nose).
Not convinced? There's an instrument called the Golden Mean Gauge which can be used by anyone to establish for themselves that this proportion does indeed exist in all manner of objects in nature.
The Golden Mean Gauge could be used, for example, to explain to a gentlemen why his wife's face is so lovely (or, forbid, not so lovely).
Simple measurements would easily establish how close or how far key proportions of her face are to or from the Golden Mean - and just for the sake of fairness, the gentleman should allow turnabout so as to fully realize how lucky he is to have her! This principle has been investigated and verified by Dr.
Stephen Marquardt.
Dr.
Marquardt is a surgeon who has made a thorough cross-cultural study of human ideas of beauty, and has come to a remarkable conclusion -- all cultural and ethnic groups possess the same perceptions of facial beauty.
He has studied this phenomenon from ancient times to the present, and found that the same has held true throughout the ages.
Why is this? The Golden Mean, it turns out, is the foundation of all of these perceptions of a good looking face both through time and over cultural barriers.
Phi is and always has been the basis, in other words, of all human ideas of what a handsome devil is! The Golden Mean Gauge is an essential tool for anyone who seriously wishes to investigate and reflect in their own work the divine beauty in all of nature (as well as in their spouse).
The budding natural artist, for example, can use it to establish a sense of balance and proportion in works that have been frustratingly difficult to "get right".
Classic architecture, too, is obedient to the Golden Mean.
Anyone who wishes to investigate why the proportions of Falling Water are so moving, or to understand why the buildings of Vatican City naturally seem to proportionally mesh so well, could use an instrument like the Golden Mean Gauge to delve more deeply into photographs of these masterpieces and thus to learn from the experience.
Leonardo and others paid careful attention to this proportion not because they invented it, but because it is already there.
It exists in beautiful natural creations to include the human body, and was therefore deemed to be worthy of replication in their art.
They accurately depicted Phi by developing for themselves their own instruments like the Golden Mean Gauge.
Simply put, Phi is a proportion which is repeated with stunning accuracy and frequency in nature itself.
The proportion is 1.
618, which is (not so coincidentally?) the ratio of, for example, the distance from a person's head to fingertips in relation to his/her total height.
In other words, a person's total height is 1.
618 times the distance from the top of their head to the tips of their fingers.
It's also the proportion of the total height of the head as compared to the distance from the chin to the eyes (or bridge of the nose).
Not convinced? There's an instrument called the Golden Mean Gauge which can be used by anyone to establish for themselves that this proportion does indeed exist in all manner of objects in nature.
The Golden Mean Gauge could be used, for example, to explain to a gentlemen why his wife's face is so lovely (or, forbid, not so lovely).
Simple measurements would easily establish how close or how far key proportions of her face are to or from the Golden Mean - and just for the sake of fairness, the gentleman should allow turnabout so as to fully realize how lucky he is to have her! This principle has been investigated and verified by Dr.
Stephen Marquardt.
Dr.
Marquardt is a surgeon who has made a thorough cross-cultural study of human ideas of beauty, and has come to a remarkable conclusion -- all cultural and ethnic groups possess the same perceptions of facial beauty.
He has studied this phenomenon from ancient times to the present, and found that the same has held true throughout the ages.
Why is this? The Golden Mean, it turns out, is the foundation of all of these perceptions of a good looking face both through time and over cultural barriers.
Phi is and always has been the basis, in other words, of all human ideas of what a handsome devil is! The Golden Mean Gauge is an essential tool for anyone who seriously wishes to investigate and reflect in their own work the divine beauty in all of nature (as well as in their spouse).
The budding natural artist, for example, can use it to establish a sense of balance and proportion in works that have been frustratingly difficult to "get right".
Classic architecture, too, is obedient to the Golden Mean.
Anyone who wishes to investigate why the proportions of Falling Water are so moving, or to understand why the buildings of Vatican City naturally seem to proportionally mesh so well, could use an instrument like the Golden Mean Gauge to delve more deeply into photographs of these masterpieces and thus to learn from the experience.
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