By Nami Youn
 


Golden Ratio in Art



1. An Old Man by Leonardo Da Vinci



Leonardo Da Vinci explored the human body involving in the ratios of the lengths of various body parts. He called this ratio the "divine proportion" and featured it in many of his paintings.
 
 







Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of an old man can be overlaid with a square subdivided into rectangles, some of which approximate Golden Rectangles.



2. The Vertuvian Man "(The Main in Action)"  by Leonardo Da Vinci


 
 





We can draw many lines of the rectangles into this figure.
Then, there are three distinct sets of Golden Rectangles: Each one set for the head area, the torso, and  the legs.



3. Mona-Lisa  by Leonardo Da Vinci


 
 






This picture includes lots of Golden Rectangles. In above figure, we can draw a rectangle whose base extends from the woman's right wrist to her left elbow and extend the rectangle vertically until it reaches the very top of her head. Then we will have a golden rectangle.
Also, if we draw squares inside this Golden Rectangle, we will discover that the edges of these new squares come to all the important focal points of the woman: her chin, her eye, her nose, and the upturned corner of her mysterious mouth.
It is believed that Leonardo, as a mathematician tried to incorporate of mathematics into art. This painting seems to be made purposefully line up with golden rectangle.
 



 4.Holy Family  by Michelangelo


 
 






We can notice that this picture is positioned to the principal figures in alignment with a Pentagram or Golden star.



5. Crucifixion  by Raphael


 
 





This picture is a well-known example, in which we can find a Golden Triangle and also Pentagram. In this  picture, a golden triangle can be used to locate one of its underlying pentagrams.
 



6. Self-Portrait by Rembrandt


 
 






We can draw three straight lines into this figure. Then, the image of the feature is included into a triangle. Moreover, if a perpendicular line would be dropped from the apex of the triangle to the base, the triangle would cut the base in Golden Section.
 



7. The Sacrament of the Last Supper by Salvador Dali(1904-1989)


 
 







This picture is painted inside a Golden Rectangle. Also, we can find part of an enormous dodecahedron above the table. Since the polyhedron consists of 12 regular Pentagons, it is closely connected to the golden section.
 



8. Golden Section Plate 1 , 1993 by Fletcher Cox


 
 






The title of this work itself includes the Golden Section. It simply means that it is cut into sections of Golden Proportion.
 



9. Bathers by Seurat


 
 








Seurat attached most of canvas by the Golden Section. This picture has several golden subdivisions.
 



10.Composition with Gray and Light brown  by Piet Mondrian 1918


 
 







Mondrian believed that mathematics and art were closely connected. He used the simplest geometrical shapes and primary colours (blue, red, yellow).
His point of view lies in the fact that any shape is possible to create with basic geometric shapes as well as any color can be created with different combinations of red, blue, and yellow. The golden rectangle is one of the basic shapes appear in Mondrian's art.
 
 



Composition in Red, Yellow, and Blue(1926)
 







We can find that the ratio of length to width for some rectangles is Phi.
 



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