Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

RELATIONSHIPS - Gradients

[Excerpt from: Waddington, C. H. "The Modular Principle and Biological Form." In Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm. Vision and Value series. Gyorgy Kepes, ed. New York: George Braziller, 1966.]

Growth of Gradients
". . . . But a closer look shows that the variations are not really arbitrary. There is an interesting type of orderliness, and one very typical of biological forms. The growth constants of neighboring segments, whether of the main body or of the legs, are nearly always closely related to each other. It is very rare to find a very long segment next to a very short one, more usually there are gradual changes in growth constants as one passes from one segment to the next . . . . if one were to plot the growth constants along the length of the body or along the legs, they would fall on some relatively simple continuous curve instead of being scattered about in a quite arbitrary way. Such curves are known as growth gradients, and they express a type of orderliness which is very characteristic of biological form. It results in there nearly always being some recognizable relation between the neighboring parts of a biological system. [p. 35]

It is, in my opinion, this relatedness of contiguous parts which is particularly characteristic of biological structures. They are certainly not usually modular in the sense of being assembled by the arrangement of one or a few kinds of constant elementary units. Nor, as we have just seen, do they often employ a standard system of proportions. The Golden Mean is not an idea of a biological type. How could there be such a thing in a form which is altering the relative proportions of its parts as it grows up? On the other hand, biological forms are certainly not chaotic or arbitrary in the mutual relations of their parts, but nearly always convey a strong impression of order and organization . . . . Within this province, I have argued that the biological rules are not those of the module, but rather of a kind which one might summarize by the phrase, 'the relatedness of neighbors.'" [p. 37]

[Waddington, C. H. "The Modular Principle and Biological Form." In Module, Proportion, Symmetry, Rhythm. Vision and Value series. Gyorgy Kepes, ed. New York: George Braziller, 1966.]





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