Notebook

Notebook, 1993-

RELATIONSHIPS

The Geometry of Art and Life - Reasoned, Mathematical, and Felt Ratios

Ratio - Extreme and
Mean Ratio
The term Golden Section was given in the nineteenth century to the proportion derived from the division of a line into what Euclid (active about 300 BC) called "extreme and mean ratio." "A straight line," he explained, "is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the less." It is often claimed that the Golden Section is esthetically superior to all other proportions, and, if it is admitted that what pleases the eye is unity in variety, it may be said that this proportion fulfills this condition better than any other.

[Harlan, Calvin. Vision & Invention, An Introduction to Art Fundamentals. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1986.]












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