For centuries artists and designers have used a sum – the golden ratio – to achieve proportion. The golden ratio is about as close as many artists and designers get to appreciating hardcore mathematics: it’s a ratio – roughly 1:1.6180339887, if you’re curious – that is widely regarded to give balanced, harmonious proportions.
Since it was first calculated with any degree of precision in Greek times, the ratio has been applied over the centuries by creatives ranging from architects to bookbinders.
Even if you’re not a math genius, the basics of the golden ratio are easy to understand: a perfectly symmetrical design is less satisfying and aesthetically pleasing than one in which the proportions are slightly asymmetrical. Perfect symmetry being 1:1, and the golden ratio being 1:1.6180339887. In other words, just slightly off.
People studying the golden ratio have found it everywhere from the Pyramids to the Mona Lisa – and even in nature, for example in the veins of leaves, or the human face. That is why sometimes it is called the Divine Proportion or Divine Ratio.
I know this sounds like a lot of mumbo-jumbo, and a lot of people take it to the extreme. However there are certain aspects of this theory that can't be denied.
So the question is,...
Is DaVinci's "Mona Lisa" an amazing piece of art because he used the golden ratio?
Or are the Great Pyramids so great because they also used the golden ratio?
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