The golden section, also known as the golden ratio, represents a timeless link between art, nature, and mathematics. From Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, painters have used this divine proportion to achieve perfect harmony and visual balance.
The golden section (also called the Golden Ratio or Golden Number), denoted by the Greek letter Φ (phi), which is pronounced "fi", is the first irrational number discovered and defined in history by Euclid (more than 2000 years ago), being approximately equal to 1.618033 which can be found in the most surprising circumstances. Thus, the arrangement of the petals of a rose, the arrangement
of the seeds in a sunflower, Chinese broccoli, Salvador Dali's painting The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, the spiral shells of mollusks, the vortex of a galaxy and the trajectory of hawks when descending towards their prey, all have this golden number or geometric proportion in common. The golden number is closely related to the Fibonacci sequence, in which each term is the sum of the two previous ones (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55...). As we move forward, the ratio between two successive terms of the Fibonacci sequence tends towards Phi. The mysterious proportion of this number is represented either in the golden (isosceles) triangle of Pythagoras, in the golden ellipse of the Hindu tradition or in the golden spiral (the figure that is the best known) which, through the Fibonacci sequence, is demonstrated to preserve the proportion of 1.618.
The golden section
Returning to painting, the golden ratio can be easily identified in Leonardo DaVinci's famous creation, the Mona Lisa. In creating the masterpiece (and in almost all others), DaVinci used this ratio intentionally, creating one of the most famous paintings in the world.
Many specialists who have analyzed the painting have concluded that DaVinci used the golden ratio precisely and carefully in his creation, because it creates the impression that Mona Lisa's eyes seem to follow the viewer who moves around the painting. The main features of the golden ratio have been highlighted in the painting below. Looking at the painting in its entirety, the distance between Mona Lisa's right finger and forehead is 1.618 times the distance between her right finger and her collarbone. The right side of her cheek is in golden ratio with the short side of the original golden rectangle.
The Golden Section – Mona Lisa Leonardo Da Vinci
The golden proportions in the painting:
- the distance between the base of the neck and the pupil of the eye with the distance between the base of the neck and the top of the forehead;
- the distance between the right side of the cheek and the right side of the nose with the width of the face;
- the distance between the chin and the bottom of the lips with the distance between the chin and the base of the nose;
There was even an artistic group in the history of painting that called itself SECTION D`OR (Golden Section), its members seeking to introduce scientific principles into the development of works of art. The movement descends from cubism. They were looking for the ideal ratio between the dimensions of the different parts of some compositions, of a plastic form, it was the problem around which they focused their efforts to find the divine proportion. Among the members of this group we have: Jaques Villon (1875-1963), Jan Meetzinger (1883-1956), Albert Gleizes (1881-1953), Andre Lhote (1885-1962).
In the history of painting there were many other masterpieces in which their creators used this golden ratio. Here are some examples:
Salvador Dali The Last Supper
The Birth of Venus Sandro Botticelli
Michelangelo Buonarotti The Creation of Adam – Sistine Chapel, Rome
Considering the human attraction to beauty, we can say that the use of the golden ratio has only led to the creation of masterpieces whose names will always resonate in history and in the memory of people.
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