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The Golden Ratio in Art

Now let's try to discover the golden ratio in art. We will concentrate on the artworks of Leonardo da Vinci. Here is the list of paintings to look at:

The Annunciation

The Mona Lisa

St. Jerome

1. The Annunciation - Draw in a horizontal line that is 61.8% of the way down the painting (0.618 - the inverse of the golden ratio). Draw another line that is 61.8% of the way up the painting. Try again with vertical lines that are 61.8% of the way across both from left to right and from right to left. So now we have four lines drawn across the painting. Notice that these lines intersect important parts of the painting, such as the angel, the woman, the trees, etc.

2. The Mona Lisa - Measure the length and the width of the painting itself. The ratio is, of course, golden. Draw a rectangle around Mona's face (from the top of the forehead to the base of the chin, and from left cheek to right cheek) and notice that this, too, is a golden rectangle.

3. St. Jerome - Draw a rectangle around St. Jerome. Conveniently, he just fits inside a golden rectangle.

Leonardo da Vinci's talent as an artist may well have been outweighed by his talents as a mathematician. He incorporated geometry into many of his paintings, with the golden ratio being just one of his many mathematical tools. Why do you think he used it so much? Experts agree that he probably thought that golden measurements made his paintings more attractive. Maybe he was just a little too obsessed with perfection. However, he was not the only one to use golden properties in his work.