The Work of Art

FIBONACCI NUMBERS & THE GOLDEN PROPORTION 

There are, of course, aspects of measured, proportional relations that numbers describe quite wonderfully, but I abandoned numbers long before I tried giving up the verb to be: “1 + 1 = 2” doesn’t offer much room for improvisation, much less beauty. But geometry I can draw out on paper, and by the same physical, relational method, geometry has given me a new appreciation for number. So bear with me, and return to your drawing of little boxes. Take the first box as a unit measure of one; use that unit of length to measure the long side of each successive rectangle. You should get a repeating series of lengths whereby each new number is the sum of the preceding two:

ALLEGORY

All the beauty and all the mathematics [of the Golden Mean] are the natural byproducts of the simple system of growth interacting with its spatial environment.

–       Peter S. Stevens, Patterns in Nature.

MEASURE & BEAUTY

Contrary to what a critic might say, you need no degree in art, either to measure or to make beauty.