h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Buildings (and rooms) to that ratio do seem to impart a solid, comfortable look/feel so presumably gardens too.

Isn't the acropolis in Athens built that way? Down to quite fine detail?

How do mud huts relate to the Golden ratio?

I'd happily live in one.

>>
Isn't the acropolis in Athens built that way?


That's disputed, but even if it is true, I don't see why that means the ratio is inherently beautiful. It's difficult to judge, because such buildings are so legendary that we might find them attractive for being iconic. Maybe once the ratio is purported to be beautiful, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy, and people simply look for beauty within it. Artist have always found beauty in unexpected places, whether it be Lowry's bleak cities or Pollacks splatters, so we can surely find beauty in the golden section; especially since it has such an attractive name! I wonder how much we'd like it if it were called the Nazi ratio?

>Pollacks splatters<

Hmmm. I do love irony.

Beautiful? I didn't say beautiful, I said >seem to impart a solid, comfortable look/feel< though I wouldn't argue too much about it.

What I do feel though is that that ratio (or thirds) works more often than not.


However, I feel I must say that I am severely disappointed - my desktop screen viewing area is not. Even worse, neither is the black edge around it, nor even the complete casing.

"Everything about us, everything around us, everything we know and can know of is composed ultimately of patterns of nothing; that's the bottom line, the final truth. So where we find we have any control over those patterns, why not make the most elegant ones, the most enjoyable and good ones, in our own terms?" — Iain M. Banks


I just fell over this quotation and nabbed it,

I never try to "own" anything as the huggy-feely talk show people insist. I only know what looks and feels good to my eye. Symmetry or colour hues or what-ever, if it just "feels" nice, in nature or elsewhere, I don't measure or question it.

I enjoy it.

>>Beautiful? I didn't say beautiful, I said >seem to impart a solid, comfortable look/feel< though I wouldn't argue too much about it.

Of course, but the OP was about beauty.

>>What I do feel though is that that ratio (or thirds) works more often than not.

I'm familiar with the so-called 'rule' of thirds, but IMHO, it's just a guideline to get novice artists to avoid plonking the subject slap bang in the middle of the canvas/photograph all the time. So instead of halving the canvas, they might consider the next most obvious position, which is to 'third' it; but any other position is worth considering, even right on the periphery, or indeed right in the middle if you choose.

I didn't (and I'm not going to) measure the exact ratio on an Alabaster page layout but it appears to be split on something close to the golden mean. The conversation posts on the right being approx twice the width of the posters' list in the left hand column. The vertical separator bar is an adjustable feature - by clicking and dragging it - but it seems to default back to the classic proportions. And the header bars seem to take up about a third of the page's height. A random sample: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=8261466&show=20&skip=40#pi49 ~jwf~

D'you know (ha!) I hadn't really considered canvas (except for that detective story where the treasure was under a tree that was,,,)

No, being of my particular persuasion I had wooden artefacts in mind.
Though I make mostly bowls, currently I'm on a tall, hollow vessel, neck:body 1:3.

Whoops - neck height : body height 1:2

Well...any study is bound to be confounded by past experience.

In European culture at least, the Golden Ratio has been used at various times by, e.g. the Athenians, the Renaissance artists (Caravaggio used it to stunning effect in a piece of Medici kiddie porn) to Piet Mondriaan. So assuming we liked it now, would that be because it's 'natural' or because of learned associations (e.g. we like our landscape gardens to resemble classical paintings, etc. etc.) We cannot tell from subjective reports alone.

Note, though, that we also like non-Golden Ratio art well enough.

Some point to evidence from the natural world. The Golden Ration can bee seen embedded in a nautilus shell or the arrangement of a sunflower;s seeds. See! See! Maybe it's embedded in our brains!

Wellll...maybe. Bur it seems to me that the fact that sunflower seeds are arranged in patterns that correspond to the Fibonacci series (and therefore the Golden Ratio) is an interesting tautology. Like saying that you can get pi out of any natural circular phenomenon. I'm not sure what, if anything, it tells us.

It *is* very in renaissance art...but the painters put it there deliberately. They were big into sacred geometry. Or, in Caravaggio's case, sacrilegious. Check out the lower right major Golden Section intersection:

http://lh6.ggpht.com/-JM9hVSZKu2s/SXIFouOJJmI/AAAAAAABprM/w5rc1DD8pCk/Caravaggio%25252C%252520Cupid%252520%252528Amor%252520Victorious%252529%252520c1600.jpg

>>
I just can't help but wonder if it's merely indicative of mankind's desire to see patterns which aren't really there.
<< Tony Curtis (who I suspect might be someone else)

I think you'll find that nature came before maths So the patterns are there (presumably because of evolution and it being easier for certain shapes to function in this physical dimension), and we have then evolved ways of understanding those patterns. The understandings (Golden mean, Fibonacci etc) will fit to a degree, but not always or all of the time. We can use those understandings to create things (architecture, paintings) but they are but imitations of the real thing.

Also, try comparing this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio

with this:

http://forexelite.net/images/fibonacci-spiral-seashell.jpg

or this:

http://capnbob.us/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/conch.jpg

>>
I didn't (and I'm not going to) measure the exact ratio
on an Alabaster page layout but it appears to be split on
something close to the golden mean. The conversation posts
on the right being approx twice the width of the posters'
list in the left hand column. The vertical separator bar
is an adjustable feature - by clicking and dragging it -
but it seems to default back to the classic proportions.
And the header bars seem to take up about a third of the
page's height.
<<

Good one ~jwf~

Someone should actually measure all the skins though....

>>you can get pi out of any natural circular phenomenon.<<

You can get pi by throwing matchsticks!

>> Someone should actually measure all the skins though.... <<

Well that first link (wiki) had a diagram where
A+B is to A as A is to B

Now if that diagram was turned upside down
it would be the same as the three plane frames
of an Alabaster page.

I suspect there were a lot of three-box pages
created in the late 20th century that used a
basic Draw program with a drag and drop line
feature mading it quick and easy to do lay outs.

I dunno, maybe one of the original Digital Village
People could remember who and how it was designed,
but in those days smart programmers were more about
function and used standard forms to display content.

The Alabaster format was perfect for its purpose.
The header bar (top third) could be modified to
include any sort of content, ads, animations,
titles, administrative messages, link buttons.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how it will
be modified when they take out the BBC logo.


~jwf~

Shakespeare wouldn't have bothered with this anal cerebral nonsense..

Hmm..
He would have been interested in the way
paper was made in huge sheets and folded
to produce quartos. Yeah, more of a square
thing.

~jwf~

> we like our landscape gardens to resemble classical paintings,<

Err no not in England we don't...Capability Brown, '.."He sought to create an ideal landscape out of the English countryside."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_garden

There's a whole other tradition here that is entirely *not* to do with things being Classical but Romantic. I know which I prefer.

The French are welcome to their Gardens of Versailles.

>>No, being of my particular persuasion I had wooden artefacts in mind.
Though I make mostly bowls, currently I'm on a tall, hollow vessel, neck:body 1:3.

Fair enough; is height also 3 times the diameter, I wonder?