The Golden ratio is a special number called Phi (1,618) found by dividing a line into two parts so that the longer part divided by the smaller part is also equal to the whole length divided by the longer part. (www.livescience.com)
The proportion between the these two parts is 1:1,618 or approx 1,6
Golden Ratio Calculator:
Without further delay, let me introduce 7 different paintings and how the golden ratio is implemented in them.
Fauvism is the style of les Fauves (French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early twentieth-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. (Wikipedia)
Matisse uses the golden rectangles in his painting "Open Window". Actually, the main object here is entirely in golden proportions. See down below.
Open Window, Collioure
- Henri Matisse
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. (Wikipedia)
Egon Schiele painted his wife Edith Harms, and titled his creation "Sitting Woman with Legs Drawn Up". The portrait displays Edith sitting on the floor, resting her cheek on her left knee.
If we look at the painting carefully, we will discover that the woman's body is composed in a golden rectangle.
Seated Woman with Bent Knee, Egon Schiele
Mannerism also known as Late Renaissance, exaggerates such qualities as proportion, balance, and ideal beauty, often resulting in compositions that are asymmetrical or unnaturally elegant. It favors compositional tension and instability rather than the balance and clarity of earlier Renaissance painting. (Wikipedia)
El Greco's expressive handling of color and form is just indescribable. But not only that, his compositions create kind of magnetic pull that attracts the viewers. Why is that? Well, the answer could be hidden in the golden ratio.
View of Toledo, El Greco
Impressionism is a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities, ordinary subject matter, inclusion of movement as a crucial element of human perception and experience, and unusual visual angles. (Wikipedia)
"Woman with a Parasol" is a painting of Camille and her son Jeon. Camille fills the upper parts of the canvas, and that giving her an almost iconic feel. Will you be surprised if you discover that the upper part of her body falls into the golden section?! As you can see Phi 1,618 is everywhere!
Woman with a Parasol - Madame Monet and Her Son
- Claude Monet
Cubism
Cubists explored open form, piercing figures and objects by letting the space flow through them, blending background into foreground, and showing objects from various angles. Some historians have argued that these innovations represent a response to the changing experience of space, movement, and time in the modern world.(www.theartstory.org)
Picasso was in Spain during 1909, created pictures with geometrical shapes and colour tonalities that mixed in optical illussion and makes you feel that you`re watching through a broken mirror. Eloquent examples are "The Reservoir / "Horta de Ebro", "Houses on the Hill" and "Brick Factory in Tortosa".
The main buildings in "Horta de Ebro" are in a golden rectangle.
Factory, Horta de Ebbo
-Pablo Picasso
Surrealism - the Surrealists sought to channel the unconscious as a means to unlock the power of the imagination. Disdaining rationalism and literary realism, and powerfully influenced by psychoanalysis, the Surrealists believed the rational mind repressed the power of the imagination, weighing it down with taboos. (www.theartstory.org)
Ordinary objects are the usual inspiration for the art of Rene Magritte. He transforms their contexts in unusual surreal environment and that way he reinvent their meanings in unexpected light.
"Just because" is an example of that. And guess what - the main object here (the tree) is in golden proportions 1:1,6
Just because, Rene Magritte
Pop Art presents a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular and mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. One of its aims is to use images of popular (as opposed to elitist) culture in art, emphasizing the banal or kitschy elements of any culture, most often through the use of irony. (Wikipedia)
Girl with Ball is an oil on canvas Pop art work painted by Roy Lichtenstein. It was inspired by a 1961 advertisement for the Mount Airy Lodge in the Pocono Mountains. The image is exaggerated in a startling and intense form. The Golden ratio helps the woman's face to be in focus.
Girl with Ball, Roy Lichtenstein
Тhe golden proportions also occurs in other forms such as the golden triangle, the golden spiral, and so on. The article aims to help us recognizing more easily Ratio 1,816 wherever we meet it in life.
“The golden proportion is a scale of proportions which makes the bad difficult [to produce] and the good easy.” ― Albert Einstein