What Is The Golden Mean?

AKA The Golden Ratio, The Divine Proportion, The Golden Rectangle,

The Golden Section

The Ancients Knew!

• The Origins of the Golden Mean are lost to us, but we know that the Egyptians used the idea to build the pyramids.

The Egyptians

• The Pyramids at Giza were built more than 4,500 years ago using the ratio or 1.6 to 1. Meaning that they are 1.6 times a high as they are wide. Why?

The Greeks

• In 477, the Greek city state of Athens built the famous temple to Athena, known as the Parthenon. It’s dimensions are a perfect Golden Rectangle.

But What Is It?

• A Golden Rectangle is based on the concept that a rectangle that is 1.6 times as long as it is tall can be divided into perfect sections that can be broken into that ratio 1:1.6 again and again.

• Golden Rectangle Calculator

So What?

• Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519) studied both art and science. He saw that nature used the “divine proportion”

Golden Mean in Nature

• Leonardo saw that humans were proportioned using the same ratio. So he copied it in his artwork.

Art of Leonardo Da Vinci

• Such as the Mona Lisa and the Last Supper

• Mona Lisa's Golden Rectangle

How Does This Affect Modern Imaging?

• All modern imaging systems come from the development of 35mm film, including digital cameras, movie film, DV cameras and HDTV screens.

The Rule of Thirds

• The modern rule of thirds comes from the principle of the golden mean as a useful method to determine where to place an object in the frame.