The Golden Ratio in Art: Mostly a Myth

Divide a line into two unequal parts so that the whole is to the longer part as the longer part is to the shorter. The ratio you get is the golden ratio, written with the Greek letter φ (phi): about 1.618.¹

Euclid described it around 300 BCE. It is closely tied to the Fibonacci sequence, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13…, in which each number is the sum of the two before it: divide one number by the one before, and the result creeps closer and closer to φ.¹

In 1509 the mathematician Luca Pacioli published De divina proportione, “On the Divine Proportion,” a book that celebrated the ratio's supposed harmony. Its geometric solids were drawn by Leonardo da Vinci.¹ That is a fact. The rest of the legend grew from there.

The golden ratio is not a myth everywhere. In nature, the spirals of sunflower heads and pine cones often come in consecutive Fibonacci numbers, thanks to the golden angle, about 137.5°, which helps seeds pack tightly.¹

And some artists did use it, on purpose. Salvador Dalí built the proportions of his Sacrament of the Last Supper (1955) on it, and the architect Le Corbusier based his Modulor system of measurements on φ.¹ Devlin also names the painters Paul Sérusier, Juan Gris and Gino Severini, who experimented with it for its own sake.²