The Human Body and the Golden Ratio
The human body is based on Phi and 5
The human body illustrates the Golden Section or Divine Proportion. We’ll use the same golden ratio building blocks again for each line segment:
The Divine Proportion in the Body
- The white line is the body’s height.
- The blue line, a golden section of the white line, defines the distance from the head to the finger tips.
- The yellow line, a golden section of the blue line, defines the distance from the head to the navel and the elbows.
- The green line, a golden section of the yellow line, defines the distance from the head to the pectorals and inside top of the arms, the width of the shoulders, the length of the forearm and the shin bone.
- The magenta line, a golden section of the green line, defines the distance from the head to the base of the skull and the width of the abdomen. The sectioned portions of the magenta line determine the position of the nose and the hairline.
Although not shown, the golden section of the magenta line (also the short section of the green line) defines the width of the head and half the width of the chest and the hips.
The Human Body is based on patterns of 5, which is the basis for Phi as well
Another interesting relationship of golden section to the design of the human body is that there are:
- 5 appendages to the torso, in the arms, leg and head.
- 5 appendages on each of these, in the fingers and toes
- 5 openings on the face.
- 5 senses in sight, sound, touch, taste and smell.
The golden section in turn, is also based on 5, as the number phi, or 1.6180339…, is computed using 5′s, as follows:
5 ^ .5 * .5 + .5 = Phi
In this mathematical construction “5 ^ .5″ means “5 raised to the 1/2 power,” which is the square root of 5, which is then multiplied by .5 and to which .5 is then added.
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Interesting.
cool
My recent overview of this website has lead me to wonder if the human heartbeat has a direct corelation to phi. Perhaps in the measured longevity of the beat as well as the actual sound pattern.
Interesting
very good nice
everything is in mathematics – example the human body
That is freaky in a cool way
VERY VERY COOL!!!
It strikes me so very interesting that as a young artist I was already learning the proportions of the human body so that I could draw a reasonably realistic figure, but in my case I learned the proportions from sources which used a more general fraction than the detailed decimal number shown in this site–that is, from books and teachers all the way back to grade school (and then, after going to the Fox Lane Junior High School in Upstate N.Y. and Long Island City High School in Queens, N.Y., I attended the Pratt Institute Art School for both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees and all the way through we had six-hour drawing classes each week and drew from nude models).
For example, when it comes to limbs, it was this way: The lower arm or forearm is two-thirds the length of the upper arm, which is longest; the hand (palm plus longest finger) is two-thirds the length of the forearm; each part of each finger, from longest to shortest, is two-thirds the length of each segment of the part of the finger before it, starting from where the finger is attached to the palm. This two-thirds proportioning is also applied to the feet, running from the upper leg bone to the lower leg bone to the foot. And, the artist generally uses the head of the individual to describe his or her height, although the basic general height of a generalized person is eight heads tall.
That’s why the “phi” and “fibonacci” as well as the “golden mean” caught my attention at this site. Actually, I originally set out to find out how to figure out the exact length of each limb (so I could get accurate lengths for shirt sleeves and pants), and that’s how I and this site crossed paths! You have to remember, too, that the artist does not stop to do mathematical calculations–the artist simply uses his sharp trained eyes, and so two-thirds is much easier to determine with the eyes than 1.61804 or 61.8%. By the way, the fraction two-thirds reduced to a decimal works out to .66666… or 66%.
Still, the artist is not viewing decimals; the artist views relationships through visual determination, and note, too, that art teachers or drawing instructors are always urging their student-artistes to exaggerate both the sizes of the body parts and the angles of a model’s poses! Meanwhile, the artist is certainly aware of the “golden proportion”, as it is named here. Ah! wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles!!! For li’l ole me (I just turned 65 on May 5th), ’twas once upon a time and long ago!
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