PS. Look up Helen Van Wyk quotes about art. “You can’t get it right until you get it wrong” is one. “It is in the contrast of light and dark that design happens” is another. Probably her most famous quotes. She had lovely proportions in her art and some was delightfully random. Her work had great artistic merit. And she has books of instruction.

Great works of art have artistic merit for reasons of color, contrast, placement, messaging, music, flow, purpose, excitement, anticipation, balance, effective randomness, or effective simplicity – as in the art of Mondrian. All art with artistic merit needs many of these beautiful elements. When the lights are on in a room you see everything. When they are off you see nothing. Artistic merit turns the lights on.

There are some interesting design principles that work within the ratio. That can create beautiful randomness, if randomness is what you want. We see it in nature. A merging of structure and randomness is a skill and instinctual. It can also be a phenomena as seen in kaleidoscopes.. I talk about kaleidoscopes and excitement below. But as for decorating the golden ratio, Van Gogh is one of my muses to study movement, contrast and color in an organic way overlaying the ratios.

One design principle I learned was to avoid touching edges to edges unless it is intentional. Perfect if you want a mirrored effect. Or some other ingenious expression. Otherwise, edges touching edges can look cramped and illogical. It can kill a photograph or work of art. Just be careful to space objects well. Boring repetition can also kill art. The music and rhythm of a painting will be lost. Or a photograph or pattern. That is, unless repetition is intentional.

An example is a sea scape with boulders on a rocky, sandy beach. You wouldn’t space or size the boulders regularly like you would columns of a Greek temple – unless it is intentional. You would give them a “tossed” organic look. Avoid repeating the same distances and sizes if you want to take your viewer into movement and rhythm and charm. Comfort. Excitement. You can even use the ratio to space and size your boulders if you know how.

This is such an important principle in some kinds of art. Intentionally organic art is one kind. Variation is organic. It will give the eye somewhere to roam. And that is exciting. The human brain can register boring repetition where it should not be. Exactly spaced boulders three feet apart on a sandy shore would be disturbing. Why? We know they ought to be different sizes and distances apart. We are expecting organic beauty in organic spaces. The ratio still holds, even in organic spaces. How to decorate within ratios can be a challenge. Is it safe to apply elements here and there at random? Of course. Just be sensitive to their effect.

I don’t have space to talk about leading the eye on an interesting journey that gracefully takes it off the edge of the canvas. But that is also a principle when painting some landscapes. Take the eye out of a canvas that works has a pleasing journey, and it will repeat the journey. It invites revisiting the scene.

Another principle is to make one corner different than the other three. This is not for all art or photography. But it can be good in some. If three corners of a canvas have shadowy, dark areas, make one corner lighter and airier to depict cast light. It doesn’t even have to be shadows. Eliminating a repeated idea in one corner can free up the eye. Corners are very important in some artwork. Again, avoid boring repetition that the brain shuts down on seeing. You can also fake light by painting darkness behind a vase of flowers. Helen VanWyck was a genius at such things. She was a fabulous floral artist worth googling.

Another element I use in some of my art is the starburst effect. Placing or hinting at this can add beauty. Even if it is vaguely representational. Trees have a starburst pattern when viewed from a distance. Even pine trees have a starburst pattern in the pinecones. I like to incorporate starburst patterns if it fits a work of art. Never if it doesn’t, or if it overwhelms.. A lens flare added to photography just to have a lens flare would look bad. The sun portrayed as a vector graphic can have a starburst pattern of sunrays. It is more interesting than just a circle.

Why do glass kaleidoscopes have patterns that are ever beautiful? They are a starburst with regularly spaced sections centered at the horizon. That excitement, plus the randomness of the shapes and colors creates anticipation. You want anticipation in your artwork, architecture or photography. I use the PhiMatrix product mentioned in this article. It gives me a lot of help in Photoshop with spacing ratios. I am mostly self taught after art classes in college. College gives you the foundation to keep learning. Part of the things I talk about here I figured out on my own.

No, this particular image was chosen because the reader specifically referenced Lily Cole and of all the ones I found this image most closely meets the requirements for accurate facial analysis. Her mouth is not open so much that closing the lips would significantly change the proportions. The golden ratio would simply be close to her lip line. Also, the point is not that every person’s facial features conform exactly to these golden ratios, but that on average do, and that golden ratios are commonly found in the face, as illustrated by those for her eyes as well.

This particular image was chosen because it conforms to arbitrary choices for corners of rectangles. If the model were to close her mouth, then the rectangle between her pupils and her ching would no longer be a golden rectangle.

Kent Remington Calgary Canada

If the “right hand face has been deliberately been made to look unsymmetrical,” as per your assumption, it was not by me. I admittedly seek images to illustrate a particular point, but I never alter images to “make the data fit the hypothesis” unless that is made explicitly clear in the articles narrative. The particular image to which you refer was provided with permission and reference exactly as it appears on the site of recognized beauty researcher and expert, Dr. Stephen R. Marquardt. It appears on his page “Beauty Ranges.” That page illustrates the impact of deviations in actual faces from his golden ratio-based “Marquardt Beauty Mask,” and the resulting impact on perceptions of attractiveness.

Several possible issues. First, Anaface doesn’t disclose their algorithm, so we don’t know if it uses proper golden ratio measures in computing its score, nor do we know the weightings of the factors it uses in creating a composite score. See https://www.goldennumber.net/meisner-beauty-guide-golden-ratio-facial-analysis/ for common measures that can be used. Second, it’s critical that the photos used in the analysis be suitable. See https://www.goldennumber.net/facial-beauty-golden-ratio-photo-analysis/ for details.

Head shots I used that only got 7s were Angelina Jolie and Rose McGowan, Depp and Pitt of course. A few others… However Katy Perry did get 9 but I dint think she’s as gorgeous.