What Is Beauty?
Sheila Samton is the author-illustrator of many award-winning books for children, as well as a designer and muralist. Her first children’s book, “The World from My Window” (Crown, 1985), also dealt with the subject of beauty. Ms. Samton has two sons and lives in New York City.
This is the “golden ratio,”a.k.a. the “golden mean,”the “golden section,” and the “divine proportion.” It is a proportional relation obtained by dividing a line, or a plane figure, so that the shorter part is to the longer part as the longer part is to the whole. If you take a “golden rectangle” — one whose length-to-breadth is in the golden ratio — and snip out a square, what remains is another, smaller golden rectangle. What makes the golden ratio special to mathematicians is the number of properties it possesses. But what makes it extraordinary to the world is its relation to beauty. The golden ratio has been evoked through the ages to express perfection.
Examples abound. The Egyptians called it the “sacred ratio,” and applied it to the building of the pyramids.
The Greeks used it in the construction of the Parthenon. It is said that daVinci painted the face of the Mona Lisa to fit inside a golden rectangle. People like the architect Corbusier and the composer Bartók have consciously embodied it in their work. And daily in art and science classrooms students discover that geometric forms expressing the golden ratio are simply the most appealing to the eye.
NYT: An Escape to the Dentist? Parents Confess Their Secret Ways to Get Alone Time
Peter J. Strauss’s life as an attorney, speaker and single father of four children ages 1 to 10 leaves him little time for himself.
He catches a break in a place most people try to avoid: “I love going to the dentist,” says Mr. Strauss, of Hilton Head Island, S.C. “It’s 45 minutes when I know nobody is going to interrupt me. You can’t reach me and you can’t ask for anything,” says Mr. Strauss, author of a book on self-insurance for businesses. Although he has perfect teeth, he gets them cleaned three times a year instead of the usual two. The visits are so dull that he sometimes falls asleep in the chair.
Peter J. Strauss’s life as an attorney, speaker and single father of four children ages 1 to 10 leaves him little time for himself.
He catches a break in a place most people try to avoid: “I love going to the dentist,” says Mr. Strauss, of Hilton Head Island, S.C. “It’s 45 minutes when I know nobody is going to interrupt me. You can’t reach me and you can’t ask for anything,” says Mr. Strauss, author of a book on self-insurance for businesses. Although he has perfect teeth, he gets them cleaned three times a year instead of the usual two. The visits are so dull that he sometimes falls asleep in the chair.