Chapter 4: Scale and Proportion

Reading/Writing Assignment: Design Basics: Chapter 4 Scale/Proportion:

• Find a surrealistic painting form the previous guide, and describe the following about the artwork:

Dorothea Tanning
Ein klein nachtmusik
1946; "A little night music"

How is scale and proportion integrated into a surrealistic piece of art? Describe the effect?

Scale and proportion are integrated into this work by the use of the exaggerated scale of the sunflower in proportion to the girls and the interior of the house. The large scale of the sunflower give the painting a dreamlike effect.

• Discuss proportion and the notion of ideal geometry in a composition. Give an example

Proportions in art are created when the size of thing is judge against another such as in figure drawing. In figure drawing the the head is used to measure proportions of the body.
Ideal geometry are forms created that have ideal proportion they are based on mathematical ratios created by the ancient Greeks
An example of of this is the golden mean which is width is to length as length is to length plus width.
(Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue
1921; Oil on canvas)
Piet Mondrian used the golden ration within his paintings to create rectangles

• What is the golden rectangle and give an example of it’s use in a composition

The golden rectangle is an ideal rectangle created with the golden ratio,
The golden rectangle was used to create the Parthenon

• Discuss your current final project and what will be your inspiration

The current and final project is the Scientific Panel which must include a golden ration, a macrocosm and a microcosm. The main inspiration for my project was instead of creating a piece that flowed together, I wanted to create a panel separated into pannel like a comic in the within the golden rectangle.
The theme of my panel is nature along with strange surrealist juxtapositions

Write about how what you have read relates to your final project

This reading relates to my current project because I will be using the golden ratio to divide my Scientific panel. Scale and proportion will be used to create a macrocosm of a forest and small individual microcosms.