In this captivating study, an influential scholar-artist offers timeless advice on shape, form, and composition for artists in any medium. Irma Richter illuminates the connections between art and science by surveying works of art from classical antiquity through the Modernist era. Richter shows the conscious and unconscious ways artists animated their works with geometric principles in an attempt to reconcile the realms of form and design. This book presents a simple method that can be employed for every kind of design?a method that underlies some of the greatest paintings of the Renaissance and was used by the architect of the Parthenon and the craftsmen of ancient Egypt. With research that leads to Florence, Chartres, Athens, and up the Nile Valley, the author surveys the geometric scheme behind the works of art of the past. Seventy-two images help illustrate the philosophical and religious significance connected with the artistic proportioning of space.

I. Introduction a. Architecture, Sculpture and Painting b. Painting and Music c. Proportion in SpaceII. PythagorasIII. Greek Art and MathematicsIV. Mathematical Definitions a. Geometric Proportion b. Divine Proportion c. Geometric Progression d. Table of Arithmetic Values e. Pentagon and DecagonV. Rhythmic Division of Space in ArtVI. Timæus a. Creation by Geometry b. The Timæus in Christian Cosmology c. Plato and the RenaissanceVII. Egypt a. Tombstone of an Egyptian King b. Pectoral of Senusert IIVIII. The Greek Vase a. Vase Forms b. Vase PaintingIX. A Greek ReliefX. The Parthenon a. The Euthynteria b. The Stylobate c. The Doric Order d. The Peristyle e. The Capital f. The Façade g. The Metope h. The Cella i. The Naos AppendixXI. The Middle Ages a. Chartres b. Aureoles and Nimbi c. Dante's Zones of HeavenXII. Italian Painting a. The Origin b. The Quattrocento c. The Cinquecento d. VeniceXIII. Some Masterpieces of other Schools Dürer, El Greco, Poussin, Fragonard, Hogarth, CézanneXIV. A RetrospectIndex