Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com
Summary:
One of the delights of life is the discovery and rediscovery of patterns of order and beauty in nature—designs revealed by slicing through a head of cabbage or an orange, the forms of shells and butterfly wings. These images are awesome not just for their beauty alone, but because they suggest an order underlying their growth, a harmony existing in nature. What does it mean that such an order exists; how far does it extend? The Power of Limits was inspired by those simple discoveries of harmony. The author went on to investigate and measure hundreds of patterns—ancient and modern, minute and vast. His discovery, vividly illustrated here, is that certain proportions occur over and over again in all these forms. Patterns are also repeated in how things grow and are made—by the dynamic union of opposites—as demonstrated by the spirals that move in opposite directions in the growth of a plant. The joining of unity and diversity in the discipline of proportional limitations creates forms that are beautiful to us because they embody the principles of the cosmic order of which we are a part; conversely, the limitlessness of that order is revealed by the strictness of its forms. The author shows how we, as humans, are included in the universal harmony of form, and suggests that the union of complementary opposites may be a way to extend that harmony to the psychological and social realms as well.
Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Rating:
Fascinating book
Customer Rating:
Bought 2, one to replace a book I had given away, and one to give as a gift. I like this book.
The Power of Limits
Customer Rating:
I love this book. I am a visual artist and this book is really helpful for developing the imagery that I like to use.
This is the best source I've found
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Looking for a comprehensive source to learn more about the Golden Rectangle, a friend loaned me a copy of this book. Of the sources that I examined, The Power of Limits offers the best treatment and explanations of the many examples of Phi in architecture over more than 5,000 years, the application of the proportions in virtually any construct, and the astonishing variety of occurrences in nature. I ordered my own copy. I highly recommend it to the serious researcher and to the casually curious alike.
Classic work
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This is a stunning book -- absolutely essential for artists who need to understand why proportion is so important.
Patterns, measures, proportions, harmonics
Customer Rating:
This book is about recognizing very basic patterns in nature (anatomy of humans and animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.), universe,arts, crafts, architecture, music,writing, rhythm in poetry.Diverse cultures are covered.The preview of this book can give you quite a good idea how its looks like and how its logic is developed.This is not a book on composition, dealing with design principles teaching how to balance your composition using those principles, if you are in creative profession.
This book is not dealing as much in depth with composition from the view point of art history, although touches it, but it takes a wider, more holistic approach.(You will not find for ex. the analisis how triangles and diagonal lines were applied in composition in order to create harmony in paintings).Historical references range from neolithic times, through antiquity, Renaissance.For ex. the author deals with such universal symbol as pentagram, but not as much from the view point of iconography: it is more about harmonics in a more Pythagorean way, and it is mentioned that this symbol is meanignfull still today , which allows the pentagram to be classified among Jungian archetypes. Or the author touches sightly on the view of unity and harmony laws among Maoris (mana and tapu), American Indians,Minoan art and architecture expressed in its spiral patterns (mother earth symbols, mother and child, symbols of re-emergence, labyrinth). You get the idea.
I think this book can be of great interest to many people who are interested in patterns and proportions: mathematicians, specially if you are into fractal geometry, artists, art historians, architects, craft people, musicians, dancers, scientists, or if you have deeper interest in those areas.The book is loaded with illustrations, diagrams, and photos (black and white). I highly recommend this book. (Specially if you liked Goedel, Escher, Bach:an Eternal Golden Braid, and forgive me the alterantive spelling in Goedel's name, can't find umlaut on my keyboard).
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