Golden Ratio vs Golden Vision

(Incipit) This work aims to focus on the golden ratio and its consequent effects on the visual perception. The idea arises from an intriguing Le Corbusier’s graphic note, published in the first volume on the Modulor [1] and here quoted in the figure below (Fig.1), by which the author suggests to discover the “variable harmonic scale of the perceptive possibilities”. Since the Euclid’s Elements (geometrical theory of the true space) we know this special ratio, later named golden, and since the Euclid’s Optics (geometrical theory of the vision) we know that the visual field includes wider ranges of space according to the longer distances from the sight point. Variously named “cut” (Euclide, III Century B.C.), “divine proportion” (Luca Pacioli, XV-XVI Century), and finally “golden section” (Martin Ohm, XIX Centruy), the mentioned ratio has been noticed into an incredible number of biological and physical phenomena up to now, as a sort of structural “invariant” in the Universe (on the side of science), always showing, in addition, a special intimate beauty (on the side of art). (...).