1.7 - Scale and Proportion

Which adjective best describes the proportions of each of these vases?

1. fat & short = heavy 2. tall and skinny = elegant 3. other = balanced

The Flemish artist Jan van Eyck used - scale to communicate -importance in his painting Madonna in a Church.

1. hierarchical 2. spiritual

Which of these artworks have been composed according to the proportions of the Golden Section?

1. man with arms up 2. broken building 3. black & white (sick girl)

Identify the type(s) of scale that have been employed in these sculptures.

1. spider = monumental ; distorted 2. warriors? = hierarchical ; small 3. metal man = human

Which body part was used to establish the proportions of each of these artworks?

1. statues = head 2. pharaoh = hand

Which proportional systems did Raphael most likely use to organize the composition of The School of Athens?

1. the rule of thirds 2. the canon of polykleitos

Why do the Swedish-born artist Claes Oldenburg and his wife Coosje van Bruggen make their sculptures of everyday objects so vast?

1. to poke fun at the conventional use of monumental scale 2. to express admiration for them 3. to give them a sense of grandeur

In ancient Egypt the cubit was a standard unit of measurement. A cubit was made up of a smaller unit: the width of the palm of a hand. How many palm widths make 1 cubit?

6 palms

Which of these figures, if any, are depicted using idealized human proportions?

all but woman with baby

Which of the figures in this ancient Egyptian relief sculpture represents the pharaoh?

biggest man

Which of the following cultures employed principles of idealized human proportion to communicate connection with the spiritual world?

classical Greece

An artist would probably use distorted scale if he or she wanted to create a lifelike scene that the viewer could relate to.

false

In the traditional art of the Yoruba people of West Africa (like the image included here), human figures are represented in accordance with the ideal proportions identified by the ancient Egyptians.

false

When an artist uses scale to indicate the relative importance of elements in a composition, he or she is employing what kind of scale?

hierarchical

Robert Lostutter's The Hummingbirds presents figural portraits on a very small scale in order to convey a sense of what?

intimacy

What might an artist's use of a small scale for a portrait of a lover imply?

intimacy

What kind of scale is used to represent objects so that they appear larger than they are in real life

monumental

What do the relationships between the sizes of different parts of a work make up?

proportion

What is the name by which the proportional system based around the ratio of 1:1.618 is most commonly known?

the golden section

Which of these rectangles conforms to the proportions of the Golden Section?

the second tallest and fattest

It does not matter if a sculptor is creating a human statue on a monumental scale or a figure much smaller than lifesize, if the sculptor applies the ratio of the Golden Section, the sculpture will have naturalistic proportions.

true

The Surrealists sometimes used distorted scale to create dreamlike images that subvert our conscious experiences.

true