Hidden Harmonies of Henry Moore’s Sculpture ‘Vertebrae’

I.eanurdo. Vol. Ih. No. I , pp. 36-37, 1983 Printed in Great Britain 0024-094X/X3/0 I0036-02$03.00/0 Pergamon Press Ltd. HIDDEN HARMONIES OF HENRY MOORE’S SCULPTURE ‘VERTEBRAE’ Gyorgy Doczi” Every part is disposed to unite with the whole that it may thereby escape from its own incompleteness. [From the Notebooks of Leonard0 da Vinci] Some people hurrying past the Seattle First Bank Building wonder what the bronze sculpture-called ‘Vertebrae’ (Fig. I)-in front of the building ‘really means’? Of course we are told that there does not have to be a verbally expressible meaning to a work of art; one could just as well ask for the meaning of music, or of a flower. However the question may contain a broader one about what it is that we really appreciate in a work of art? Henry Moore, has said that sculptureneeds time and effort to be fully appreciated; it is not a poster that can be grasped at a glimpse, while riding by ‘on top of a bus’, as he puts it. Indeed, when one takes the time to wander around this great sculpture, letting the eyes roam about its hills and valleys, one soon begins to feel an itch to touch it tenderly. as one would caress a beautiful live body. Sir Kenneth Clark says that there are powerful, hidden ‘harmonies of humps and hollows’ in Henry Moore’s work. This power of harmony resides not in the great size, but rather in the relationship of the parts to each other and to the whole. When one checks the basic proportions they reveal ratios that correspond to the root harmonies of music, namely: 1 : 2 = 0.5-octave 0 1 diapason; 2 : 3 = 0.666-fifth or diapente; 3 : 4 = 0.75-fourth or diatessaron. As strings plucked jointly at such intervals sound pleasant to the ear, so do the same ratios between dimensions and distances of these shapes appear agreeable to the eye. For instance, my drawing (Fig. 2) shows that the tips of the two lateral vertebrae are twice as far from each other (2P) as each is from its outermost edge (P), corresponding to the 0.5 musical root harmony of octave-diapason. The tilts of these lateral vertebrae-marked with white, dash-dotted lines in Fig. 2-are the diagonals of so-called ‘golden rectangles’, in which width stands to height in the proportion of the famous Golden Secrion, the ratio of which is 0.618, a close approximation of the 0.666 ratio of fifth-diapente’s musical root harmony. The Golden Section-in which a smaller part relates to a larger in the same way as the latter relates to the whole-is found in many masterpieces ofthe arts and the crafts, as well as in nature’s patterns of organic growth, from flowers and seashells to the anatomy of animals and human beings [I]. That most of this sculpture’s proportions are indeed golden ones can be seen from the classical construction of the Golden Section-by means of a square inscribed within a semicircle -above the Western view, and also from many similar constructions around the other views. The same proportions, *Architect, 6837 47th North-East, Seattle, WA 98115, U.S.A. (Received 6 April 1982.) 36 Fig. 1. Henry Moore. ‘Vertebrae’ ut the Seattle First Bank Building. Seattle, Washingron. U.S.A. and also two instances of 3 : 4=0.75ratios corresponding to the fourth-diatessaron root harmony of music, are summarized in the equations (Fig. 2). Of course it is not suggested that a great artist like Henry Moore would create harmonious shapes by means of mathematical calculations or geometric constructions. It is. rather, the other way around: a great artist creates harmonies the same way as does nature herself, because he or she is truly one with nature. Mathematics and geometry are merely means by which we express and verify these harmonies. The harmonious proportions of nature. of music and of all the other arts and crafts are limitations that areshared by all diverse parts of wholeness patterns, and it is this sharing that creates unity out of their diversities...