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Symmetry and Symmetry: The Notion of the Antique Term Symmetria before its New Definition in the Renaissance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Hans W. Hubert
Hans W. Hubert*
Affiliation:
Kunstgeschichtliches Institut der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Platz der Universität 3, 70985, Freiburg. Email: hans.hubert@kunstgeschichte.uni-freiburg.de
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Abstract

The word ‘symmetry’ expresses in everyday language the correspondence in form, size, and arrangement of parts on opposite sides of a plane, line, or point. Such a concept of correspondence is the main idea of most definitions of this term in the various humanities disciplines discussed in this volume of European Review. But if we go back to the Greek origins of this term, we discover that the understanding of symmetry was completely different, that it signified mathematical commensurability of all important elements of a three-dimensional figure. This article discusses the termʼs initial meaning and its importance for the design and appreciation of beautiful architectonic and human bodies. It goes on to provide an outline of the main phases of the step-by-step development from the original concept towards its modern meaning established in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Type
Articles
Information
European Review , Volume 29 , Issue 2: Symmetry, Proportion and Seriality: The Semantics of Mirroring and Repetition in Science and the Arts , April 2021 , pp. 210 - 225
Copyright
© 2020 Academia Europaea

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