European Journal of Anatomy

Official Journal of The Spanish Society of Anatomy
Cover Volume 11 - Number 3
Eur J Anat, 11 (3): 177-180 (2007)

The golden proportion and its application to the human face

Saraswathi P.

Department of Anatomy, Saveetha Dental College, Chennai, India; Department of Anatomy, Saveeetha Dental College, 162, Poonamallee High Road, Velappanchavadi, Chennai 600 077, India

ABSTRACT The golden proportion or phi is 1.618. Throughout history, this ratio for the length-width of rectangles has been considered the most pleasing to the eye. The golden section - a precise way of dividing a line, music or anything else - goes back to least as far as around 500 BC, when Pythagoras proved that the Golden Section was the basis for the proportions of the human figure and that the human body was built with each part in a definite Golden Proportion to all the other parts. This study involved seventy-five first-year dental students of 17-19 years of age. The length of the face was the vertical distance in the midline of the face between the hairline and lower border of the chin. The width of the face was the horizontal distance between the prominent points laterally on the body of both the zygomatic bones. The size of the face was the ratio between length of the face and width of the face. The shape of the face was normal when its size was equal to 1.6; it was long when the size was > 1.6; and was short when the size was < 1.6. Only fourteen individuals (19%) had normal faces; eleven (15%) had a long face; and fifty (67%) had a short face. The sixty-one individuals (81%) with an abnormal size of the face may be at risk of developing maxillofacial, jaw, respiratory, occlusal, and sleep disorders due to disproportionate face size and tooth size. This simple technique of applying the Golden Proportion to the face and identifying individuals with long or short faces in mass surveys, and their percentage in a given population at risk of respiratory and jaw disorders, facilitates early preventive and corrective interventions so that the population can lead a healthy and normal life.

Keywords: adult, article, dental student, face asymmetry, female, golden proportion, human, human experiment, male, methodology, normal human, zygoma

European Journal of anatomy
ISSN 2340-311X (Online)