In his drawing known as The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo Da Vinci depicts the ideal proportions and symmetry of the human body.
Symmetry , from Latin symmetrĭa , is the exact correspondence in size, shape and position of the parts of a whole . An example of symmetry is Leonardo da Vinci 's The Vitruvian Man , a work that depicts a perfectly symmetrical human body.
Symmetry in the drawing
Within the scope of drawing we find the fact that there are five clearly established types of symmetry:
Rotation. It is the rotation that every motif experiences repetitively until it ends in the identical position it had at the beginning.
Of despondency. In this case, what is achieved is two identical parts of a specific object after a 180º rotation of one with respect to the other.
Of translation. This is the term used to refer to the set of repetitions carried out by an object at an always identical distance from the axis and along a line that can be placed in any position.
Expansion. It is used to make it clear that two parts of a whole are similar and that they have the same shape but not the same size.
Bilateral. It is what allows a bilateral portrait to be obtained that has an axis of symmetry as its spine. On the sides of it, equal shapes appear at the same distance from it, which will be the ones that allow the aforementioned portrait to be created.
There are different types of symmetry in the field of drawing.
The concept in biology
For biology , symmetry is the ideal correspondence in the body of an animal or a plan with respect to a center, a plane or an axis. According to this correspondence, the organs or equivalent parts are distributed in a certain order.
Most multicellular organisms exhibit some type of symmetry. Radial symmetry is defined by a heteropolar axis (which presents differences at its two extremes) from which the main planes of symmetry are established. Bilateral symmetry is more common, since it defines a body axis according to the direction of movement. This allows the establishment of a centralized nervous system and cephalization.
Geometry and symmetry
Geometry indicates that symmetry is the exact correspondence in the arrangement of the points or parts of a body or figure with respect to a center, axis or plane.
This symmetry can be spherical (exists under any possible rotation), axial (when there is an axis that does not lead to any change of position in space with the spins around it) or reflective (defined by the existence of a single plane).
The notion in chemistry and music
Within the field of chemistry, the term symmetry is also used to be able to formulate and develop its corresponding theories, studies and research. Molecular symmetry , in this framework, is a chemistry concept that allows us to predict or explain certain properties of a molecule based on its symmetry.
And all this without forgetting that in music, in the same way, we talk about symmetry to refer to the structures that the different compositions that have been created by artists have.