ABSTRACT
Critics and philosophers since ancient Greece have looked to natural organisms as offering perfect models of that harmonious balance and proportion between the parts of a design which is synonymous with the classical ideal of beauty. The qualities of wholeness, of integrity, of a unity in structure such that the parts all contribute to the effect or purpose of the whole, and no part may be removed without some damage to the whole – these are central concepts in the aesthetics and in the natural history of Aristotle, and are characteristics in the Aristotelian view both of living beings and of the best works of art. J. A. Stewart summarises Aristotle’s view of the analogy in this way:
Living organisms, and works of art, are schemata, definite after their kinds, which Nature and Man respectively form by qualifying matter. The quantity of matter used in any case is determined by the form subserved; the size of a particular organ, or part, is determined by its form, which again is determined by the form (limiting the size) of the whole organism, or work. Thus animals and plants grow to sizes determined by their particular structures, habitats, and conditions of life, and each separate organ observes the proportion of the whole to which it belongs. The painter or sculptor considers the symmetry of the whole composition in every detail of his work.1
