ABSTRACT
If in considering the various systems of proportions known to us, we try to understand
their meaning rather than their appearance…they will reveal themselves as expressions
of the same ‘artistic intention’ (Kunstwollen) that was realized in the buildings,
sculptures and paintings of a given period or a given artist. The history of the theory of
proportion is the reflection of the history of style; furthermore, since we may understand
each other unequivocally when dealing with mathematical formulations, it may even be
looked upon as a reflection which often surpasses its original in clarity. One might assert
that the theory of proportions expresses the frequently perplexing concept of the
2.1 WILHELM WORRINGER
As Erwin Panofsky writes in the essay quoted at the head of this chapter, proportion systems
reflect, in a precise mathematical form, the Kunstwollen of an epoch or an individual. I propose
to extend this hypothesis: to speculate that they condense, not only a Kunstwollen, but a
Weltanschauung-a complete outlook on the world. More specifically, I shall try to show
how the belief in architectural proportion has been affected by the two broad schools of thought
about human knowledge, which in the last chapter I classified as ‘empathy’ and ‘abstraction’.
