Nature's Art: Radial Symmetry

Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog
Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid, with Ms Melly C Tenorio 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday on DZRB 738 KHz AM www.pbs.gov.com
February 29, 2012

Appreciating nature's art: Radial Symmetry

1. If you are looking for a subject to draw or paint, compose or write, radial symmetry offers a wide choice. It is easy to follow. Go outdoor, get close to nature, to where the models are.

2. Radial symmetry symbolizes a spring from an inner source, radiating to all directions. This is likened to many things in life, such as umbrella and Christmas lantern (parol). Philosophically it is symbol of faith, love, compassion, sharing, and the like. The halo around the heads of saints radiates holiness; the philosophers and sages, scholarship; and the spirits, belief and reverence.

3. Radial symmetry is associated with power and authority. "The glory that was Greece, the Grandeur that was Rome." "All roads lead to Rome." "The sun never sets on English soil." Can you relate these adages to our lesson?

4. The shape of the universe is unknown, but the theory of the Big Bang is pictured in an ever expanding explosion of radial shape into the waste of space. Stars are always radial, the rays of the sun, twinkle of stars, ripples on a pond, the shape of the atom.

5. Radial symmetry is a good test of balance, proportion. unity and harmony, particularly among children. It is a pattern which has many applications at home and school. How? Find it out from your teacher, classmates, parents.

Study the following models. Describe each of them. Combine those that are compatible to make, say, a landscape, or simply a composite painting. Van Gogh's Starry Night is an excellent illustration of the effect of radial symmetry as a painting style and technique. Can you relate the style and technique of Van Gogh's to the school he founded - Expressionism? Explain.

White lotus

Ornamental pineapple. Radial symmetry in
the arrangement of leaves, fruit and crown

Passion fruit flower

Single leaf of anahaw palm (Levistonia rotundifolia)

Leaf arrangement of a fig (Ficus pseudopalma)

Seed arrangement of lotus pod

Fruit of binunga or samat (Macaranga tenarius)

Typical lily flower

Composite radial flowers of lily

Leaf arrangement of umbrella plant (Cyperus)

Pink lotus and pod (top left)

Shelf mushrooms colonize a tree stump

Giant blue starfish

Sea urchin

Electron image of cancer virus

Pit traps of antlions

Radial haze under the wind turbine, Bangui, IN

Firework. Explosions generally follow a similar pattern

Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night shows the radial symmetry of stars

Source of Radial Force

If energy, they say, is neither created nor destroyed,
from where then does it come?
And if it springs from within a thing, living or not,
unimaginable is its sum.

Mystery the world was built, remaining so until it ends,
even as matter and energy are but one;
man by his intelligence and wisdom will ne'er understand
the equation of the radial force of the sun.

And he need not know or question for an answer,
for the answer is all around his surrounding:
trees, flowers, ripples on a pond, and the very atom,
all of them radiating from a Higher Being. ~