Nude Youth in Position of "The Thinker" 19th-20th century

Editor: This is "Nude Youth in Position of 'The Thinker'" by Denman Waldo Ross. It's a pencil drawing, and what strikes me is how the figure is overlaid with all these geometric lines and notations, like a mathematical equation. What do you see in it? Curator: Those geometric forms evoke the Golden Ratio, a symbolic language of ideal beauty and harmony. Ross seems to be dissecting the human form, searching for an underlying order. Do you think that perhaps he's trying to reconcile emotion with reason? Editor: That's interesting! I hadn't thought of it that way. It almost feels like he’s trying to find the perfect, almost divine, proportions. Curator: Precisely. He's tapping into a very old symbolic tradition, where the human body is seen as a microcosm of the universe. Editor: I learned a lot about the cultural connection and meaning of the Golden Ratio from this drawing! Curator: And I, about how a familiar image can be re-contextualized through a new lens.