Jay Hambidge

Who was Jay Hambidge?

Jay Hambidge was a Canadian born American artist. He was a pupil at the Art Students' League in New York and of William Chase, and a thorough student of classical art. He conceived the idea that the study of arithmetic with the aid of geometrical designs was the foundation of the proportion and symmetry in Greek architecture, sculpture and ceramics. Careful examination and measurements of classical buildings in Greece, among them the Parthenon, the temple of Apollo at Bassæ, of Zeus at Olympia and Athenæ at Ægina, prompted him to formulate the theory of "dynamic symmetry" as demonstrated in his works Dynamic Symmetry: The Greek Vase and The Elements of Dynamic Symmetry. It created a great deal of discussion, an English critic saying that Hambidge did not try to formulate a new theory, but to recover a lost technique. He found a disciple in Dr. Lacey D. Caskey, the author of Geometry of Greek Vases.

A number of notable artists have used dynamic symmetry in their painting, including George Bellows, Maxfield Parrish, Al Nestler, and Clay Wagstaff. and Kathleen Munn as in the recently published eBook by Georgiana Uhlyarik, Canada Art Institute