Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman, 1937, and the Golden Rectangle

Successive Golden Rectangles dividing a Golden Rectangle into squares (Pablo Picasso, Weeping Woman, 1937).

Pablo Picasso (1881 - 1973) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman, and sculptor. As one of the most recognized figures in 20th-century art, he is best known for co-founding the Cubist movement and for the wide variety of styles embodied in his work.

Weeping Woman (Dora), (60 х 49 cm, 23 ⅝ х 19 ¼ inches) is an oil on canvas painted by Pablo Picasso in 1937. Picasso was intrigued with the subject, and revisited the theme numerous times that year. This painting was the final and most elaborate of the series. It has been in the collection of the Tate Gallery in London since 1987.

A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.

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