Hi SteveS,
I don’t think you understood me. I was talking about a composition but not about the elements of this composition. In aquascaping, like in a picture, a certain combination and positioning of elements is created.
You are talking about individual not connected elements, not about the whole. Snowflakes are part of snow which drifts, settles, is blown away by the wind. A difference between a true portrait of a person and a passport photograph is that of a composition. By the way, there is no person in the world with 100% symmetrical face. Have you tried this: put two reasonable size mirrors at a 60-90 degree angle to each other (like an open book) and look at yourself: facing straight on in between them, look either side and you will see that your face looks different in each of them. All mammals, butterflies, etc. are only symmetrical from one angle – the moment you move your eyes, they will stop being symmetrical. The Vitruvian Man is, indeed, a work of a great artist but this is not a work or art but a scientific study! Da Vinci was a scientist as well as an artist. His Mona Lisa is far from being symmetrical. Islamic mosaics are, of course, art but they are ornaments, not the art of composition. Islamic form of art developed from calligraphy and repetition of pattern because of many prohibitions and restrictions on what can actually be an object of art... Ornaments (Islamic, or others) are symmetrical (well, repetitive) and beautiful as they are, they are not the same form of art as, say a landscape by Turner! Moreover, ornaments are most often a part of architecture – e.g. decorative element of architecture and they are in a perfect harmony with architecture – for obvious reasons. “There are no two snowflakes which are alike, so no repletion there, in nature, all is random”.
Returning to the point – I was not talking about the individual elements of decor and plants in an aquarium but about combining them so that the whole picture would look beautiful – in the same way as famous paintings or simply a nice scenery somewhere in the Lake District or Himalayas or African savannah look stanning. There is no symmetry in those scenic views, there is no symmetry in the way Da Vinci positioned his Mona Lisa. Symmetrical petunia flowers cascade from a hanging basket in a random and truly picturesque manner. This is the effect that needs to be achieved in an aquarium – all individual elements combined together to create a pleasant view. Golden ratio does NOT apply to individual elements – it is a rule created to help creating beautiful compositions.
P.S. The quote from Wikipedia: “Maurits Cornelis Escher (pron.: /ˈɛʃər/, Dutch: [ˈmʌurɪts kɔrˈneːlɪs ˈɛʃər] ( listen);[1] 17 June 1898 – 27 March 1972), usually referred to as M. C. Escher, was a Dutch graphic artist. He is known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs, and mezzotints. These feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, architecture, and tessellations."
I like some of his works, I must say. The key here is “mathematically inspired”. They are more experiments, puzzles, created using the means normally used by “fine arts”. I do not think that this principle is suited to aquascaping. Although if somebody made an attempt to do this – I will be very curious to see the result! I think it may be interesting but not aesthetically pleasing.