Ever since I was a boy, I have always loved mathematics. I understood it and enjoyed solving the problems that teachers assigned to us. I had two qualities, in my opinion fundamental to learning this subject, which many people consider “hostile”: patience and curiosity.
Patience and the tenacity to try again and again to solve an exercise that presents difficulties. The curiosity to find alternative ways of solving it. I think all this has also served me well in origami.
I always liked to amaze others with the same things that amazed me. Before origami, I devoted myself to magic and conjuring tricks for a few years. It was a fascinating world, full of surprises and amazement. But it was a world that did not really belong to me.
I realised that not being able to teach the trick made me seem, in the eyes of the audience of friends who patiently watched my games, the one who wanted to mock and cheat them at all costs. In the long run, I no longer liked it.
I soon abandoned that activity to devote myself completely to paper folding, which I consider "magic, where the trick is visible to everyone".
The magic of origami is geometry. Each fold is a straight line segment. Two intersecting folds form angles and identify a point that will often be the reference for subsequent folds.
The interweaving of the folds creates geometric effects and the beauty of the pattern (I am of course talking about geometric and/or modular patterns) is nothing other than the beauty of geometry.
The Egyptians with their pyramids, the ancient Greeks, the Romans and Renaissance artists used the knowledge of geometry in the figurative and architectural arts. One example among many: the Golden Section, which we find applied in architecture and other fields.
Observation of nature offers us many aspects of geometric harmony: for example, the pentagonal shape of starfish and many plants and the chemical structure of crystals. In music itself, frequencies and thus the musical scale are nothing more than a set of numerical ratios.
Ultimately, mathematics and especially geometry, with the harmony and perfection of their forms, amply satisfy our aesthetic sense. We are fascinated by polyhedra of all shapes and sizes and the interpenetration of solids to achieve ever more complex shapes.
In geometric and modular origami, geometry is totally predominant. And it is the basis for the appeal of the model to be created.
Patience and the tenacity to try again and again to solve an exercise that presents difficulties. The curiosity to find alternative ways of solving it. I think all this has also served me well in origami.
I always liked to amaze others with the same things that amazed me. Before origami, I devoted myself to magic and conjuring tricks for a few years. It was a fascinating world, full of surprises and amazement. But it was a world that did not really belong to me.
I realised that not being able to teach the trick made me seem, in the eyes of the audience of friends who patiently watched my games, the one who wanted to mock and cheat them at all costs. In the long run, I no longer liked it.
I soon abandoned that activity to devote myself completely to paper folding, which I consider "magic, where the trick is visible to everyone".
The magic of origami is geometry. Each fold is a straight line segment. Two intersecting folds form angles and identify a point that will often be the reference for subsequent folds.
The interweaving of the folds creates geometric effects and the beauty of the pattern (I am of course talking about geometric and/or modular patterns) is nothing other than the beauty of geometry.
The Egyptians with their pyramids, the ancient Greeks, the Romans and Renaissance artists used the knowledge of geometry in the figurative and architectural arts. One example among many: the Golden Section, which we find applied in architecture and other fields.
Observation of nature offers us many aspects of geometric harmony: for example, the pentagonal shape of starfish and many plants and the chemical structure of crystals. In music itself, frequencies and thus the musical scale are nothing more than a set of numerical ratios.
Ultimately, mathematics and especially geometry, with the harmony and perfection of their forms, amply satisfy our aesthetic sense. We are fascinated by polyhedra of all shapes and sizes and the interpenetration of solids to achieve ever more complex shapes.
In geometric and modular origami, geometry is totally predominant. And it is the basis for the appeal of the model to be created.
________________________________________________________________________
Bologna, Italy
Email: paolo.basc@gmail.com
Thank you!