Pelasgian Slate III by Richard Carlyon

This piece by Richard Carlyon is entitled "Pelasgian Slate III" and can be found at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. My first impression ... there must be more to these rectangles ... why those dimensions? The vertices of the rectangles caught my eye as well. As a group, I see a curve. But which curve? Parabola perhaps.

 

So I took my picture, rotated the image, imported into GeoGebra, and started to play.

Using line GH as the directrix and J (midpoint of CD) as the focus, I have this parabola. It's no surprise that the parabola contains C and D, but it was a pleasant surprise to see it intersect A and F. What about B and E. SO CLOSE! Of course, my picture is not "square" so this is just experimentation. 

To me, it's another way to appreciate art. Below is the quote from the artist that was hung next to the artwork.

"My great-uncle Alfred was forty years old on the day that I was born. He died on my twenty-fourth birthday. During the years I spent with him, I never - ever - heard uncle Alfred speak as much as a single word to anyone. His only vocalizations consisted of beautifully hummed sounds. I learned a lot from uncle Alfred."

Could this be a clue to look for musical ratios? More on that another time.