While artistic beauty may be a matter of taste, our ability to identify trees in works of art may be connected to objective—and relatively simple—mathematics, according to a new study. Led by researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of New Mexico, the study investigated how the relative thickness of a tree’s branching boughs affected its tree-like appearance. This idea has been studied for centuries by artists, including Leonardo DaVinci, but the researchers brought a newer branch of math into the equation to reveal deeper insights. …The math the duo used to approach their question of proportions is rooted in fractals. Geometrically speaking, fractals are structures that repeat the same motifs across different scales. …“We measure branch diameter scaling in trees and it plays the same role as fractal dimension,” Mitchell Newberry said. “It shows how many more tiny branches there are as you zoom in.” .