Body proportions

This unit of measurement is credited[2] to the Greek sculptor Polykleitos (fifth century BCE) and has long been used by artists to establish the proportions of the human figure.

Some teachers deprecate mechanistic measurements and strongly advise the artist to learn to estimate proportion by eye alone.

The canon then, is of use as a rule of thumb, relieving him of some part of the technical difficulties, leaving him free to concentrate his thought more singly on the message or burden of his work.

Modern usage tends to substitute "proportion" for a comparison involving two magnitudes (e.g., length and width), and hence mistakes a mere grouping of simple ratios for a complete proportion system, often with a linear basis at odds with the areal approach of Greek geometryMany text books of artistic anatomy advise that the head height be used as a yardstick for other lengths in the body: their ratios to it provide a consistent and credible structure.

[19] Polykleitos may have used the distal phalanx of the little finger as the basic module for determining the proportions of the human body, scaling this length up repeatedly by √2 to obtain the ideal size of the other phalanges, the hand, forearm, and upper arm in turn.

[20] Leonardo da Vinci believed that the ideal human proportions were determined by the harmonious proportions that he believed governed the universe, such that the ideal man would fit cleanly into a circle as depicted in his famed drawing of Vitruvian Man (c. 1492),[21] as described in a book by Vitruvius.

[23] In reality, the navel of the Vitruvian Man divides the figure at 0.604 and nothing in the accompanying text mentions the golden ratio.

[23] In his conjectural reconstruction of the Canon of Polykleitos, art historian Richard Tobin determined √2 (about 1.4142) to be the important ratio between elements that the classical Greek sculptor had used.