The doctrine of human proportions is very ancient, originating in Egyptian art.[588] It appears early in Greek architecture in the proportions of columns and other members of a temple,[589] and it was soon transferred to sculpture. As Greek sculpture evolved on traditional lines,[590] we should assume that it paid attention to the doctrine of proportions in the human figure, based on numerical ratios, and that such a doctrine would vary from age to age in the various schools of sculpture. Such an assumption is borne out by both literary and archæological evidence. Toward the end of Hellenism many writers refer to just such a measured basis of proportion in Greek art.[591] Archæologists have shown by the careful study of multitudes of statues that such proportions exist in Greek sculpture. Thus A. Kalkmann[592] has proved that there are sets of ratios in the treatment of the face used by successive schools of sculpture, which were canonical, whether formulated or not. G. Fritsch[593] has done for the whole body what Kalkman has done for the face. In fact, anthropometry in relation to Greek sculpture has now become an exact science.[594]
The greatest artists—architects, painters, and sculptors—of all times have taught and practised the doctrine that certain proportions are beautiful, _e. g._, the proportion of the height of the head or the length of the foot to the whole body, or the length of parts of the head or body to other parts. In modern times we have only to mention such names as those of da Vinci, Duerer, Raphael Mengs, and Flaxman.[595] In Greek days there were many artists who formulated such canons of proportions. Greek sculptors followed ratios of proportions so closely that we have statues of various schools, which are distinguished by fixed proportions of parts, such as the Old Attic, Old Argive, Polykleitan, Argive-Sikyonian or Lysippan, etc. Some of these schools used the foot as the common measure, while others used the palm, finger, or other member.[596] The earliest works on Greek art were treatises, now lost, by artists in which they worked out their theories of the principles underlying the proportions of the human figure.[597] We shall briefly consider a few of these canons, together with the usual pose of body which conformed with them. The earliest Peloponnesian canon, which we can analyze, was that followed by Hagelaïdas of Argos and his school, a canon which was still used in the Polykleitan circle. Here the weight of the body rested upon the left leg, while the right one was slightly bent at the knee, its foot resting flat on the ground; the right arm hung by the side and the left was usually in action, and the head was slightly inclined to the left side; the shoulders were extraordinarily broad in comparison with the hips, the right one being slightly raised. These qualities produced a short stocky figure, firmly placed.[598] In the middle of the fifth century B. C., Polykleitos worked out a theory of proportions in the form of a commentary on his famous statue known as the _Doryphoros_. This canon was characterized by squareness and massiveness of build. The weight of the body generally rested on the right foot, while the left was drawn back, its foot touching the ground with the ball only. Sometimes this pose was reversed, the left foot carrying the body-weight, as in the three bases of statues by the master found at Olympia (_i. e._, those of the athletes Pythokles, Aristion, and Kyniskos, to be discussed later), and in the works of some of his pupils, notably in those of Naukydes, Daidalos, and Kleon.[599] Euphranor, who flourished, according to Pliny, in Ol. 104 (= 364-361 B. C.), and wrote works on symmetry and color, was the “first” to master the theory of symmetry.[600] Pliny, however, found his bodies too slender and his heads and limbs too large, a criticism of his painting which must have been equally applicable to his sculpture. His canon did not make much headway, as the majority of sculptors in his century were still under the domination of the canon of Polykleitos. It was left for Lysippos, in the second half of the fourth century B. C., finally to break this domination of the great fifth-century sculptor.