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An artistic canon of body proportions (or aesthetic canon of proportion), in the sphere of
visual arts The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...
, is a formally codified set of criteria deemed mandatory for a particular artistic style of
figurative art Figurative art, sometimes written as figurativism, describes artwork (particularly paintings and sculptures) that is clearly derived from real object sources and so is, by definition, representational. The term is often in contrast to abstract a ...
. The word ''canon'' () was first used for this type of rule in
Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...
, where it set a reference standard for
body proportions While there is significant variation in anatomical proportions between people, certain body proportions have become canonical in figurative art. The study of body proportions, as part of the study of artistic anatomy, explores the relation of t ...
, so as to produce a harmoniously formed figure appropriate to depict gods or kings. Other art styles have similar rules that apply particularly to the representation of royal or divine personalities.


Ancient Egypt

In 1961, Danish Egyptologist Erik Iverson described a canon of proportions in classical Egyptian painting. This work was based on still-detectable grid lines on tomb paintings: he determined that the grid was 18 cells high, with the base-line at the soles of the feet and the top of the grid aligned with hair line, and the navel at the eleventh line. These 'cells' were specified according to the size of the subject's fist, measured across the knuckles. (Iverson attempted to find a fixed (rather than relative) size for the grid, but this aspect of his work has been dismissed by later analysts.) This proportion was already established by the
Narmer Palette The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find, dating from about the 31st century BC, belonging, at least nominally, to the category of cosmetic palettes. ...
from about the 31st century BCE, and remained in use until at least the conquest by
Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, wikt:Ἀλέξανδρος, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Maced ...
some 3,000 years later. The Egyptian canon for paintings and
relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term ''relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that the ...
s specified that heads should be shown in profile, that shoulders and chest be shown head-on, that hips and legs be again in profile, and that male figures should have one foot forward and female figures stand with feet together.


Classical Greece


Canon of Polykleitos

In
Classical Greece Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece,The "Classical Age" is "the modern designation of the period from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C." ( Thomas R. Marti ...
, the sculptor
Polykleitos Polykleitos ( grc, Πολύκλειτος) was an ancient Greek sculptor in bronze of the 5th century BCE. Alongside the Athenian sculptors Pheidias, Myron and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the most important sculptors of classical antiqu ...
(fifth century BCE) established the
Canon of Polykleitos Polykleitos ( grc, Πολύκλειτος) was an ancient Ancient Greece, Greek Sculpture, sculptor in bronze of the 5th century BCE. Alongside the Athens, Athenian sculptors Pheidias, Myron and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the most impor ...
. Though his theoretical treatise is lost to history, he is quoted as saying, "Perfection ... comes about little by little () through many numbers". By this he meant that a statue should be composed of clearly definable parts, all related to one another through a system of ideal mathematical proportions and balance. Though the ''Kanon'' was probably represented by his ''Doryphoros'', the original bronze statue has not survived, but later marble copies exist.


Canon of Lysippos

The sculptor
Lysippos Lysippos (; grc-gre, Λύσιππος) was a Ancient Greek sculpture, Greek sculptor of the 4th century BC. Together with Scopas and Praxiteles, he is considered one of the three greatest sculptors of the Ancient Greece, Classical Greek era, bri ...
(fourth century BCE) developed a more gracile style. In his ,
Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...
wrote that Lysippos introduced a new canon into art: signifying "a canon of bodily proportions essentially different from that of Polykleitos". Lysippos is credited with having established the ' eight heads high' canon of proportion.


Praxiteles

Praxiteles Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubita ...
(fourth century BCE), sculptor of the famed ''
Aphrodite of Knidos The Aphrodite of Knidos (or Cnidus) was an Ancient Greek sculpture of the goddess Aphrodite created by Praxiteles of Athens around the 4th century BC. It is one of the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history, di ...
'', is credited with having thus created a canonical form for the female nude, but neither the original work nor any of its ratios survive. Academic study of later Roman copies (and in particular modern restorations of them) suggest that they are artistically and anatomically inferior to the original.


Classical India


Japan in the Heian period


Canon of Jōchō

Jōchō Jōchō (定朝; died 1057 AD), also known as Jōchō Busshi, was a Japanese sculptor of the Heian period. He popularized the '' yosegi'' technique of sculpting a single figure out of many pieces of wood, and he redefined the canon of body propo ...
(定朝; died 1057 CE), also known as Jōchō Busshi, was a
Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...
sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
of the
Heian period The is the last division of classical Japanese history, running from 794 to 1185. It followed the Nara period, beginning when the 50th emperor, Emperor Kanmu, moved the capital of Japan to Heian-kyō (modern Kyoto). means "peace" in Japanese. ...
. He popularised the ''
yosegi (lit., " parquet work") is a type of traditional Japanese marquetry developed in Edo period Japan in the town of . Resembling a type of mosaic, is created through the combination of fine oblong rods of wood chosen for their grain, texture and ...
'' technique of sculpting a single figure out of many pieces of wood, and he redefined the canon of body proportions used in Japan to create
Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...
imagery. He based the measurements on a unit equal to the distance between the sculpted figure's chin and hairline. The distance between each knee (in the seated
lotus pose Lotus position or Padmasana ( sa, पद्मासन, translit=padmāsana) is a cross-legged sitting meditation pose from ancient India, in which each foot is placed on the opposite thigh. It is an ancient asana in yoga, predating hatha ...
) is equal to the distance from the bottoms of the legs to the hair.


Renaissance Italy

file:Da Vinci Vitruve Luc Viatour.jpg, ''Vitruvian Man'' by Leonardo da Vinci, alt=a picture of a man standing in two overlapping poses, so that he seems to have one head and trunk but four arms and four legs. In the first he stands in an X pose inside a circle, showing that his hands and feet touch the circle. In the second, he stands upright in a T pose inside a square, showing that his head, hands and feet all touch the same square Other such systems of 'ideal proportions' in painting and sculpture include Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man, based on a record of body proportions made by the architect Vitruvius, in the third book of his series . Rather than setting a canon of ideal body proportions for others to follow, Vitruvius sought to identify the proportions that exist in reality; da Vinci idealised these proportions in the commentary that accompanies his drawing:


See also

* * *
Canon (basic principle) The term canon derives from the Greek (), meaning "rule", and thence via Latin and Old French into English. The concept in English usage is very broad: in a general sense it refers to being one (adjectival) or a group (noun) of official, authent ...
, a rule or a body of rules or principles generally established as valid and fundamental in a field of art or philosophy ** * * * ** ** * *


Notes


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aesthetic Canon Art history Aesthetic beauty