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See art in a fresh way. |
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Mini-Tutorial: Innovation Series: Polyclitus' Canon of Proportions |
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The 5th Century B.C. sculptor, Polyclitus, wrote the famous
treatise about what methods make the beautiful (to kallos)
and good (to eu) in art, unfortunately now lost.
We know something of it through historians such as Pliny and
Plutarch. Oft mentioned is Polyclitus' belief in
measurements of one finger joint with the next, then the fingers
to metacarpus (base of the hand), and it to the wrist, and all
of these to the forearm, the forearm to the arm, and so on.
Polyclitus, in his treatise, also dealt with issues other than proportions such as the organic balance of tension and relaxation of body parts, but that is out of the scope of this discussion. Polyclitus called this sculpture, The Canon. I think it is wonderful that he wrote a treatise on art and "put his money where is mouth is" by showing what he meant as well. One part that stands out is the man's little finger, a little like an exclamation mark. It is fun to think, and could be true, that Polyclitus was emphasizing that proportions of the little finger set the whole in motion. The following point might be difficult to comprehend, but Polyclitus was working the proportions of human, natural forms. For example, here the fingers look natural, as do other parts of the body, and as does the whole of the body. This means that his concern went beyond simple blocked-out shapes to minutely measure the width, depth, and length of human shapes. |
Doryphoros or The Canon, Polyclitus, Roman copy in marble of bronze original, c. 450-440 B.C.
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Contrast The Canon with this Egyptian sculpture, in which
the rudimentary proportion of the overall figure is balanced.
However, when we take a detailed look the forms they remain generic and
unnatural--as if they are rounded blocks.
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King Khafre seated
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It is also important to note that beauty is connected with
pleasing proportions. The antithesis is that ugliness is
unbalanced proportions. Think of an hunchback with a hump on one
side of his back and topped off by a malformed and unsymmetrical head.
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Indulge me with this question and please bring your own
experience to answer it. Which is easier for an artist
to create--beauty or ugliness? Imagine using the joint of the little finger to measure, balance, compare with every other part of the human body, and not being satisfied until it all flows together. Or, playing havoc with the proportions of the human forms, leaving out anything you wish, inserting the accidental, until you achieve the grotesque. I think you will agree that to create beauty in the human figure requires a special excellence. I hope you enjoyed seeing math in art in a fresh way. Michael Newberry
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