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Anthropometry of Greek Statues

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

F. W. G. Foat
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Extract

Note.—The illustrations which I have given are not to be regarded as finished drawings, but rather as the best results that could be obtained from the records of my working note-books, and of measurings made in the midst of the statues. The whole purpose is to submit a practicable method.

It is strange that it should be believed by many artists and critics of art that no doctrine of human proportions was known in the schools of the great masters. For the contrary would seem to be the true case, if we are to judge by the practice and the comments of the artists and their friends. Egyptian and early Greek, and indeed all symbolic art is obviously based on measured proportions. The remark of Diodorus (I. 98) about the twentyone parts by which the body was measured in Egyptian sculpture may not be enough for a theory of an Egyptian canon, but it agrees well enough with the plainly systematic treatment of the sitting and the standing figures. It is more difficult to believe that the Egyptian sculptor had not a set of ratios which he used in his work.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 35 , November 1915 , pp. 225 - 259
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1915

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