Proportion

We understand things only in relation to other things. I'm tall when I stand next to my wife, I'm short when I stand next to Kareem Abdul-Jabber (which I did once).  We need a frame of reference to place everything within, and the human body - ourselves - is the obvious starting point.

As designers we get to be experts on proportion and how parts relate to the whole. We should be experts on how we fit into the world around us.

We will look at the proportions of the human figure, looking at what in Western art are agreed upon 'ideal' proportions, and how, even if none of us conform to the ideal, it can be a useful starting point.

I imagine everyone has seen Da Vinci's drawing of Vitruvian Man, a man encompassed in a square and circle. This comes from the Roman writer Vitruvius, whose 'Ten Books of Architecture' are the only classical writings on architecture to come down to us (go Google him now!). He tells us:

"For if a man be placed flat on his back, with his hands and feet extended, and a pair of compasses centered at his navel, the fingers and toes of his two hands and feet will touch the circumference of a circle described therefrom. And just as the human body yields a circular outline, so too a square figure may be found from it. For if we measure the distance from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and then apply that measure to the outstretched arms, the breadth will be found to be the same as the height, as in the case of plane surfaces which are perfectly square."

His work did not survive Roman times with its original illustrations intact, and there were several attempts to work a plausible image of Vitruvius's ideal before Da Vinci's happy drawing. It shows how our height is, in theory, the same as the width of our out stretched arms, fingertip to fingertip.

I will confess that this doesn't work for me: the distance of my outstretched arms is shorter than my height - one of many ways I fail to correspond to the ideal.

Vitruvius also tells us "the head from the chin to the crown is an eighth [of the height of the body]" and this has been used as an ideal proportion in Classical times, to be rediscovered in the Renaissance, and taught in art schools to this day.

Is anyone 8 heads high? Look at people around you - try employing the method I illustrate here. Are there people 7 heads high? 7 1/2? 6?

Andrew Loomis here illustrates the useful landmarks of the body and the accepted proportions. The crotch is the mid point of the body - the length of the legs is equal to the torso and head. The lower legs are equal to the upper legs, with the knee at the halfway point - likewise the upper arm and lower arm are equal, with the elbow as the midpoint. 

[Feel free to be slightly offended by Loomis's definitions of ideal proportions - these are from his 'Figure Drawing For All It's Worth,' published in 1943, and carriedthe attitudes of its times. But he is an excellent teacher - 'Figure Drawing For All It's Worth' has been recently republished and might be a good book to have)

Try measuring yourself against these proportions. How many heads high are you? Compare your wingspan to your height. Where do the major landmarks of the body fall on you? 

(I also include this one just because it’s so trippy. A woman, in this example, is 7 ½ heads high)

Your Mission

Measure yourself thoroughly and accurately, head to toe. Measure an object (a chair, a rhinoceros, what have you). Draw yourself next to the object, calling out dimensions, midpoints, and correspondences between you and the object. You may work in the metric system if that's what you are used to, but now may be a good time to begin working in feet and inches. And take a good look at Andrew Loomis's illustrated proportions, for you will, eventually, be called upon to memorize them - but in the meantime, see how you can make this assignment fun for yourself. Send to me by Saturday, July 28.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris