While there is significant variation in anatomical proportions between people, there are many references to body proportions that are intended to be canonical, either in art, measurement, or medicine.
In measurement, body proportions are often used to relate two or more measurements based on the body. A cubit, for instance, is supposed to be six palms. While convenient, these ratios may not reflect the physiognomic variation of the individuals using them.
Similarly, in art, body proportions are the study of relation of human or animal body parts to each other and to the whole. These ratios are used in veristic depictions of the figure, and also become part of an aesthetic canon within a culture.
Read more about Body Proportions: Basics of Human Proportions, Japanese Ideal, Leonardo Da Vinci, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the words body and/or proportions:
“For as the body grows old, so the wits grow old and become blind towards all things alike.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“An amoeba is a formless thing which takes many shapes. It moves by thrusting out an arm, and flowing into the arm. It multiplies by pulling itself in two, without permanently diminishing the original. So with words. A meaning may develop on the periphery of the body of meanings associated with a word, and shortly this tentacle-meaning has grown to such proportions that it dwarfs all other meanings.”
—Charlton Laird (b. 1901)