Very few original examples of Greek Classical style survives to this day. Most of 'quest for harmonious proportion' we only know from the few desecrated remains of temples, reconstructions of lost sculptures, or fragments of literary works often written centuries later by Rome. Time itself is not so much to blame for this tragic loss of influence and beauty as is the deplorable destruction under the hand of war and vandals.
Rome was well known for, among other things, its vast ability to absorb the best in other cultures, adapting it as its own. At the height of Classical Greece, Alexander the Great brought this style with him in his conquests. Seeding it along his way, effectively 'Hellenizing' the world, he found the fertile grounds of the culture-hungry and opportunistic Rome. From these chance beginnings, the loss of one culture was sewn in the ground of another, preserved impeccably well throughout the ages, and bearing fruit in the influence of all of Western Civilization.
Some of the earliest philosophies responsible for bringing about the Golden Age of Greece we have record of come from Pythagoras. Perhaps mostly well known as a mathematician for his famous theorem, this philosopher strongly held onto the belief that the universe and beauty could be understood through geometric proportion. Lesser well known than his mathematical formula is his influence on music. The Pythagorean diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale with the intervals based on the ratio of 3:2, similar to the "Golden Ratio" of 1.618:1 used later to construct the Parthenon. This proportional view of the universe launched and continues to define Classical beauty.
This vision of relationships between a whole and its parts swept over Greece. A set of rules was soon established enabling people to quantify beauty - in architecture, in music, and in the human form. The best surviving source of this information is preserved through the Ten Books on Architecture written by Vitruvius in the first century BC.
It is evident that Vitruvius was an architect from his Principles of Symmetry. Much of the excerpt Fiero gives in The Humanistic Tradition deals with architecture, but more so how proportion and symmetry deal with both temples as well as the human body.
"The Design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most carefully observed by the architect. They are due to proportion. . . . Proportion is a correspondence among the measures of the members of an entire work, and of the whole to a certain part selected as standard. From this result the principles of symmetry. Without symmetry and proportion there can be no principles in the design of any temple; that is, if there is no precise relation between its members, as in the case of those of a well shaped man."
The piece continues to give Vitruvius' description of the perfect harmonic proportions for a man, and then goes on to correlate, "Similarly, in the members of a temple there ought to be the greatest harmony in the symmetrical relations of the different parts to the general magnitude of the whole."
Although from the small selection given in Fiero's text it seems that Vitruvius was only peripherally concerned with the perfect proportions of people. It appears as though his focus and intent was to try to describe from an architectural standpoint the perfect proportions with which to build the perfect temple, only using the human body as a basis because it is known and measurable. Vitruvius concludes,
"Therefore, since nature has designed the human body so that its members are duly proportioned to the frame as a whole, it appears that the ancients had good reason for their rule, that in perfect buildings the different members must be in exact symmetrical relations to the whole general scheme. Hence, while transmitting to us the proper arrangements for buildings of all kinds, they are particularly careful to do so in the case of temples of the gods, buildings in which merits and faults usually last forever. . . ." (Fiero, 2011)
Many sculptors, architects and engineers from Rome utilized this set of rules as a foundation for their accomplishments. With this canon, the Athenian Myron carved Discobolus (Discus-Thrower), and Polycleitus, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer).
Myron's Discobolus is one of the famous examples of the sculptures produced from the height of Classical Greece. It is only known through its Roman copies. As Greek athletes naturally were, the Discus thrower portrayed in this sculpture is nude. It is an image of action frozen in time, the moment before the discus is pitched. Myron was able to capture this energy with incredible balance, artistic angle and proportion, while the emotion from the actor remains stoic, graceful and effortless. It holds a potential energy, creating an anticipation of movement that not often replicated in surviving sculptures of the period.
The Doryphoros, or Spear-Bearer by Polycleitus is such an exemplary representation of symmetry, harmony and balance that it is impossible to consider Polycleitus creating it without that specific intention in mind. in the 2nd Century AD, Galen wrote this about the Doryphoros:
"It [beauty] arises not in the commensurability or "symmetria" of the constituent elements [of the body], but in the commensurability of the parts, such as that of finger to finger, and of all the fingers to the palm and wrist, and of those to the forearm, and of the forearm to the upper arm, and in fact, of everything to everything else, just as it is written in the Canon of Polyclitus. For having taught us in that work all the proportions of the body, Polyclitus supported his treatise with a work: he made a statue according to the tenets of his treatise, and called the statue, like the work, the 'Canon.'"
This canon is also described by Vitruvius:
"For the human body is so designed by nature that the face,from the chin to the top of the forehead and lowest roots of the hair, is a tenth part of the whole height; the open hand from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger is just the same; the head from the chin to the crown is an eighth, and with the neck and shoulder from the top of the breast to the lowest roots of the hair is a sixth; from the middle of the breast to the summit of the crown is a fourth." (Fiero, 2011).
Even beyond that, many artisans during the renaissance flourished within this style, with Leonardo DaVinci presenting a literal interpretation, in his work titled, Proportional Study of a Man in the Manner of Vitruvius. Next to the Mona Lisa, this is undeniably on of DaVinci's most famous and recognizable works. Simply sketched in pen on a page of his notebook, this piece is a clear and visual representation as well as explanation of human proportion, geometry, symmetry and balance according to Vitruvius.
"Then again, in the human body the central point is naturally the navel. For if a man be placed flat on his back, with 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 e 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." (Fiero, 2011)
So beautiful and natural is the recurrent theme of proportion, symmetry, harmony and balance that it has continually influenced every aspect of Western Art despite the near annihilation of the original concept shortly after its known discovery in Greece. Something in those ideals captivate our sense of beauty and become something to strive for in our art as well as within ourselves. As we look throughout history it becomes obvious that many cultures come and go, more art is lost than ever remembered, grand buildings that once took our breath away crumble and turn to dust, but our ideals never really change - they just become more defined by the cultures they touch for awhile.
References
Fiero, G. (2011). The Humanistic Tradition, Book 1: The First Civilizations ant the Classical Legacy. (6th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
undefined. (2010). Doryphoros. In World Lingo. Retrieved December 27, 2010, from http://www.worldlingo.com/ma/enwiki/en/Doryphoros.
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