Page:The Cutter's Practical Guide 1898 Edition Part 1.djvu/11

 4 "—When standing erect, the complete figure measures seven to seven and a half heads. When raised upon the toes, the height is eight heads; the latter is more practical, from its giving the complete length of leg, and is easily divided—e.g, take a line rather longer than desired length of figure; halve and quarter it; then halve the quarters into eights of the line; this gives full length of figure. For standing position, remove half of the lowest eighth, then the points of a figure seven and a half heads will be found. These are about the same in both sexes

", the pubic bone is the centre of the figure. The stretched-out arms give the height, the half is from pit of neck to tip of fingers, and is the same as from pubic bone to tip of toes. Thus we have three equal divisions of four heads in length.

½ —Neck-knee, etc.

A reference to figure 2 A will show the relation the head bears to the other parts of the body in the average well made figure, as above referred to, and which will be readily gathered is $7 1/2$ heads makes up the total height, the 8 heads theory being only correct in a very small number of cases, and when the person is very tall, in which case it will generally be found the legs are long in relation to the other parts. The Venuses and Appollos are generally looked upon as the highest ideals of proportion sculptors have ever produced, they are the statues that for ages have charmed the world, and have been looked upon as masterpieces of art; these all fall short of 8 heads, varying from $7 1/4$ to $7 3/4$ heads: consequently there can be little doubt that $7 1/2$ times the length of the hand is the truest proportion. Vitrivius describes proportion as the equal measurement of the various constituent parts, in the existence of which symmetry is found to consist. Thus the distance from the tip of the finger to the tip of the finger, when the arms are out stretched, equals the height, and so on.

Now, although a knowledge of these relative proportions are of great service both to the artist and the tailor, it has long since been an acknowledged fact that they must not be relied on too implicitly; for example, in measurements taken by one of our best artists, with a view to test the accuracy of "the length extended arms equals the height theory." It was found that out of 84 persons measured, 54 were found to be long armed, 24 short armed, and six only whose extended arms exactly equalled the total height. The greatest excess was in the case of a carpenter, whose arms