The Renaissance April, 1400 | Page 5

One of the most precise images of the human body was produced by Leonardo da Vinci around 1510-1511, called Vitruvian Man. This piece was centered around the belief that an ideal man would cleanly fit into a circle. Da Vinci used mathematical laws to make accurate proportions of all the parts of the body, having recognized that proportions are not just a “math thing,” but an “art thing” as well. Multiple notebooks were filled to the brim

A Math to Art Ratio

by Hattie Hapai

with notes concerning the exact proportions of a man. An excerpt from one of his notebooks says, “If you set your legs so far apart as to take a fourteenth part from your height, and you open and raise your arms until you touch the line of the crown of the head with your piddle fingers, you must know that the center of the circle formed by the extremities of the outstretched limbs will be the navel, and the space between the legs will form an equilateral triangle.” Da Vinci’s precision was down to the fourteenths. Isn’t that beautiful?

arm span, to the length of a man’s nose with relevance to the length of his face. Apparently women have bodies that can always be different because some people are skinny and others aren’t; some have boobs and some don’t. A vast majority of the men depicted in Renaissance art are visibly very muscular unless they’re someone famous because that’s the only time they’re allowed to be on the chubbier side.

Perfecting body proportions is one of the greatest skills an artist can have and thus requires a lot of work. Studying proportions for months might allow you to barely scratch the surface, though it requires years and years of dedicated study to understand and create art with relevant proportions. By perfecting body proportions, you can give your art more of a realistic edge, which is definitely something a lot of Renaissance artists were going for. It can also alter the way people see art and direct the focus towards something or away from something else. A lot of Renaissance art was based off of playing with proportions to achieve a certain look or draw attention to one or more specific areas of the body. An example of such might be Michelangelo’s sculpture of David, which has large hands and an equally large head to draw the focus of the people looking at the art.

Cennino Cennini, an Italian painter, was known for his book entitled Il Libro Dell'arte, which taught new artists the gist of making your own Renaissance artwork. It included information on brushes, underdrawing, underpainting, a bit of advice on life for those who were sincerely dedicated to the path of an artist, and everything else you can possibly think of relating to Renaissance art. Concerning proportions, he states, “Take note that, before going any further, I will give you the exact proportions of a man. Those of a woman I will disregard, for she does not have any set proportion.” Cennini then continues on to give, as he stated, the exact proportions of a man, including the length of a man’s body in comparison to his

A picture of Leonardo da Vinci himself.

A picture of one of Da Vinci’s pages in one of his notebooks depicting accurate proportions.

A picture of Il Libro Dell’Arte, the book written by Cennino Cennini.