Pythagoreans and Sculptors: The Canon of Polykleitos Hugh McCague, Ph.D., F.R.C. alance, measure, and law were The Long Tradition of Canons in Art Bimportant principles in ancient Greek A canon in art can include both art, poetry, drama, and philosophy. stipulations for subject matter and meaning, For example, proportion was stressed in music including clothing and accoutrements, and philosophy by Pythagoras, in sculpture and some system of proportions for the by Polykleitos, and in architecture as noted bodily parts in relationship to the whole. later by Vitruvius. An intriguing question The system of proportions can be specific for the student of mysticism is the nature of to types of humans, animals, and deities. the interconnections between Pythagoreanism Canonical traditions have a long history in and Western Civilization’s ideals of beauty various cultures, including canons—some exemplified by the statues of Polykleitos. still practiced—for Hindu, Buddhist, and The Canon of Polykleitos, hereafter Christian art and icons. The Roman architect referred to as the Canon, was a treatise on Vitruvius gave a description of human bodily creating and proportioning sculpture. It is proportions based on the canonic tradition one of the most important Western artistic in art. During the Renaissance, Leonardo da and sculptural canons.1 The author and Vinci and Albrecht Dürer intensively studied sculptor Polykleitos was active during the and extended the canonic description of High Classical period in ancient Greece. Vitruvius. Notably, Leonardo’s powerful He had a workshop with apprentices at drawing of the proportions of the human the shrines for the gods Zeus and Hera body [Figure 2, page 25] is largely based on at Olympia. He is one of the renowned the description of Vitruvius, which in turn sculptors of the Classical period, along with harkens back to the Canon of Polykleitos. Myron and Phidias. The use of canons was well established The text of the Canon had a in ancient Egypt. There were two canonical corresponding exemplary statue also called systems, very similar to each other, for wall the “Canon,” which has been identified as paintings, relief sculpture, and full three- the Doryphoros or Spear-bearer (c. 450-440 dimensional sculpture of gods, humans, BCE). The Doryphoros would have been and animals. These canons were based cast in bronze from a clay model using on a square grid system and standard the lost-wax technique. The treatise and measurement units derived from the human original sculpture have not survived, but body (e.g., the “palm,” the width of the testamonia (i.e., quotes, paraphrases and palm, and the “cubit,” the length of the comments)2 on the Canon are extant from forearm and outstretched hand). The canons antiquity, as well as Roman marble copies for the standing human figure involved of the original statue [Figure 1, page 24]. square grids, 18, and later 22, units high. The sculpture of Polykleitos, in application The earlier canon dates from the Third to of the Canon, represents a high ideal of the the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and the later human in the dual aspects of our physical canon from the Twenty-sixth Dynasty and divine natures. (c. 665-525 BCE). Canons for painting Page 23 Rosicrucian Digest Figure 1: Doryphoros, Spear-bearer, 150-120 BCE. Marble. Roman copy of bronze Greek orginal after Polykleitos. Photo by No. 1 Dan Dennehy © 2007 Minneapolis Institute of Arts. 2009 Page 24 and sculpture were part of the Egyptians’ highly organized socio-religious systems. The application of the Egyptian canons conveyed stability, timelessness, and a sense of eternal life.3 The early Greek sculptors of the sixth century BCE learned some of their methods from the Egyptians. Part of this tutelage must have included the latter’s canon because of its central place in the sculptural process. After the Egyptian canons, the next important and detailed description of a canon in the Western world is in the Roman 4 Figure 2: Leonardo da Vinci, Vitruvian Man, 1485-90, Vitruvius’s De Architectura (c. 23 BCE), Venice, Galleria dell’ Accademia. Photo by Luc Viatour. who was trying to follow exemplary practices of the Greeks. The common characteristics 4) So the perfect human body and corresponding proportions of the late should be neither too tall nor too Egyptian canon and the “Vitruvian canon” short, nor too stout or too thin, but were likely directly or indirectly present in exactly well proportioned (Galen, the Canon.5 Indeed, in more mathematical Ars medica; Lucian, de Saltatione 75). terms, the Canon appears strikingly as an 5) Such perfection in proportion interpolation between the artistic canon of comes about via an exact the Egyptian Twenty-sixth Dynasty and the commensurability of all the body’s canon of Vitruvius.6 parts to one another: of finger to finger and of these to the hand and A Reconstructed Outline of the wrist, of these to the forearm, of the Canon of Polykleitos forearm to the upper arm; of the From the quotations, paraphrases, equivalent parts of the leg; and of and comments on the Canon extant from everything to everything else (Galen, antiquity, an outline of the Canon treatise de Temperamentis 1.9; Ars medica 14; can be reasonably inferred as follows: de Placitis Hippocratis et Platonis; de 1) Perfection comes about little by Usu partium 17.1; de Optima nostri little through many numbers (Philo corporis constitutione 4). of Byzantium, Belopoeica 4.1). 6) This perfection requires 2) The numbers must all come to scrupulous attention to replicating a congruence through some system the body’s anatomy; not a single of commensurability and harmony, error can be tolerated (Galen, de Usu for ugliness is immediately ready to partium 17.1). come into being if only one chance 7) In bronze work, such precision is element is omitted or inserted out of most difficult when the clay is on/at place (Plutarch, Moralia 45C). the nail (Plutarch, Moralia 86A and 3) Perfection is the exact Mean 636B-C; cf. Galen, de Usu partium in each particular case—human, 17.1). horse, ox, lion, and so on (Galen, de 8) (Exposition of the numbers and Te m p e ra m e n t i s 1.9; Ars medica 14; de their commensurabilities for the Optima nostri corporis constitutione 4). perfect human body.) Page 25 9) (Conclusion.)7 contemplate transcendent truth first, and We see throughout this reconstructed then “establish in this world...the laws of 15 outline the central emphases on number, the beautiful, the just, and the good.” This proportion, commensurability, exactitude, statement would apply to sculptors as well. and beauty. All these features are closely akin For Plato, the transcendent truth to Pythagorean philosophy. would involve divine archetypes, including essential elements of mathematics, and the Pythagoreans and Plato laws would also involve mathematics as seen The philosophy and work of Pythagoras from his quotations above. Overall, these of Samos (c. 570 - c. 490 BCE) and the statements show the moral and philosophical Pythagoreans is important to investigating the importance that the mathematical nature of Canon. The Polykleitan testamonia with their the Canon would have conveyed to Plato, emphasis on number, harmony, and beauty less than a century after the Canon was appear to be applying, or closely related to, written. Pythagorean wordings and conceptions.8 Vitruvius emphasized the importance of the Decad, central to Pythagorean philosophy, !e Pythagorean in his canonic description of the harmonious proportions of the human body as exemplary dualities are expressed in the for architecture. Also, Aristotle described the walking pose and musculature ten Pythagorean polarities/dualities, arising of the Doryphoros. from the underlying unity. Unity is, of course, symbolized by 1. Duality is symbolized by 2 and expressed as 1:1. The Pythagorean dualities are expressed in the walking pose The literary testimonia on the Canon and musculature of the Doryphoros (e.g., and the Roman sculptural copies indicate limit/unlimited, odd/even, one/plurality, a combined application of contemporary right/left, nonmoving/moving, straight/bent, Hippocratic surgical texts and close empirical square/oblong).9 observation of the human body.16 The As a continuator of the essentials of Canon applied two distinct models of Pythagorean philosophy, Plato (427-347 proportion, consistent with Pythagorean BCE), with his strong interest in beauty philosophy, for its composition and the and mathematics, held Polykleitos in high lengths of body parts: 1) 1:1 balancing of esteem.10 An insightful statement regarding opposites from the isonomia theory of health, the matter of a proportional canon is Plato’s and 2) the ratios of commensurate but declaration in Philebus that “If one were to unequal lengths of musical harmony.17 remove from any of the arts the elements of Some insight into the proportional arithmetic, proportion, and weight, what relationships in the Canon is provided by a would remain of each would be negligible testamonia by Galen referencing the texts of 11 indeed.” Also in that book, Plato writes at Chrysippos of Soli (c. 280 - c. 207 BCE), 12 some length on proportion and measure. and ultimately Polykleitios: For example, “Measure and proportion are everywhere identified with beauty and For Chrysippos showed this clearly virtue.”13 Also, “Beauty, proportion, and in the statement from him quoted Rosicrucian Digest truth...considered as one” gives rise to just above, in which he says that the No. 1 the good.14 Plato mentions painters, who health of the body is identical with 2009 Page 26 Figure 3: Triangle Numbers. © 2008 Yoni Toker/Wikimedia Commons. due proportion in the hot, the cold, For example, for Vitruvius, the head the dry, and the moist (for these are height is one-eighth of the total height, clearly the elements of bodies), but and the forearm length is one-quarter,20 beauty, he thinks, does not reside in the which form a ratio of 1:2:8 for the ratio of proper proportion of the elements but the head height to the forearm length to in the proper proportion of the parts, the total body height.