Pointy End Goes on the Paper: Beginning Drawing for the SCA Scribal Arts
Scribal
culture in each kingdom throughout the known world is unique. As I am
Trimarian, I approach things from that perspective. But my hope is that
anyone interested in Medieval Illumination can find some inspiration and
tidbits in this series of articles which will be helpful.
Part 6: Proportions
Like linear perspective, proportion was another of those concepts that was suddenly all the rage in Renaissance art. Not that artists hadn't previously been concerned with making things look right, but now there was math involved.
So this is a sort of two part article. The first part is going to be about the Renaissance obsession with proportions and the golden ratio, and the second part will be some practical tips on how you can use it to aid in your figure drawing.
So this is a sort of two part article. The first part is going to be about the Renaissance obsession with proportions and the golden ratio, and the second part will be some practical tips on how you can use it to aid in your figure drawing.
The Vitruvian Man
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| This Guy |
So, we've all seen this guy, right? This is Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. And the reason he is called the 'Vitruvian' Man is because of a Roman architect back in the day called Marcus Vitruvius Pollio.
Vitruvius lived during the 1st century BC, and was a military engineer who served under Ceasar. He's famous because he wrote a series of books on architecture and construction called De Architectura, or modernly known as Ten Books on Architecture. Pretty much everything we know about him comes from those books, and a few references here and there in other books on the subject. People aren't even entirely sure that the "Marcus" and "Pollio" parts of his name are accurate, so he's almost always referred to just as "Vitruvius."
The De Architectura is considered one of the foundational texts of architecture, and lays out a philosophy that architecture and nature are linked, and that the mathematics of geometry dictate the ideal proportions of things. Usually things like buildings, for obvious reasons, but in book III of De Architectura he also talked about what he believed were the ideal human proportions based on geometry.
A copy of De Architectura was 'discovered' in an abbey library in 1414 by the Florentine humanist Poggio Bracciolini, who talked about it in his own treatise on architecture, De Re Aedificatori, published around 1450. The first known Latin printed edition was by Fra Giovanni Sulpitius in Rome in 1486.
It took off like crazy and inspired architects and artists all throughout the Renaissance period. And it's one of the reason's why use of the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Spiral in art is sort of considered to be a hallmark of Renaissance painting these days.
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| Fibonacci Spiral |
What Vitruvious actually said was if you assume the belly-button is the center and someone lays down on the floor, then their feet and fingertips will inscribe a circle around the navel. And also, that the length of the arms from fingertip to fingertip is about the same length as the top of the head to the feet, also drawing a square around the navel. And that is why Leonardo's man is standing in a circle and a square.
Now, my particular beef with this comes from the fact that humans sometimes make too big a deal out of a good thing.
In general do these proportions work? Yes, and they can be helpful. However they kind of went a little overboard with it in the Renaissance. For example, Michelangelo's David was based upon these same golden ratio ideals applied to the human form. David is supposed to be the most beautiful, most perfect, body ever carved. But, in person? The sculpture doesn't look...quite...right. His head is too big, his arms too long, and he just doesn't look quite natural. You can kinda see this in pictures too if you look at one that shows the whole sculpture critically. I'm not saying it's not an amazing sculpture, because it is. But nature is messy and imprecise, and goodness knows there is plenty of natural deviation.
And as a female in today's society, the striving after an 'ideal' body shape of any type sort of rubs me the wrong way anyway.
So, take proportions as a guide and a help when drawing people, but don't ever feel like they need to be perfect.
Proportion Guides
There are a million online tutorials for various proportion break-downs, so I've going to just give you a few of the major ones here. We've already seen that someone's arm span is about the same as the height of a person, but did you know... |
When looking at a face, in general:
- The eyes are at the halfway point in the middle.
- The nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin (1/4th line).
- The lips are halfway between the nose and the chin (1/8th line).
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In general, the length of someone's hand from the heal of the hand to the tip of their middle finger is give-or-take 1/10th their total arm-span.
Someone's height, in general, is about 8 of their own heads tall.
From the center of your breastbone to your elbow equals about the same length as your elbow to the tips of your fingers.
About half of someone's height is legs.
These are just a few generalities, heavy emphasis on generalities. The beautiful variety of the human form comes from not everyone conforming to these standards. So much so that anyone who does follow all of these proportions exactly would be an exceedingly rare creature, and would probably look a little funny to you and me (see paragraph regarding Michalangeo's David above).
But when you are practicing your sketching, remembering some of these proportions can be helpful. To this day I always draw lines across my faces before starting to fill in features. So if it works for you, go for it.
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