thumb|[[Madonna with the Long Neck, c. 1534–1540, by Parmigianino. As in other Mannerist works, the proportions of the body – here the neck – are exaggerated for artistic effect.]]
Body proportions is the study of artistic anatomy, which attempts to explore the relation of the elements of the human body to each other and to the whole. These ratios are used in depictions of the human figure and may become part of an artistic canon of body proportion within a culture. Academic art of the nineteenth century demanded close adherence to these reference metrics and some artists in the early twentieth century rejected those constraints and consciously mutated them.
Basics of human proportions
thumb|upright=0.6<!--size for very long image-->|Human proportions marked out in an illustration from a 20th-century anatomy text-book. Hermann Braus, 1921
thumb|upright=0.6|Drawing of a human male, showing the order of measurement in preparation for a figurative art work (Lantéri, 1903) to the Greek sculptor [[Polykleitos (fifth century BCE) and has long been used by artists to establish the proportions of the human figure. Ancient Egyptian art used a canon of proportion based on the "fist", measured across the knuckles, with 18 fists from the ground to the hairline on the forehead.
One version of the proportions used in modern figure drawing is:
- An average person is generally 7-and-a-half heads tall (including the head).
- An ideal figure, used when aiming for an impression of nobility or grace, is drawn at 8 heads tall.
- A heroic figure, used in the depiction of gods and superheroes, is eight-and-a-half heads tall. Most of the additional length comes from a bigger chest and longer legs.
Measurements
There are a number of important distances between reference points that an artist may measure and will observe: These are the distance from floor to the patella; from the patella to the front iliac crest; the distance across the stomach between the iliac crests; the distances (which may differ according to pose) from the iliac crests to the suprasternal notch between the clavicles; and the distance from the notch to the bases of the ears (which again may differ according to the pose).
Some teachers deprecate mechanistic measurements and strongly advise the artist to learn to estimate proportion by eye alone.