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1g6 proportions of the figure. [lEC. viii.

Vitruvius says the ancients measured their fi-
gures by the length of the sole of the foot, giving
them in height, six times that length : and hence the
proverb ex pede Hercuhm ; ' yon may know Hercules
by his foot.' This proportion, however, is doubted
of by some Artists; it seems, nevertheless, to have
been adopted in the Apollo Belvedere, and in the
Venus of Medlcis ; the most beautiful figures extant.

Among modern Artists, however, the custom of
proportioning a figure by its foot, has been super-
seded, by that of considering the head, or face,
as better suited to this purpose. Certainly, it should
seem, as if this were the more obvious standard by
which to form a scale ; but whether accuracy may
have really gained by the change, is not so easy to
determine.

We shall now notice some of those principles of
proportion which seem to be adopted by Nature in
the formation of the human frame, and which, from
their regular occurrence, we may justly call fixed.

Some persons have observed the prevalence of the
number .three, in the composition of the human fi-
gure;, the body, say they, has three parts; the
trunk, the thighs, the legs;—the members have also
three parts; the lower members three—the thighs,
the legs, the feet; the upper members three—the up-
per arm, the lower arm, the hand. In a well made
man, the body and head conjointly, is to the thighs,
legs, and feet, as the thighs are to the legs and feet;
or, as the upper arm is to the lower arm and hand.

The navel is the proper center of the human
frame, and, when a man holds up his arms above his
2 head,
 
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