Antiquity: Ancient Greece
This well known drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, about 1500, relates to the only achitectural treatise at all, to survive from Antiquity, by Vitruvus Pollio. Although it is unillustrated, it profoundly influenced art throughout history, especially in the period Renaissance.
Vitruv, in the first century b.c., reports the classical ideal of beauty as derived from symmetry and a modular relationship, of the parts to the whole on a mathematical basis. (The smaller part compares to the larger as this to the whole: this is called "The Golden Section" or the "Golden Mean".)
(AB cut at C, so that CB:AC = AC:AB; about 8:13).
3. Ideal Proportions
Leonardo, ~ 1500, after Vituv
1st C. b.c.; Venice, Acad.
Architecture was seen as an imitation of nature with anthropomorphic - that is human - proportions! Vitruv distinguished the three column types as Doric, Ionic and Corinthian, the proportions deriving respectively from a man, a matron and a young girl. Art and science (and also nature) were considered as completely homogenous, as a unit.
Socrates postulated, that the main task of the artist was to give a standard idealised contour of the human body in exact proportions to gain Balance and harmony. We can still admire this in the statue of the "Aphrodite of Melos", better known as the "Venus de Milo", one of the most famous works of art history...
4. Venus de Milo
2nd C.b.c.
Paris, Louvre
... in the same way as this beautiful ideal image of a man's body, the so called "Warrior of Riace", found in the Mediterranean Sea a few years ago, now in Naples.
These personified ideals of classical beauty have influenced art throughout the centuries until today!
5. Warrior of Riace
Bronce, South Italy
Over 2m high; Reggio di Calabria