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Vitruvian Man
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The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing with accompanying notes created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1487 as recorded in one of his journals. It depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man.
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The Vitruvian Man is a world-renowned drawing with accompanying notes created by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1487 as recorded in one of his journals. It depicts a nude male figure in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart and simultaneously inscribed in a circle and square. The drawing and text are sometimes called the Canon of Proportions or, less often, Proportions of Man. It is stored in the Gallerie dell'Accademia in Venice, Italy, but is only displayed on special occasions.
The drawing is based on the correlations of ideal human proportions with geometry described by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius in Book III of his treatise De Architectura. The drawing is named in honour of the architect. Vitruvius described the human figure as being the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture. Other artists had attempted to depict the concept, with less success.
History
This image exemplifies the blend of art and science during the Renaissance and provides the perfect example of Leonardo's keen interest in proportion. In addition, this picture represents a cornerstone of Leonardo's attempts to relate man to nature. Encyclopaedia Britannica online states, "Leonardo envisaged the great picture chart of the human body he had produced through his anatomical drawings and Vitruvian Man as a cosmografia del minor mondo (cosmography of the microcosm). He believed the workings of the human body to be an analogy for the workings of the universe." It is also believed by some that Leonardo symbolized the material existence by the square and spiritual existence by the circle. Thus he attempted to depict the correlation between these two aspects of human existence.
According to Leonardo's notes in the accompanying text, written in mirror writing, it was made as a study of the proportions of the (male) human body as described in Vitruvius, who wrote that in the human body:
- a palm is the width of four fingers
- a foot is the width of four palms (i.e., 12 inches)
- a cubit is the width of six palms
- a pace is four cubits
- a man's height is four cubits (and thus 24 palms)
- the length of a man's outspread arms is equal to his height
- the distance from the hairline to the bottom of the chin is one-tenth of a man's height
- the distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the chin is one-eighth of a man's height
- the distance from the bottom of the neck to the hairline is one-sixth of a man's height
- the maximum width of the shoulders is a quarter of a man's height
- the distance from the middle of the chest to the top of the head is a quarter of a man's height
- the distance from the elbow to the tip of the hand is one-fourth of a man's height
- the distance from the elbow to the armpit is one-eighth of a man's height
- the length of the hand is one-tenth of a man's height
- the distance from the bottom of the chin to the nose is one-third of the length of the head
- the distance from the hairline to the eyebrows is one-third of the length of the face
- the length of the ear is one-third of the length of the face
- the length of a man's foot is one-sixth of his height
Leonardo is clearly illustrating Vitruvius' De architectura 3.1.2-3 which reads:
The multiple viewpoint that set in with Romanticism has convinced us that there is no such thing as a universal set of proportions for the human body. The field of anthropometry was created in order to describe these individual variations. Vitruvius' statements may be interpreted as statements about average proportions. Vitruvius goes through some trouble to give a precise mathematical definition of what he means by saying that the navel is the center of the body, but other definitions lead to different results; for example, the center of mass of the human body depends on the position of the limbs, and in a standing posture is typically about 10 cm lower than the navel, near the top of the hip bones.
Note that Leonardo's drawing combines a careful reading of the ancient text with his own observation of actual human bodies. In drawing the circle and square he correctly observes that the square cannot have the same center as the circle, the navel, but is somewhat lower in the anatomy. This adjustment is the innovative part of Leonardo's drawing and what distinguishes it from earlier illustrations. He also departs from Vitruvius by drawing the arms raised to a position in which the fingertips are level with the top of the head, rather than Vitruvius's much lower angle, in which the arms form lines passing through the navel.
The drawing itself is often used as an implied symbol of the essential symmetry of the human body, and by extension, to the universe as a whole.
It may be noticed by examining the drawing that the combination of arm and leg positions actually creates sixteen different poses. The pose with the arms straight out and the feet together is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed square. On the other hand, the "spread-eagle" pose is seen to be inscribed in the superimposed circle.
The drawing was in the collection of Giuseppe Bossi, who illustrated it in his monograph on Leonardo's The Last Supper, Del Cenacolo di Leonardo Da Vinci libri quattro (1810). The following year he excerpted the section of his monograph concerned with the Vitruvian Man and published it as Delle opinioni di Leonardo da Vinci intorno alla simmetria de'Corpi Umani (1811), with a dedication to his friend Antonio Canova.
Dedicated by the author to his friend, the neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova, this discussion of Leonardo's theory of human proportions is extracted from Bossi monograph on the Last Supper, pp. 202-26 (No. 318).
After his death in 1815 it was acquired with the bulk of his drawings by the Accademia.
Representations in modern times
The Vitruvian Man is now used as a contemporary symbol of medical professionals and medical establishments. Many medical companies have adopted this artwork as the symbol of their group, company or organization. Ironically it has also come to represent alternative medicine and the holopathic approach to wellness.
The medical profession and the Vitruvian Man has become somewhat synonymous with modern medical practices. The United States, Saudi Arabia, India and Germany are the countries which have widely accepted and adopted the Vitruvian Man as a symbol of medical professionalism.
The Vitruvian Man remains one of the most referenced and reproduced artistic images in the world today. The proportions for the human body, as proposed by Vitruvius, have inspired many other artists in drawing their version of the Vitruvian Man:
- Cesare Ceasariano (1521) who edited the important 1521 edition of “De Archtectura” of Vitruvius (Leonardo da Vinci is supposed to have provided the illustrations for this edition).
- Albrecht Dürer (1528) in his book Vier Bücher von menschlicher Proportion (Four books on human proportions)
- Pietro di Giacomo Cataneo (1554)
- Heinrich Lautensack (1618)
- William Blake (1795) “Glad Day” (now known as "Albion rose"). This representation is without the circle and square.
As well as its use by the medical profession, the Vitruvian Man has been used in a variety of fictional and non-fictional media, for various symbolic purposes. For example, the image appears on the national side of Italian 1 euro coins, chosen by the Economy minister (and later President of the Italian Republic) Carlo Azeglio Ciampi for its high symbolic meaning of "man as a measure of all things".
Stylized Vitruvian Man figures have been adopted for the icons representing accessibility in the Mac OS and Gnome desktop computer interfaces.
Particularly when used in fiction, the image of the Vitruvian Man is commonly modified to suit the setting by featuring a character, a skeleton or a non-human (such as a robot in science fiction or an animal). The easily-recognisable image lends itself to being referenced.
Image:Eur.it.100.gif|The Vitruvian Man on the Euro
Image:Skylab2-Patch.png|The Skylab II (Skylab 3) patch shows a Vitruvian Man, with a globe and sun in rear
File:Gnome-preferences-desktop-accessibility.svg|Gnome desktop accessibility icon
See also
External links
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