'ART & SOUL
The measure of form

B.N. Goswamy brings Leonardo da Vinci’s reflections on the ideal human form as well as looks at the definition of a proportionate figure in Indian texts

Leonardo da Vinci(1452-1519)

WHEN Leonardo made his pen-and-ink drawing of the ‘Vitruvian Man’ – among the most famous of works in the history of art – he was bringing together a whole range of ideas about art, architecture, human anatomy and symmetry in one great, commanding image. Most people who have had any brush with the world of art know the image: a male figure with unruly hair whose outstretched limbs touch the circumference of a circle and the edges of a square, the navel falling in the exact centre of the circle. But not many pay thought to the notes that he wrote in his own hand – in his characteristic mirror-image manner – on the same page. These recall the great first-century Roman architect Vitruvius’s architectural thoughts on proper symmetry and proportion being based essentially on the proportions and measurements of the human body which, ‘divinely created’ as it was, was ‘perfect and correct.’ But the notes also contain Leonardo’s own reflections, through words and image, on human proportions and architecture.

What is the scheme of proportions in the ideal form that Leonardo, like Vitruvius, was speaking of, however? The thin lines on the form of the standing figure, showing significant points of the scheme, give us some idea, but it is the words – his own words – which clarify things.

"Vitruvius, the architect, says in his work on architecture", Leonardo writes, "that the measurements of the human body are distributed by Nature as follows, that is that 4 fingers make 1 palm, and 4 palms make 1 foot, 6 palms make 1 cubit; 4 cubits make a man’s height. And 4 cubits make one pace and 24 palms make a man; and these measures he used in his buildings. If you open your legs so much as to decrease your height 1/14 and spread and raise your arms till your middle fingers touch the level of the top of your head you must know that the centre of the outspread limbs will be in the navel and the space between the legs will be an equilateral triangle."

And then goes on to add what the image brilliantly establishes:

"The length of a man’s outspread arms is equal to his height."

Then follow details like this: "From the roots of the hair to the bottom of the chin is the tenth of a man’s height; from the bottom of the chin to the top of his head is one-eighth of his height; from the top of the breast to the top of his head will be one-sixth of a man", and so on.

All this is wonderfully absorbing. The European mind was not alone, however, in engaging with the theme of the ideal form and bodily proportions. I was put in mind of this, while speaking to some students the other day, by what some of our own texts say. Consider thus a work like the Chitralakshana of Nagnajit – dateable arguably to the 3^rd/4^th century — which concerns itself with the making of images and ideal human proportions. Before doing that, however, the text establishes the units of measurement in a characteristically intimate Indian manner. Thus:

"It is said that eight atoms (anu) make one hair point (balagra). If one knows this measurement, then the proportion follows that eight hair points make one nit (liksha); eight nits make one louse (yuka); eight lice are to be taken to make one barley grain (yava); eight barley grains make one finger or digit (angula) `85 and the height of the Chakravartin (who is taken to be ideally proportioned) should amount to 108 digits`85."

This passage is followed by remarkably detailed measurements. For example, "The face should be divided into three parts, forehead, nose and chin, each of which should measure four digits. The width of the face is given as the total of 14 digits; `85 the width of the ears amounts to the two digits and their length to four digits; the opening of the ear is given as `BD digit in width and 1 digit in length." So on this text proceeds, stanza after stanza filled with the most precise of descriptions and measurements, everything from the top of the head to the toes being covered. A measure of form is established and laid down.

How these proportions were realised in actual fact by our own artists is something that a fine recent study on Indian Bronzes — Timeless Delight by R. Nagaswamy — draws attention to, for in it some great sculptures in the Sarabhai Foundation at Ahmedabad are subjected to analysis and measurement, to remarkable effect, with the aid of a computer.

In the final analysis, however — proportions apart — one goes back in art (and certainly here, before it all begins to appear simply technical) to the quality of works. And in that respect one needs to linger over the details of the image of the Goddess that is here reproduced, astir as the form is with an inner rhythm, inviting the viewer’s eye to travel along the gentle, swelling contours as if on a sacred journey. Here, if nowhere else, the figure is imbued with the growing, expanding principle of life itself. The sculptor knows womanhood well, but he also knows divinity.

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