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"For the Figure—When standing erect, the complete figure measures seven to seven and a half heads. When raised upon the toes, the height is eight heads; the latter is more practical, from its giving the complete length of leg, and is easily divided—e.g, take a line rather longer than desired length of figure; halve and quarter it; then halve the quarters into eights of the line; this gives full length of figure. For standing position, remove half of the lowest eighth, then the points of a figure seven and a half heads will be found. These are about the same in both sexes
"The Human Figure is Symmetrical, the Halves being Reversed, the pubic bone is the centre of the figure. The stretched-out arms give the height, the half is from pit of neck to tip of fingers, and is the same as from pubic bone to tip of toes. Thus we have three equal divisions of four heads in length.
| 4 Heads in length | (a) Pit of neck, to tip of fingers. |
| (b) Top of head, to pubic bone. | |
| (c) Pubic bone, to toes. | |
| 2 Heads long or ¼ of figure | 1. Head to nipples. |
| 2. Nipples, to end of trunk | |
| 3. End of trunk, to bump of tibia | |
| 4. Bump of tibia, to extended toes | |
| 5. Width of shoulders. | |
| Distances of about 1½ Head in length | Top of Shoulder to elbow |
| Elbow to first knuckle | |
| Pit of Neck to Navel | |
| From bottom of pectoral to base of abdomen | |
| From base of abdomen, to top of knee | |
| From bump of tibia to top of instep | |
| Width of chest under armpits | |
| Width across thighs at trocanters. | |
| From acromion process to acromion process. | |
| 1 Head or 8ths of Length— | |
| Distances of 1 Head | Top of head to chin. |
| Chin, to nipples | |
| Nipples to navel. | |
| Navel, to base of pubic bone | |
| Base of pubic bone to middle of thigh. | |
| Middle of thigh, to bump of tibia | |
| Bump of tibia to bottom of soles | |
| Bottom of soles to tip of toes | |
| Between nipples, hollows of clavicles, and spines of ilium. | |
| And length of buttock.. | |
½ head—Neck-knee, etc.
A reference to figure 2 A will show the relation the head bears to the other parts of the body in the average well made figure, as above referred to, and which will be readily gathered is 71⁄2 heads makes up the total height, the 8 heads theory being only correct in a very small number of cases, and when the person is very tall, in which case it will generally be found the legs are long in relation to the other parts. The Venuses and Appollos are generally looked upon as the highest ideals of proportion sculptors have ever produced, they are the statues that for ages have charmed the world, and have been looked upon as masterpieces of art; these all fall short of 8 heads, varying from 71⁄4 to 73⁄4 heads: consequently there can be little doubt that 71⁄2 times the length of the hand is the truest proportion. Vitrivius describes proportion as the equal measurement of the various constituent parts, in the existence of which symmetry is found to consist. Thus the distance from the tip of the finger to the tip of the finger, when the arms are out stretched, equals the height, and so on.
Now, although a knowledge of these relative proportions are of great service both to the artist and the tailor, it has long since been an acknowledged fact that they must not be relied on too implicitly; for example, in measurements taken by one of our best artists, with a view to test the accuracy of "the length extended arms equals the height theory." It was found that out of 84 persons measured, 54 were found to be long armed, 24 short armed, and six only whose extended arms exactly equalled the total height. The greatest excess was in the case of a carpenter, whose arms
