IDEAL PHYSICAL PROPORTIONS
The Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned
Using the head-length as a unit of measurement, a prominent portrait painter tabulates as follows the proportions of a perfectly formed woman:
A woman should measure in height 5 feet 5 inches.
Eight heads is the proper height,—that is, the head measured from the top of the forehead to the tip of the chin.
From shoulder to shoulder she should measure 2 of her heads.
Her waist should measure 1½ heads.
Her hips should be twice as broad as the length of her head.
Under the arms the bust measurement should be 34 inches; outside the arms, 42 inches.
Upper arm should be 12 inches long; the forearm, 9 inches long.
A more reliable authority, Dr. George McClellan, in his splendid quarto, “Anatomy in its Relation to Art,” with due regard to the mean or average of the anthropometric scale, makes the height 7½ heads; the width between the shoulders equal to the width between the hips, and each equal to the length of 1¾ heads.
The measurements of “the statue that enchants the world,” the Venus de Medici, are: Height, 63 inches; breadth of neck, 4 inches; breadth of shoulders, 16 inches; waist, 9½ inches; hips, 13 inches.
Professor Gottfried Schadow of the Royal Academy of Arts, in Berlin, gives in his figure of an artistically formed woman, the following measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3¾ inches; shoulders, 15 inches; waist 9 inches; hips, 13½ inches.
Professor Sargeant, with several thousand tabulated life measurements in hand, produced a composite figure of the young American girl with these measurements: Height, 63½ inches; breadth of neck, 3.8 inches; girth of neck, 12.1 inches; breadth of shoulders, 14.7 inches; breadth of waist, 8.6 inches; girth of waist, 24.6 inches; breadth of hips, 13.1 inches; girth of hips, 35.4 inches; girth of calf, 13.3 inches; girth of upper arm, 10.1 inches; girth of thigh, 21.4 inches, and forearm, 9.2 inches.
Miss Anna Wood has given measurements closely similar to those of Professor Sargeant, in her composite figure of the Wellesley College girl, being averaged from the measurements of over 2,000 young women.
Given the height, proportion, and weight of an average physique for the man and woman, what should be the attitude or posture of such an individual, especially when standing? By posture is meant a position of equilibrium of the body which can be maintained for some time, such as standing, sitting, or lying.
For the maintenance of the erect posture the following conditions must be realized: (1) The corresponding halves of the body must be in the same anatomical relation; (2) the centre of gravity of the whole body must fall just in front of the last lumbar vertebra. That the first of these two conditions may be realized there must be a well-developed and symmetrical skeleton and a corresponding symmetrical development of the muscles on the two sides of the body. That the second condition may be realized, there must be such a development of the extensor muscles on the back of the body as will be sufficient to antagonize the flexor muscles on the front of the body.
These conditions are not always realized, and hence certain physical defects are observable, such as obliquity of the head, elevation or depression of the shoulder, curvature of the spine, and so forth.
An old Spanish writer said that “a woman is quite perfect and absolute in beauty if she has thirty good points.” Here they are:
Three things white—the skin, the teeth, the hands.
Three black—the eyes, the eyebrows, the eyelashes.
Three red—the lips, the cheeks, the nails.
Three long—the body, the hair, the hands.
Three short—the teeth, the ears, the feet.
Three broad—the chest, the brow, the space between the eyebrows.
Three narrow—the mouth, the waist, the instep.
Three large—the arm, the loin, the limb.
Three fine—the fingers, the hair, the lips.
Three small—the bust, the nose, the head.
Grecian and American Standards
What are the measurements of the physically perfect man? Opinions differ. Ralph Rose, a young athlete from the University of Michigan, has been brought forward and presented to critical inspection as a fair type of the perfect athlete, according to the practical American anthropometric system of averages, and therefore it may be of interest to compare him with the ideal of youthful strength and beauty of classic art, as shown in the statue of the Apollo Belvedere. A glance at the subjoined table where the measurements of young Rose are set over against those of a model of the Apollo of like height—that is, 77 inches, or 6 feet 5 inches—shows how far the college chart standard differs from the ideal of the Greek artist.
| ROSE. | APOLLO. | |
|---|---|---|
| Inches. | Inches. | |
| Breadth of shoulders | 18.8 | 22.8 |
| Breadth of chest | 13.4 | 15.4 |
| Depth of Chest | 10.0 | 11.3 |
| Girth of neck | 15.9 | 16.8 |
| Girth of chest | 44.5 | 38.0 |
| Girth of waist | 39.0 | 32.0 |
| Right upper arm | 14.0 | 14.3 |
| Left upper arm | 13.6 | 14.3 |
| Right forearm | 12.6 | 12.9 |
| Left forearm | 12.1 | 12.9 |
| Right thigh | 23.9 | 25.4 |
| Left thigh | 25.6 | 24.5 |
| Right calf | 16.8 | 17.0 |
| Left calf | 17.0 | 16.8 |
The measurements of the Apollo Belvedere’s limbs correspond in a general way with those of the American athlete, but in some particulars Rose falls somewhat short of the Greek divinity. Rose’s shoulders are 4 inches narrower, his chest 5 inches less from side to side and 1.3 inches less through. His neck, too, measures nearly an inch less around.
This shows that Rose’s figure and development are far from the Greek ideal. He is not so clean cut. His shoulders are much narrower and his waist larger. His chest shows larger to the tape, but this is due to the big breast and shoulder muscles that enable him to throw the weights. If the Greek god could put off his marble solidity and blow on a lung tester he would reveal far greater lung capacity than could the young American. The measurements from breastbone to backbone and from side rib to side rib tell the true story of chest capacity.
The Venus de Medici a Questionable Type
This famous statue, when found in the seventeenth century in the Villa of Hadrian, near Tivoli, was broken into eleven pieces; only the hands and a portion of the arms were wanting. It was taken to Florence by Cosmo de Medici, and placed in the tribune of the Uffizi.
Lübke, in his “History of Art,” says: “The goddess displays the lineaments of her shapely form to the eye completely nude, yet not in naïve self-forgetfulness, or in the sublime abandon of conquest, but with conscious premeditation; not without a certain shame-faced coyness which is expressed in the position of the arms, with their effort at concealment of the bosom and thighs, and in the coy turning of the head to one side. With all the delicacy and perfection of artistic finish, with all the noble rhythmical proportion of the limbs, this trait, which betrays the calculating coquette, has but a cold effect.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne says: “She is very beautiful, very satisfactory, and has a fresh and new charm about her, unreached by any cast or copy. I felt a kind of tenderness for her—an affection, not as if she were a woman, but all womanhood in one. Her modest attitude—which, before I saw her, I had not liked, deeming it might be an artificial shame—is partly what unmakes her as a heathen goddess, and softens her into woman. There is a slight degree of alarm, too, in her face; not that she really thinks that anybody is looking at her; yet the idea has flitted through her mind and startled her a little. Her face is so beautiful and so intellectual that it is not dazzled out of sight by her form. The world has not grown weary of her in all these ages, and mortal man may look on her with new delight from infancy to old age.”
If anything is safe in this iconoclastic age it might be supposed to be such reputation for beauty and grace. Connoisseurs of all nations have joined in doing homage to the ancient sculptor’s skill. How many visitors to the Uffizi Gallery in Florence have stood, Murray or Appleton in hand, gazing at the undraped figure without a thought of questioning these learned persons! But of late years there have been sceptics daring enough to class this with the Apollo Belvedere as a sample of ancient art that has been “monstrously overrated,” and now comes no less an authority than Holman Hunt to assure us that the Venus de Medici, to use a popular phrase, “won’t do.” There is a little anecdote attaching to this expression of opinion.
Some years ago, at the house of Sir Richard Owen, the great naturalist, Mr. Hunt met that professor of sanitary science, the late Sir Edwin Chadwick, who began a conversation thus: “As a Commissioner of Health, I must profess myself altogether opposed to the artistic theory of beauty. There is the Venus de Medici, which you artists regard as giving the perfect type of female form. I should require that a typical statue with such pretensions should bear evidence of perfect power of life, with steady prospect of health and signs of mental vigor; but she has neither. Her chest is narrow, indicating unrobust lungs, her limbs are without evidence of due training of muscles, her shoulders are not well braced up, and her cranium, and her face, too, are deficient in all traits of intellect. She would be a miserable mistress of a house and a contemptible mother.” But the listener assured the sage critic that he had made a most artistic criticism of the statue, and that his auditor would join in every word as to his standard of requirements. Mr. Hunt was aware, he said, that he was talking heresy to the mass of persons who accepted the traditional jargon of the cognoscenti on trust, but in his opinion “the work belongs to the decadence of Roman virtue and vitality, and its merit lies alone in the rendering of a voluptuous being without mind or soul.” If no authorities of equal weight will stand forth in defence of this marble lady, it is to be feared that the famous Venus de Medici will soon be ranked among impostors. The strange part of the matter is that it has taken more than two hundred years to find her out.