The classical greek sculpture "shows a sort of art that reflects life, which expresses an ideal in the likeness of man and accepts the rule of patterns and proportions." (J. Boardman, Griechische Plastik, Main 1987, p.33)
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Measures and proportions weren't only seen in a quantitative sense by the Greeks:
métron means measure in terms of measurement, but also "the right degree"
in ethical terms; lógos means "proportion" (ratio in numbers and length),
but also "word, sense", that means that in Greek views numbers and their conceptions
made them able to get an insight in the real nature of things. To Platon the human being
is the kind of creature that has "a feeling of order and disorder in its movements which
is called rhythm and harmony." So it is not just about abstract concemption of measurement,
but the organic construction of the whole, primarily of the human body, but also of the
living connection of the human microcosmos e.g. with the temple and finally with the
microcosmos in general. (originally; "decoration", "beautiful order of the whole").
The Greek writer Polyklet (2nd of the 5th century) is said to have explained
in his unfortunately lost book "Canon" (guiding principle): "Beauty is founded
on the ratio of limb, namely of one finger to the other,of all fingers to the
metacarpal and to the wrist, of all of them to the ulna, of the ulna to the
arm and of all bodyparts to all others, as it is written in the "Canon" of Polyklet."
(Galen, Greek doctor, 129 - 199 A.D.)
The
human being as the "measure of all things" (Pythagoras, 480 - 410 BC) was the
role model for the proportions of the Greek temple:"So if you accept, that the
order of numbers is derived from the limbs of human beings and that there exists
symmetry based on the basic measurement (modulus) between the single limbs and
the whole body, the only thing that remains is to appreciate the achievements
of those people, who, when they built the temple, arranged the limbs of their
work in a way, that with the help of proportions and symmetry (correct and beautiful
ratio of measurements) their structure in details as in the whole suited perfectly
together." (Vitruv, de architectura, written since 33 AD, III. book). So the
Greek invented two different kinds of pillars by borrowing the shape of the
human body,one copied from the male body without decoration -naked beauty-,
the other one with female daintiness, female decoration and female shape. "The
Corinthian method of construction "imitates the delicateness, because
virgins seem more graceful in decoration because of the delicateness of their
age and their limbs." (Vitruv, IV. book).
These ideas were discovered again in the architecture of the Renaissance, one
of the most famous architects of the 20th century, Le Corbusier (1887 - 1965,
one of his most popular buildings is the church Notre-Dame du Haut close to
Ronchamps which is located in Burgund, France) tried to recreate a human, that
means based on the physique of the human body, architecture by using the proportions
system of the Golden Section - called "modulor".
the doctor and "mystician" Agrippa von Nettesheim (1486 - 1535)
... portrays the connection between human beings, measurement and cosmos in his picture
of the man in the pentagram surrounded by symbols of planets. in "Occulta Philosophia"
he writes: "the human being is the most beautiful and most perfect work of God,
as an image and as a world in small dimensions, he has a more perfect and more harmonious
physique than all the other creatures and contins all numbers, measurements, weights,
movements, elements, in aword everything, that belongs to his completion and everything
reaches through the human being, the most sublime masterpiece, its perfection,
which all the other bodies do not possess."