ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the theories of human proportions from ancient Egypt to the Renaissance, Erwin Panofsky emphasizes that it was through the science of proportion, and of perspective in particular, that the artists of the Renaissance established that harmonious relationship between man and his environment. Among the secondary themes of Panofsky's Meaning in the Visual Arts, the most important are those concerned with: Human Proportions; Abbot Suger; Titian's Allegory of Prudence; Albrecht Durer and Classical antiquity; and the discipline of art history in the United States. As Panofsky observes, in Egyptian art, for example, the theory of proportions meant almost everything because the subject meant almost nothing. In "The History of the Theory of Human Proportions as a Reflection of the History of Styles", Panofsky examines the theories of human proportions from the Egyptian canons through to those of Vitruvius and Polyclitus, and from the Middle Ages to the time of Albrecht Durer and Leonardo da Vinci.
