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In attempting to identify a given statue as the copy of a work by this or that master, certain well-known canons of proportion, which were taught and practiced by various Greek sculptors and schools, must be taken into consideration.

Fig. 4.—Bronze Head of an Olympic Victor, from Herculaneum. Museum of Naples.

Greek art may, like Greek philosophy and poetry, be summarized under the names of three qualities which constantly occur in classical literature—συμμετρία, εὐρυθμία or ῥυθμός, and ἀναλογία.575 Symmetry may be defined as “that technical regard for the placing of the parts to the best advantage,” the symmetrical arrangement of the parts of a statue or group of figures.576 Rhythm, following Vitruvius,577 is that tertium quid which is indispensable to true art. Analogy (Latin proportio)578 refers to the measured ratio of part to part in any given work of art, whether in architecture, painting, or sculpture. Most scholars nowadays interpret symmetry and analogy as the same thing. Pliny579 says that symmetria has no Latin equivalent, and in several passages580 keeps the Greek word, as does Vitruvius. Here Otto Jahn rightly says proportio or commensus would have adequately translated it.581 P. Gardner explains the word properly as “the proportion of one part of the body as measured against another.”582 Brunn held that, as symmetry was the relation of part to part in a statue at rest, rhythm expressed this relationship in one represented in motion.583 The simplest illustration of rhythm is seen in walking: when the right foot is advanced the left arm swings out in rhythm, and so the balance of the body is kept. Rhythm, therefore, has to do with balance in motion, and may refer equally to cadence in poetry and music and to movement in sculpture. An excellent example in sculpture is afforded by Myron’s Diskobolos (Pls. 21, 22, and Figs. 34, 35), while the balancing of figures on many Greek reliefs—especially on Attic funerary stelæ—illustrates symmetry (cf. Fig. 75). Pliny characterizes certain artists by their success in effecting symmetry and rhythm. Thus Myron surpassed Polykleitos in being more rhythmic and in paying more attention to symmetry.584 He says that Lysippos most diligently preserved symmetry by bringing unthought-of innovations into the square canon of earlier artists.585 Parrhasios was the first to introduce symmetry into painting.586 Diogenes Laertios says that the sculptor Pythagoras was the first to aim at rhythm as well as symmetry.587 In all such passages it is clear that canons of proportion are meant.