Body proportions

This article is about proportions of the human body in art. For medical use, see body shape. For the wider topic of body measurement, see anthropometry. For fashion and dress, see clothing sizes.
Madonna with the Long Neck, c. 1534–1540, by Parmigianino. As in other Mannerist works, the proportions of the body – here the neck – are exaggerated for artistic effect.

Body proportions is the study of artistic anatomy, which attempts to explore the relation of the elements of the human body to each other and to the whole. These ratios are used in depictions of the human figure and may become part of an artistic canon of body proportion within a culture. Academic art of the nineteenth century demanded close adherence to these reference metrics and some artists in the early twentieth century rejected those constraints and consciously mutated them.