Proportion

How it is used

Teachers say a figure is in proportion or out of proportion. Classical artists worked with ideal proportions, such as a body about seven or eight heads tall, while Mannerist painters stretched them. The plural is used for overall sizes: the proportions of a room.

Example sentences

1. The legs are too short; check the proportions against the model again.

2. Leonardo's Vitruvian Man is a study of ideal human proportions.

Common collocations

• in proportion
• out of proportion
• ideal proportions
• human proportions
• sense of proportion

Related terms

• compositionThe way the parts of an artwork, such as figures, shapes, colours and empty spaces, are arranged within the picture or space.
• foreshorteningA drawing technique that makes an object or a part of the body pointing towards the viewer look shorter, so that it seems to come out of the picture in depth.
• life drawingDrawing the human figure from a live model, often nude, who poses in a studio; also a class where this is practised.
• perspectiveA method of showing depth and distance on a flat surface, for example by making parallel lines meet at a point and painting distant things smaller.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

• proportion · Architecture
• proportion · Interior Design

More terms: Visual Elements & Composition

• palette
• foreground
• contrast
• texture
• chiaroscuro
• vanishing point
• focal point