Polykleitos, Doryphoros (Spear-Bearer)

Roman marble copy after Greek original by
Polykleitos, ca. 450 BC (“classical period’)

--also known as “the Canon of Proportion”

--shows ideal athletic body

--uses ideal mathematical proportions (7 heads to the body)—different
from Egyptian proportions, more natural

--uses contrapposto—a pose with one leg forward, which naturally throws the
hips into a slanted relationship to each other, and raises the back heel slightly off the ground—contrapposto looks (and feels!) more relaxed than Egyptian pose

--no longer a “closed-form” sculpture—now “open-form” with natural spaces
and limbs extending into space away from the block of the body