Classical and Hellenistic Greek Art

The sculptor Polykleitos, active in the mid-fifth century BCE, formulated a theoretical treatise known as the Canon, setting out an ideal system of proportion and symmetry for the human body based on mathematical ratios between its parts. His most celebrated work, the Doryphoros or 'Spear-Bearer', created around 450 to 440 BCE and known today only through later Roman marble copies, since the bronze original is lost, embodies this theory through contrapposto, a naturalistic weight-shift in which the figure's weight rests on one leg while the hip, shoulders, and head counterbalance one another. This innovation replaced the rigid frontality of Archaic sculpture with a convincing sense of the body at rest and in potential motion, a foundational achievement of Classical Greek art.