The Bottineau Pioneer

Symmetry of Form.

Here is an interesting extract from an article in the New York Mercury regarding tests of measurement indicating symmetry of form:

Art should always be based on nature, and no art is true which does not take nature for its model. A perfect, symmetrical, healthy woman of five feet five inches in height, must comply with the following standard:

She should be 138 pounds at the least, and could stand up to ten pounds more without injury to health or artistic perfection. The distance between the tips of her two middle fingers when the arms are extended should be exactly the same as the height, or ten times the length of her hand, or seven and a half times the length of her foot, or five times the diameter of her chest from one arm-pit to the other. The distance from the junction of thighs to the ground should be the same as from the former point to the top of the head. The knee should be exactly midway from the junction of the thighs to the bottom of the heel. The distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger should be the same as from the elbow to the middle line of the chest. From the top of the head to the chin, with the head posed naturally, should be the same as from the level of the chin to the tip of the large toe. The bust of a woman of the height named should be forty-three inches measurement over the arms, and the waist twenty-four. The upper part of the arm should be from thirteen and a half to fourteen inches and the wrist six inches. The ankle should be six inches, and the calf of the leg fourteen and the thigh twenty-five.