Leonardo's Vitruvian Man
c. 1490 · Work
A pen-and-ink man stands inside a circle and a square, arms and legs doubled, testing the Roman architect Vitruvius's claim that the human body holds architecture's ideal proportions. Never meant for display and now too fragile to show for more than weeks at a time, the drawing became the Renaissance's logo: man as the measure of all things.
On these timelines: Painting & Sculpture, Renaissance, Arts and Thoughts, Master, Italy (post-476 CE)
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Around 1490
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