Chapter 5　Standing Naturally

When I used to recite poetry at school assemblies, I stood like an Egyptian statue of Rameses-hands straight down at my sides and feet close together, flat on the floor.

“Stiff as a poker，”my teacher used to say.“Can't you stand more naturally?Put one foot behind the other！”

So I stood like the wooden statue of the Schoolmaster of Boulac, but still with my feet flat on the floor. That was the best that I could do to be natural and that seemed to be the best that sculptors could do with their standing statues-until a Greek named Polyclitus came along.

Polyclitus made a statue of an athlete called The Spear Bearer. It was the first statue to have an easy, natural standing position with the weight resting on one leg and one foot behind the other.Polyclitus did this by placing a small wedge beneath the athlete's heel to help hold the leg up in the correct position and to give his leg and the whole statue the support it needed.The Greeks called The Spear Bearer the ideal figure because he was perfectly proportioned, and other sculptors used the statue as a pattern and copied its proportions in the statues they made.Indeed, live athletes tried, with exercise, to make their own chests and legs and arms the same size as those of The Spear Bearer.