Are You Square

Are you square, vertical, or horizontal?

First, use your Web browser to look at a drawing called the Vitruvian man.

Leonardo da Vinci made the drawing sometime during the years between 1485 and 1490. Leonardo was a painter, sculptor, scientist, inventor, and technician; his versatility and wide interests reflect what many people find so exciting about the Renaissance period. The drawing represents the combination of science and art that the Renaissance is famous for.

If you study the drawing for a minute, you can see lines around the figure. There's a circle and a square. And if you took the time to measure it, you'd find that the square is exact; each line is the same length.

Now spend a moment looking at how the figure fits inside the square. Where is the top of the man's head and where are the bottom of his feet? Where are his fingertips when his arms go straight out to the sides?

It doesn't take long to see that the man's body fits exactly into the square. His height is exactly the same as the width of his outstretched arms. And that's a big part of Leonardo's ideal: not a square body, but a body that fits into a square.

What about you?

So, are you square? In Leonardo's sense of being square. Or are you, like so many of use, more vertical or more horizontal?

Put into shapes instead of words, which one of these are you?

One Way to Do It

If you can, get someone to help you do this exercise. (But you can do it yourself, too.) These directions are written as if you have some help. Before going any further, get some string and a scissors to cut it with.

1. Hold your arms straight out from your shoulders, just like the figure in Leonardo's drawing. Have your helper stretch the string from one fingertip to the opposite. Then cut the string so you have a piece the length of your arm span.

1. Without shoes on, stand so your helper can use the string to measure your full height, again just like the figure in the drawing. Cut the string so you have a piece equal to your height.

1. Mark each string so you know which is which. Then, compare the length of the two strings.

1. Decide what you will say about your arm span and height: 1) Are they about equal? 2) Is your height more than your arm span? 3) Is your arm span more than your height?

1. Decide whether you are square, vertical, or horizontal.

1. Do a similar thing with at least one other person. First, look at them and guess whether they are square, vertical, or horizontal. Then use string to get their arm span and height.

1. Write a summary of what you found out about yourself and the others you checked out. Explain what you mean by square, vertical, and horizontal using arm span and height to define them.

Keep what you write here and send it to your teacher along with the other summaries you do for this lesson.

If you'd like to see more about Leonardo da Vinci you could try using his name as a search term in a search engine. You can look at a small collection of Leonardo's drawings along with some more information for starters.