In the Middle Kingdom, artists used grids to paint human figures. These grids seem to have been used as a rough guide, rather than as rigid restrictions.
Here is the system they seem to have followed:
- A standing figure should occupy 18 squares from soles to hairline.
- The knee line should be at 1/3 height, in the 6th square up.
- The lower buttock line should be at 1/2 height, in the 9th square up.
- The elbow line should be at 2/3 height, in the 12th square.
- Neck-and-shoulders should be in the 16th square.
- The calf line, between the knee and sole, should be in the 3rd square.
- The nose and lip should be separated by line 17.
- Line 14 should go through the nipple.
- Line 11 should go through the small of the back, for a male figure. For a female figure, line 12.
- The length of a hanging forearm was usually 5 squares from elbow to outstretched finger tips.
- One vertical line ran through the ear, dividing the figure in two.
- Male figures measured 5 squares across at the shoulder at line 15, 4 across (usually) at the armpits, and 2 1/2 or less across at line 11 (the small of the back). Female figures also measured 5 squares across at the shoulders at line 15, but 3 across (usually) at the armpits, and 2 across at the small of the back at line 12.
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