Which ancient Greek sculptor wrote the Canon on ideal human proportions?

The ancient Greek sculptor who wrote the Canon on ideal human proportions was Polykleitos.

Active in the fifth century BCE, Polykleitos developed a theory of artistic proportion known as the Canon, or “Rule.” The original treatise has been lost, but later writers describe its central idea: a sculpture should have mathematically related parts arranged in balance and harmony, a principle associated with the Greek term symmetria.

Polykleitos appears to have embodied the theory in a male athlete statue commonly identified with the Doryphoros, or Spear Bearer. The original bronze no longer survives, although Roman marble copies are thought to preserve aspects of its design. The figure’s carefully balanced stance, often described through contrapposto, became an influential model for Classical Greek sculpture.

A common mix-up is confusing Polykleitos’s Canon with later systems of proportion. Lysippos developed a different, more elongated canon, while Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man belongs to the Renaissance and draws on Vitruvius. The exact numerical formula used by Polykleitos remains uncertain because the treatise and original bronze are lost, but his authorship of the Canon is the standard historical attribution.