Xenophon

Memorabilia (work of the fouth century B.C. that reports conversations of Sokrates): Sokrates to sculptor Kleiton: "Then is it not by accurately representing the different parts of the body as they are affected by the pose—the flesh wrinkled or tense, the limbs compressed or outstretched, the muscles taut or loose—that you make them look more like real members and more convincing?" J.J. Pollitt, Art of Greece (1965) p. 92: Philo Mechanicus, Syntaxis 4.1, p. 49, 20 (work of 2nd century B.C.) The statement made by the sculptor Polykleitos may be suitably repeated for the future. For "perfection," he says, "arises para mikron (meaning "almost"?) through many numbers." Indeed it happens in the same manner in that art [sculpture] that, in finishing off works through many numbers [measurements], they make a slight deviation in each part and in the end these add up to a large error.