Editing Hierarchical proportion (section)

{{Short description|Art technique in sculpture and painting}}
[[File:TombofNebamun-2.jpg|thumb|[[Nebamun]] hunting birds in the marshes using cats, fragment of a scene from the [[Tomb of Nebamun|tomb-chapel of Nebamun]], [[Thebes, Egypt|Thebes]], [[Egypt]]
Late [[Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt|18th Dynasty]], around 1350 BC.<ref name="British MuseumNebamun" />]]
'''Hierarchical proportion''' is a technique used in art, mostly in [[sculpture]] and [[painting]], in which the artist uses unnatural [[Body proportions|proportion]] or [[scale (ratio)|scale]] to depict the relative importance of the figures in the artwork.

For example, in [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] times, people of higher status would sometimes be drawn or sculpted larger than those of lower status.

During the [[Early Middle Ages|Dark Ages]], people with more status had larger proportions than serfs. During the Renaissance images of the human body began to change, as proportion was used to depict the reality an artist interpreted.