Contrapposto (Italian: 'counterpoise') describes the stance in which a figure's weight rests on one leg, causing the hips and shoulders to tilt in opposite directions — the natural stance of a relaxed human body. The ancient Greeks discovered it around 480 BCE, and it transformed sculpture instantly. Before contrapposto, figures stood rigidly frontal (the 'kouros' pose, borrowed from Egypt). After, they turned, twisted, breathed. Polyclitus codified the ideal proportions in his lost treatise Kanon; his Doryphoros (Spear Bearer) is the textbook example. Michelangelo's David uses contrapposto at monumental scale: he stands still but seems coiled. The pose migrated from sculpture into painting and became the default grammar of the human body in Western art.