Beauty

Winckelmann as little understands this great man"s object, when, after saying, "As the ancients made ideal beauty their princ.i.p.al study, they determined its relations and proportions," he adds "from which, however, they allowed themselves to deviate, when they had a good reason, and yielded themselves to the guidance of their genius." Why, the whole purpose of the rule sought for was to regulate every possible deviation, as will now be seen.

The harmonic method of the Greeks--that measure which Leonardo calls the "true proportion"--"the proportion of an individual in regard to himself"--"which should be different in all the individuals of a species,"

but in which "all the parts of any animal should correspond with the whole," which const.i.tutes "the harmony of the parts of an individual," and which, as Bossi adds, "varies in every figure, according to the age, circ.u.mstances, and particular character of each"--in short, _this method for the harmony of parts in each distinct individual--this method presenting rules, perfectly precise, and yet infinitely variable_, has, in all its elements, been clearly laid before the reader (though not enunciated as a rule)--in the relative proportions of the locomotive, nutritive, and thinking systems, or, generally speaking, of the limbs, trunk, and head, and in the three species of beauty which are founded on them.

These, it is evident, present to the philosophic observer, the sole means of judging of beauty by harmonic rule, the great object of Leonardo da Vinci"s desires and regrets. They present the great features of the Greek method--if that method conformed to truth and nature, as it undoubtedly did. This will be rendered still clearer by a single example.

Thus, if any individual be characterized by the development of the nutritive system, this harmonic rule of nature demands not only that, as in the Saxon-English, the Dutch, and many Germans, the trunk shall be large, but consequently, that the other two portions, the head and the limbs, shall be relatively small; that the calvarium shall be small and round, and the intellectual powers restricted; that the head shall, nevertheless, be broad, because the vital cavities of the head are large, and because large jaws and muscles of mastication are necessary for the supply of such a system; that the neck shall be short, because the locomotive system is little developed; that it shall be thick, because the vessels which connect the head to the trunk are large and full, the former being only an appendage of the latter; that the lower limbs shall be both short and slender; that the calves of the legs shall be small and high;[45] that the feet shall be little turned out, &c., &c.

So also, if any individual be characterized by the development of the locomotive system, the harmonic rule demands, not only that the limbs shall be large, but, consequently, that the other two portions, the head and the trunk, shall be relatively small; that the calvarium shall be small and long, and the intellectual powers limited; that the head shall be long, because the jaws and their muscles are extended, &c., &c.

So likewise, if any individual be characterized by the development of the thinking system, the harmonic rule demands, not only that the head shall be large, but, consequently, that the other two portions, the trunk and limbs, shall be relatively small; that the head shall not only be large, but that its upper part, the calvarium, shall be largest, giving a pyramidal appearance to the head; that the trunk and limbs, however elegantly formed, shall be relatively feeble, the former often liable to disease, the latter to accident, as we have seen in the most ill.u.s.trious examples, &c., &c.

It must be borne in mind, however, as already explained, that there may be innumerable combinations and modifications of these characteristics; certain greater ones, nevertheless, generally predominating.

Such, doubtless, was the harmonic method of the Greeks; whether, by them, it was thus clearly founded on anthropology, or not.

It is curious that several writers, and Winckelmann among the rest, should have adopted a triple division of the body--without, however, duly founding it in anthropology. Thus Winckelmann says "the entire body is divided into three parts, and the princ.i.p.al members are also divided into three. The parts of the body are the trunk, the thighs, and the legs!"--a distribution and division founded neither in nature nor in truth.

That the Greeks were more or less aware of the principles here stated, though their writings have not descended to us, is proved by their idealizations founded upon them.

"If different proportions," says Winckelmann, "are sometimes met with in any figure, as for example, in the beautiful trunk of a naked female figure in the possession of Signior Cavaceppi at Rome, in which the body from the navel to the s.e.xual parts is of an uncommon length, it is most probable that such figures have been copied from nature, that is, from persons so formed."--Nothing certainly would be better founded in natural tendency than such idealization.

All the three Greek methods of proportion being now before the reader, I must briefly notice other circ.u.mstances.

In the head in particular, may be observed CHARACTER, or a permanent and invariable form, which defines its capabilities, and EXPRESSION, or temporary and variable forms, which indicate its actual functions.

The teachers of anatomy for artists have not, that I know of, clearly described the causes of these. I may therefore observe, that as character is permanent and invariable, it depends _fundamentally_ on permanent and invariable parts--the bones; and as expression is temporary and variable, it depends on shifting and variable parts--the muscles.

It is well observed by Mengs that, in relation to character, "the peculiar distinction of the ancients is, that from one part of the face, we may know the character of the whole." And, of expression, Winckelmann observes that "the portion which possesses beauty of expression or action, or beauty of both added to the figure of any person, is like the resemblance of one who views himself in a fountain; the reflection is not seen plainly unless the surface of the water be still, limpid, and clear; quiet and tranquillity are as suitable to beauty as to the sea. Expression and action being, in art as in nature, the evidence of the active or pa.s.sive state of the mind, perfect beauty can never exist in the countenance unless the mind be calm and free from all agitation, at least from everything likely to change and disturb the lineaments of which beauty is composed."

Now the details which, during the period of perfection in art, were so skilfully employed, were these very means of expression or circ.u.mstances attending and indicating them--minuter forms which are universal, and without which nature is imperfectly represented--minuter forms of the highest order, because the means of expressing intellect, emotion, and pa.s.sion, if required.

These higher details we find, for instance, in the turn of the inner end of the eyebrow, or constriction and elevation of the under eyelid, or a hundred other traits dependant on subjacent muscles. We find them in slight risings of mere cutaneous parts, when they lie over and are elevated by the attachment of muscles, as at the inner angles of the eyes, the corners of the mouth, and elsewhere. We find them in depressions or furrows, when they are drawn down by contiguous muscles.

These are of higher character, because they belong to expression or its means; and there is a corresponding want of completeness, of truth, of nature, without them.

Between these intellectual means, these higher details, and those of a lower order, accidental details, the great artists of Greece distinguished. Accidental details have nothing to do with expression or the means of expression; they depend upon an inferior system, that merely of life, and const.i.tute all the depositions, excrescences, and growths, which confuse the vision of the inexperienced, and embarra.s.s that of the most discriminating, in the examination of higher beauty.

These lower details we find, for instance, in the puffings of adipose substance which project from the s.p.a.ces between the muscles of the face, and from other accidents of the vital system, as wrinkles or folds from the absence of adipose substance, fulness or emptiness of the vessels, projecting veins, peculiar conditions of the skin, turbidity of the eyes, hairs of the head, beard, or skin, &c. These have always characterized inferior artists and inferior periods of art.

From these observations, it will be seen that such unqualified statements as the following by Azara, lead only to misconception: "A human face, for example, is composed of the forehead, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, mouth, chin, and beard. These are the great parts; but each of these contains many other minor parts, which also contain an infinity of others still less. If the painter will content himself to express well the great parts which I have taken notice of, he will have a grand style; if he depicts also the second, his style will be that of mediocrity; and if he pretends to introduce the last, his style will be insignificant and ridiculous."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GREEK IDEAL BEAUTY.

On this important doctrine of art, of which Winckelmann says: "The ideal is as much more n.o.ble than the mechanical as the mind is superior to the body," I shall follow, so far as I can advantageously, the great writers on this subject, in order that the reader may have all the confidence in its recognised portions that authority can bestow, and that he may the better distinguish them from the new views which are here added.

"There are," says Winckelmann, "two kinds of beauty, individual and ideal: the former is a combination of the beauties of an individual; the latter, a selection of beautiful parts from several.

"The formation of beauty was begun from some beautiful individual, that is, from the imitation of some beautiful person, as in the representation of some divinity. Even in the ages when the arts were flourishing, the G.o.ddesses were formed from the models of beautiful women, and even from those who publicly sold their charms: such was Theodota, of whom Xenophon speaks. Nor was any one scandalized at it, for the opinion of the ancients on these matters was very different from ours."

Winckelmann adds: "There is rarely or never, a body without fault, all the parts of which are such that it is impossible to find or draw them more perfect in other persons. The wisest artists, being aware of this ... did not confine themselves to copying the forms of beauty from one individual ... but seeking what is beautiful from various objects, they endeavored to combine them together, as the celebrated Parrhasius says in his discourse with Socrates. Thus, in the formation of their figures, they were not guided by any personal affections, by which we are frequently led, in the pursuit of beauty that pleases us, to abandon true beauty.

"From the selection of the most beautiful parts and their harmonious union in one figure, arises ideal beauty: nor is this a metaphysical idea, because all the portions of the human figure taken separately are not ideal; but merely the entire figure." And he elsewhere says: "It is called ideal, not as regards its parts, but as a whole, in which nature can be surpa.s.sed by art."

With deeper observation still, he adds that, "though nature tends to perfection in the formation of individuals, yet she is so constantly thwarted by the numerous accidents to which humanity is subject, that she cannot attain the end proposed; so that it is in a manner impossible to find an individual in whom all parts of the body are perfectly beautiful."

It was to the same purport that Proclus had in ancient times said: "He who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never attain to what is perfectly beautiful. For the works of nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of the true standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight, but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer"s description."[46]

In short, while the Greek artists perpetually studied nature, they discovered her best and highest tendencies even in her most perfect forms; their works accordingly present nothing foreign to that which is strictly beautiful; they present not only no inferior forms, but no idle ornaments; and everything in them is accordingly at once simple and sublime.

Barry[47] affords me the means of continuing the view I now wish to present. "In all individuals," he says, "of every species, there is necessarily a visible tendency to a certain point or form. In this point or form, the standard of each species rests. The deviations from this, either by excess or deficiency, are of two kinds: first, deviations indicating a more peculiar adaptation of certain characters of advantage and utility, such as strength, agility, and so forth; even mental as well as corporeal, since they sometimes result from habit and education, as well as from original conformation. In these deviations, are to be found those ingredients which, in their composition and union, exhibit the abstract or ideal perfection in the several cla.s.ses or species of character. The second kind of deviation is that which, having no reference to anything useful or advantageous, but rather visibly indicating the contrary, as being useless, c.u.mbersome, or deficient, is considered as deformity; and this deformity will be always found different in the several individuals, by either not being in the same part, in the same manner, or in the same degree. The points of agreement which indicate the species, are therefore many; of difference which indicate the deformity, few."

Barry, however, wrongly says: "Mere beauty, then, though always interesting, is, notwithstanding, vague and indeterminate; as it indicates no particular expression either of body or mind." But it indicates the highest character, the capability of all n.o.ble expression, and this is better than its sacrifice to actuality in one.

I am now led to the greater rules which their ideal method suggested to the Greeks. Payne Knight indeed says: "Precise rules and definitions, in matters of this sort, are merely the playthings or tools of system-builders;" and, unchecked by any recollection of the practical and unrivalled excellence of the founders of these rules, he adds a great deal of narrow-minded and mistaken nonsense upon the subject, never distinguishing between rules in themselves rational, and the stretching of them to utter inapplicability. On this subject, even Reynolds properly observes, that "some of the greatest names of antiquity, and those who have most distinguished themselves in works of genius and imagination, were equally eminent for their critical skill. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, and Horace; and among the moderns, Boileau, Corneille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius not being destroyed by attention or subjection to rules and science."

But the grossest errors on this subject have been committed by Alison, who says: "Artists, in every age, have taken pains to ascertain the most exact measurement of the human form, and of all its parts.... If the beauty of form consisted in any original proportion, the productions of the fine arts would everywhere have testified it; and, in the works of the statuary and the painter, we should have found only this sole and sacred system of proportion. The fact however is, as every one knows, that, in such productions, no such rule is observed; that there is no one proportion of parts which belongs to the most beautiful productions of these arts; that the proportions of the Apollo, for instance, are different from those of the Hercules, the Antinous, the Gladiator, &c.; and that there are not, in the whole catalogue of ancient statues, two, perhaps, of which the proportions are actually the same."

Now, I believe, we may say that this original or most perfect proportion is presented in the Apollo, which is not, as generally supposed, an example of _peculiar_, but of _universal_ beauty--the locomotive system presenting as much strength as is compatible with agility, and as much agility as is compatible with strength, and any other modification of either ensuring diminution of power; while the vital and mental systems are equally perfect. Wherever this model is deviated from by the ancient artists it is _peculiar_ beauty, I believe, that is represented.

He farther says: "They have imagined also various standards of this measurement; and many disputes have arisen, whether the length of the head, of the foot, or of the nose, was to be considered as this central and sacred standard. Of such questions and such disputes, it is not possible to speak with seriousness, when they occur in the present times."

So also Burke says: "It must be likewise shown, that these parts stand in such a relation to each other, that the comparison between them may be easily made, and that the affection of the mind may naturally result from it."

Now, no man in his senses ever cared which of these measures was adopted, except as a matter of convenience, or ever imagined that peculiar virtue resided in any of them.

The following are some of the princ.i.p.al rules which either by intuition or with due definition, resulted from and guided the practice of the ancient Greeks.

First, in regard to the THINKING SYSTEM, when the ancient artists, either from taste or from principle, gave greater opening to the facial angle than eighty degrees, they believed that an increase of intelligence corresponded to that conformation. By increasing the angle beyond eighty-five degrees, they impressed upon their figures the grandest character, as we see in the heads of the Apollo, the Venus, and others whose facial angle extends to or exceeds ninety degrees.

In regard to _the forehead_, then, this afforded their rule for distinguishing beings of a superior kind. How well they observed the tendency of nature to increase that angle with the increase of some of the thinking faculties, we now know. This ideal rule was, therefore, admirably founded.

Whoever reflects on the nature of this angle will perceive that its increase tended nowise to raise the forehead, but to throw it forward, and therefore to lengthen the head. This conforms to the metaphor by which a _long head_ is used for a _wise head_, and which has not yet given place to a _broad head_, preferred by the German craniologists, in compliment to their own organization.

With regard to the height of the forehead, it has already been observed that it was, among the ancient Greeks, more considerable than its breadth, as may be seen by the busts of their most ill.u.s.trious men. Still, neither the natural nor the ideal forehead much exceeded the s.p.a.ce from the forehead to the bottom of the nose, or that from the nose to the bottom of the chin.

Winckelmann accordingly says: "The forehead to be beautiful should be low [meaning, as his expressions elsewhere show, no higher than the other two s.p.a.ces just mentioned]; and its lowness was so fixed among the ideas of beauty by the Grecian artists, that it serves as a mark to distinguish modern heads from ancient. The reason of this appears founded in the very rules of proportion, which, as in the whole human body, was among the ancients tripart.i.te: thus, the face also was divided into three parts; so that the forehead should be of the same length as the nose, and the remainder of the face to the chin of the same length likewise. This proportion was founded on observation, and we may at any time convince ourselves of it in any individual with a low forehead, by covering with a finger the hair at the top of the forehead, so as to render it so much higher, and we shall then see a want of harmony of proportion and how detrimental a high forehead is to beauty."

These views of Winckelmann, the ideal rule which they ill.u.s.trate, and, above all, the actual dimension of the forehead among the philosophers, the poets, and the legislators of Greece, whose genius has been unequalled in modern times, show the folly of the craniological hypothesis. The reason of the ideal rule has not, indeed, been a.s.signed: it appears to me to be this, that the three parts of the face which, as I have shown both here and in my work on physiognomy, are respectively connected with ideas, emotions, and pa.s.sions, should be equal one to another, or that these acts of the organs of sense and brain should be in due proportion and harmony. While, therefore, I do not, with the craniologists, seek the predominance of any one of them, neither do I, with Giovani de Laet, take no notice of the s.p.a.ce between the top of the head and the commencement of the forehead, and say this part is not to be considered in the height of a man, _quia pars excrementosa est_!

Their next rule regarded the form of _the nose_, in nearly the same line with the forehead, and with little indentation between these parts.

The foundation of this rule I have not seen pointed out; and it was indeed difficult of discovery, without previous knowledge of the physiological fact first mentioned in my physiognomical work, namely, that the nose is the inlet of vital emotion or pleasure, as the eye is of mental emotion; while the pa.s.sions connected with nutrition and thought respectively, depend upon other organs, the mouth and the ear. Anatomists know how closely a.s.sociated are the nose and the eyes, and the mouth and the ears, respectively.

Now, as in these ideal representations, their object was to increase the means of emotion, but not those of pa.s.sion, the organs of the former, the nose and the eyes, were all, at the same time, enlarged by raising the junction of the forehead and the nose; while those of pa.s.sion, the mouth and the ears, were relatively decreased. Not only was the pa.s.sage of nose or of the olfactory nerves to the brain strikingly dilated by this elevation of the intermediate part, but the orbits of the eyes were enlarged. As then we naturally a.s.sociate the increase of organs with the increase of their sensations and with corresponding effects upon the brain, and as the tendency to such configuration is as conspicuous in the countries they inhabited, as is the energy of the emotions with which they are connected, this rule was as admirably founded as the former in natural tendencies.