It is well-nigh impossible to generalise about the form of so varying a feature as the nose ; but after studying its anatomy it would be well to consider it in its relation to the mouth, noting particularly in the construction of that part of the face that the centre of thé upper lip falls, whichever way the head is turned, under the centre of the nose, and that the central marking between the two cushions of the lower lip lies under the central dip of the upper.

Plate XV. shows two views of the mouth in what is usually a difficult foreshortened aspect of the feature to realise.

The beginner should take care to avoid the all too frequent error of drawing on the three quarter face a nose seen too much in profile.

All solid masses have their "beyond." The [48] power to make one realise that there are planes unseen is of the very essence of good draughtsmanship, and in this connection I would draw your attention to the need of care to trace the flow of all lines that are intercepted.

XV.

XVI.

[49]

CHAPTER IV

CHARACTERISATION

ARTISTICALLY speaking, it may be said that the perfectly symmetrical head is lacking in "character."

The oval face ; the dual features the counterpart of each other ; the measurement from the top of the head to the brows, from the brows to the base of the nose, from the base of the nose to the end of the chin, which are all fairly equal in length ; the bow-shaped mouth ; the eyes parted by the length of one eye, and so on, would constitute a symmetrical head.

Although some such standard of measurement and regularity, both of the face and in a similar way of the body, might serve the ends of the painter and sculptor of cold classic figures and certain decorative schemes, they can only help the painter who is a student of nature as so many points of departure, for you will rarely find in real life anything approaching the regularity of the classic figures. Still, underlying all our personal observations, there is a consciousness more or less developed of the " perfect," for when we talk of a man with a long nose, of a woman [50] with a short aristocratic upper lip, of a lean person or a short-limbed one, we are, perhaps unconsciously but no less certainly, comparing these features and characteristics with a set symmetrical standard of which we are conscious, and it is the variations from the standard-let it be of a leaf, of a hand, or of a face-that make for character.

The characteristics here instanced are obvious to the least discerning, but it is not only with the obvious that the painter has to deal. There would be little need to draw attention to that which is observed without effort, even though it may be hard enough to reproduce ; but there are subtle variations that escape the untrained eye, and others with which the uninitiated have become so familiar as to let them pass unnoticed.

It is a revelation to such, when looking in the glass at the same time as another person, to see how dreadfully distorted the apparently regular face of that other becomes in the reflection ; and by glass I don't mean a concave or convex looking-glass, but a perfectly level and true one. The fact is, we see that face in a new and unaccustomed aspect, reversed as it is in the mirror, which at the first blush makes it seem to be a caricature, but which in reality is not at all a caricature but the well-defined characteristics of that face.

It is well-nigh impossible, unaided by the glass, to discern, or reproduce, with any pretence at [51] fidelity, the subtleties of a form which we wish to realise. Reference to the hand-glass through which the model and the drawing can be seen at the same glance cannot be made too frequently, and we must make certain that the characteristics of the one tally with those of the other.

There are portrait-painters who flatter their sitters by endeavouring to regularise their irregular features. Are those painters sufficiently conscious of the existing characteristics ? For they certainly do not seem conscious of what might well be taken as an axiom, that in proportion as we depart from Nature we court a weakening of results.

A serious artist is not affected by a demand for the pretty-pretty.

Proportion is the chief factor in the making of individuality, and this is clearly seen in those large photographic groups of schools and crowded collections of people where the individual heads are sometimes not larger than a small pea and are still easily identified. Subtleties of drawing or light and shade can hardly affect the heads so reduced, so that obviously the individuality of each head is almost entirely due to the relative proportions of the features.

The study of Lavater or later physiognomists has its uses ; but a short list of traits culled from personal observation may help you to recognise some of the signs that denote strength, weakness, &c., in a head or face.

[52]The eyes set wide apart denote breadth of view. When close together they give a mean look to the face; and when deep set they are contemplative.

The ear will be seen set well back in the head in nearly all really intellectually strong men.

Great bulk of jaw, when matched with a well-developed forehead, implies imagination and constructive ability ; but when not balanced by these signs of mental development it may indicate brutality and animalism.

Sweetness of character is to be discovered in the muscles running under the eye and over the cheek-bone ; and the mouth, perhaps more than any other part of the face, is indicative of refinement or the reverse.

Personal observation will enable you to add to this short list of examples, for in these days of tube saloon carriages the student has endless opportunities of comparing types and adding to his store of the knowledge of human nature and the facial indices of character and expression. Sir Joshua Reynolds says so wisely " that the eye sees no more than it knows," and we take no more from the world than we take into it. Accordingly, to discern the finer characteristics, we must ourselves reach a degree of refinement, or we shall fail to recognise it in others.

The expression of the intellectually strong or the sympathetically sweet will be, as it were, over our heads if we are unable to share with the [53] intellectual some of their strength, with the sympathetic some of their sympathy.

I have not seen it advanced elsewhere, but personally I have noticed this peculiarity in almost all faces-and even slightly marked in the faces of children : that the eyes run down either on the right or the left and that the mouth runs up towards the lower eye.

You will rarely see the eyes and mouth sloping the same way.