PHYSIOGNOMY.
.DRAWING and painting, it is probable, originated in shades,'" said the great physiognomist of the eighteenth century, Lavater. He delighted in the study of silhouettes, and believed that these dark representations of the human profile threw light on human character. After reading Mr. Desmond Coke's charming new book, The Art of Silhouette (Martin Seeker, 10s. 6d. net), and gazing at the beautiful "shades" wherewith it is illustrated, we begin at least to see what Lavater meant. One of Mr. Coke's silhouettists said of his own wares that the public would find in them "the most forcible expression of animation that can possibly be obtained by such mode of representing the human countenance." His words are true of all the "shades" here reproduced for us. They are real portraits. Had we never seen a photograph we could have agreed with another artist in silhouette—a lady—who urges upon all parents about to be parted from their children the necessity of taking with them wherever they may go silhouette likenesses of their sons and daughters. "Assisted by her art," she assures them, parents "may see their offspring in any part of the terraqueous globe."
Profiles are apt to disappoint the sitter. According to our author, however, they should be perpetuated, and "it is every man's plain duty to see his profile once." Well, the art is reviving. As we take our walks abroad in London we are invited to walk into a shop and come out again with our profiles in our pockets. But we are going too fast. We are forgetting an axiom which our author sets down for us in italics, "The best silhouettists never touched a pair of scissors." The early silhouettists, those of the eighteenth century—Miers, Mrs. Beetham, Rosenberg, and Charles— were really miniaturists who, drawing profiles with the help of a shadow, worked long and minutely upon the portraits they produced. In the early Victorian era the art degenerated. Among the " scissorgraphists " Edouart was the best. One or two specimens of his work here given are extraordinarily striking. They are full lengths, and suggest the gait of the model in a manner which excites all our admiration ; but for the most part the later silhouettists produced little that is worth preserving—mere "wooden-looking cut-outs "—so our author calls them. If anyone is inclined to doubt that it is possible to study character from one of Mr. Coke's ancient shades, he has only to turn to the portrait of Pope Pius VI. which faces page 160 and to the charming representation of a young woman with a turned-up nose and parted lips under a spoon-shaped bonnet opposite to page 36. We can almost flirt with her silhouette! We long to know what Lavater would have said about her, what qualities he would have found in that nose and mouth, those eyelashes and that forehead. He was a grave man, and we suppose he would not have considered the very becoming bat as a feature of character. Lavater bated an "authoritative nose" in woman. It was rare, he admitted, and stood for rare qualities, all of them bad. It suggested to him "the wretched pride of their silence" and "their incurable hate." Does such a nose turn up or down ? Opinions will differ. Lavater does not say. He believed his powers of judging women by their features to be ices than his power of judging men. The "female part of the human race" interests him little. "Any man of the world must know more of them than I can pretend to know," he says. "My opportunities of seeing them at the theatre, at balls, or at the card table, where they best may be studied, have been exceedingly few." Is this extraordinary statement to be interpreted as withering scorn, or what are we to make of it? "In my youth I almost avoided women, and was never in love," he concludes. All the same, his imagination becomes very lively as he con templates a feminine "shade." Here is his interpretation of a silhouette whose black representation makes upon the reader no impression but one of extreme bluntness. A low forehead, snub nose, and square chin confronts him. This is what Lavater saw in these dull features :
" No geniality here but the mildest, most maidenly, circumspection ; attention, civility, obedience, simplicity ; no productive powers of mind : no heroism ; but patience employed on self. A desire not to inform but to be informed. More passive than active; more good sense than flight of fancy, or frolicksome wit." From this we should gather that our physiognomist liked dull women, but for all that he believed in their intelligence and in their capacity for transmitting it. " When the father is considerably stupid, and the mother exceedingly the reverse, then will most of the children be endued with extraordinary understanding," he assures us. Of the judgment of women he has, however, no opinion. The intelligent ones incline always to fanaticism, specially religious fanaticism, he thinks. Not that he would have them sceptical. A sceptical woman is
" raging and monstrous." On the whole, he concludes, the acme of desirability in feminine character is that she should be "oil to the vinegar of man." The features which best conduce to this end he describes at such lengths and with so many exceptions, modifications, and circumlocutions that we are fain to give up reading in despair. One or two of his favourite phrases are striking. When he says of a woman's face that its owner is sweet-witted, be says something we can all understand. A sweet-witted woman is charming indeed. Lavater would give her blue eyes and a forehead approaching to the Greek, but we all know her under every kind of physiognomical disguise. He likes brown eyes in a man and blue in a woman and green in nobody, and in these three tastes a vast number of people will agree with
him. Colouring, however, cannot be even suggested by "shades," but Lavater's imagination can supply even that. A certain conformation of features necessitates a certain colouring, he thinks. Here is a masculine shade portrait to set over against the lady who was more circumspect than
genial. The silhouette would suggest a philosopher—broadheaded and rather benevolent.
"Mild complaisance, forbearance, mature consideration, calm activity, composure, sound understanding, power of thought., discerning attention, secretly active friendship, are the decisive traits of this, to me, well-known original ; all of which, if they are not instantaneously discoverable, will be seen as soon as mentioned. No section of the outline contains anything contradictory to this judgment. The forehead and back of the head are, of themselves, decisive of calm consideration and discretion. Benevolence and tranquillity are universal; particularly in the under parts. One of the most faithful, calm, cheerful, and most contented of men. Alike happy and satisfied with his congregation as with his garden, cultivated by himself, for his own use, and that of his friends." A charming old clergyman truly ! Would there were more such ! We do not see the traits "as soon as mentioned," but
we like to hear about them. We are all in our measure students of physiognomy. We think we judge most of our acquaintance by their faces. But do we ? Something goes out from them to us which produces antagonism or sympathy, and we see, or think we see, the record of that influence in the face. Lavater thought physiognomy was an exact science, and there he was probably wrong. We very much doubt whether after half a lifetime of thinking about straight and high foreheads, long and short noses, firm and slack mouths, pointed and angular chins, blue and green eyes, curly and flat hair, he became a better judge of character than he was before he troubled to pick to pieces the looks of his friends and acquaintances. .Every now and then he forgets his own rules and generalizes from a single enemy, just as we all do. Avoid "large bulky persons with small eyes," he says. Again he warns us against "an oblique, contemptuous laugh." It sounds horrid, but we do not feel sure we should recognize it if we heard it. Probably his tabulations and his innumerable drawings and "shades" left him very much where he was. The student who turns over his book—a book, it must be remembered, which Goethe regarded as of great importance—can make little out of what seem at first sight very poor caricatures of faces, alternating with "shades" of a kind which might, indeed, be described as "wooden-looking cut-outs." Nevertheless, in the main he .muset have been right. Greek thought
cannot accompany a negro profile. A sage cannot look like an idiot, nor a Madonna like a scold. "Whatever is in the mind is communicated to the mouth," we read, and we think this is the truest of Lavater's dogmas. The mouth tells more than the eyes. From the impression made by the sum of the features much can be gathered, but it is almost impossible to lay down any rule with regard to the significance of their individual shape. We get lost in a crowd of exceptions. The personality is expressed in the face in most cases, but all of us know and love—or hate—a few very wooden-looking people, from whose appearance nothing is to he judged. Again, it is impossible to forget that shortsighted people read character just as correctly as those who see very well ; indeed, one would always give more weight to the character-judgment of a middle-aged person than of a young one, though young eyes are far the more acute. At last the ordinary man is forced to the conclusion that physiognomy is like telepathy. It is a thing which greatly affects as all, which only some of us believe in, and none of us fully understand.
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