Pedagogical Anthropology, Maria Montessori [online e book reader TXT] 📗
- Author: Maria Montessori
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In man, the cranium, assuming that graceful development which is characteristic of this superior species, surmounts the face, which recedes below the extreme frontal limit of the brain.
The different races of mankind, however, do not all of them attain so perfect a form; in some of them the face protrudes somewhat in advance of the extreme frontal limit, and in such cases we say that it is prognathous.
Thus the relations in the reciprocal development between cranium and face are different in animals and in man; as they also are in the various human races. Cuvier gives some idea of these proportions by comparing the European man with animals, by means of the following formulas which he has obtained by calculating approximately the square surface of a middle section of the head:
Cranium:face =
European man 4:1 (cranium four times the size of the face) Orang-utan and chimpanzee 3:1 Lower monkeys 2:1 Carnivora 1:1 Ruminants 1:2 Hippopotamus 1:3 Horse 1:4 (the reverse of man) Whale 1:20Fig. 87.—Portrait of the Fornarina (Raphael Sanzio) Rome: Barbarini gallery.
Fig. 88.—Triangular face.
Fig. 89.—Ellipsoidal face.
Fig. 90.—Long ovoid face.
But no general law, no systematic connection can be deduced from such relative proportions. They serve only to demonstrate a characteristic.
Upon this characteristic depends preeminently the beauty of the human visage. If we are considering the visage from its æsthetic aspect and wish to compare it with the muzzle of animals, we may say that in regard to its proportions it is as though the muzzle had been forced backward from its apex, while the cranium had swelled, through the increase of its vertical diameter. The muzzle is formed of the two jaws alone, on the upper of which the nose is located horizontally; there is neither forehead nor chin along the vertical line of the visage. As the jaws recede and the cranium augments, the forehead rises, the nose becomes vertical, and when the mandible has retreated beyond the frontal limit, the wide yawning mouth has been reduced in size, while a new formation has appeared below it—the chin. By this, I am trying merely to draw a comparison which I trust will be of service by suggesting a didactic method of illustrating the reduction of an animal's muzzle to human proportions. Whatever forms a part of the visage bears the morphological stamp of humanity: the forehead, the erect nose and the entire region of the mandible, which contains the principal beauty of the human face.
The narrow opening of the lips, mobile because so richly endowed with the muscles that unite in forming it, is quite truly the charming and gracious doorway of the organs of speech, which by shaping the internal thought into words are able to give it utterance; while the winning smile allures, captivates and consoles, thereby accomplishing an eminently social function; and sociability is inseparable from humanity.
The animal mouth, on the contrary, is the organ for seizing food, the organ of mastication, and, in felines, a weapon of offence and a means of destruction.
Tarde says: "The mandibles seem to shape themselves in accordance to the degree of intelligence; they become more finely modeled in proportion as the two social functions of speaking and smiling acquire a greater importance than the two individual functions of biting and masticating."
And Mantegazza says: "Cruelty has localised its imprint around the mouth, perhaps because killing and eating are two successive moments of the same event."
The Normal VisageThe visage is that part of the body which is preeminently human; being richly endowed with muscles, it represents the "mirror of the soul," through the expressions that it assumes according to the successive sentiments, passions and transitions of thought. The visage is a true mine of individual characteristics, by which different persons may be most easily and clearly distinguished from one another; while at the same time it bears the stamp of the most general characteristics of race, such as the form, the expression, the tone of complexion, etc., in consequence of which the face has hitherto held the first place in the classifications of the human races.
Even the peoples of ancient times, such as the Egyptians, made a physiognomical study of individual characteristics, founding a sort of empirical science that sought to read from the physiognomy the sentiments of the soul, the tendencies of character and the destiny of man. The visage also contains the greatest degree of attraction and charm, constituting that physical and spiritual beauty by which one person arouses in others feelings of sympathy and love. Oriental women cover their faces with thick veils through modesty, because the face reveals the entire feminine individuality, while the rest of the body reveals only the female of the human species, a quality common to all women.
The visage includes many important parts, which, by developing differently alter the physiognomy; the forehead, index of cerebral development, surmounts the face like a crown, revealing each individual's capacity for thought; furthermore, the visage contains all the organs of specific sense: sight, hearing, smell and taste, and hence all the "gateways of intelligence."
The organs of mastication, whose skeleton consists of the maxillaries and the zygomata which reinforce and anchor the upper maxillary, are the parts that constitute by far the greater portion of the facial mass. In fact, their limits (breadth between the two zygomata; breadth between the external angles of the mandible, chin) are the determining factors of the contour and general form of the face, which is completed by the soft tissues.
Forms of Face.—The first distinction in facial forms is that which is made between long or leptoprosopic faces and short or chameprosopic faces. Figs. 83 and 84 (facing page (258)) represent two faces having the same identical breadth between the zygomata or cheek-bones; the profound difference between them is due to their different height or length of visage.
Fig. 91.—Tetragonal face (parallelepipedoidal).
Fig. 92.—Pentagonal leptoprosopic face.
Fig. 93.—Pentagonal mesoprosopic face.
Fig. 94.—Face of inferior type prominence of the maxillary bones (prognathism).
The precise relation between height and breadth constitutes the index of visage, which is analogous to the index that we have already observed for the cranium.
Normally there is a correspondence in form between the cranium and the face; dolichocephalics are also leptoprosopic; and brachycephalics are chameprosopics; normally, also, mesaticephaly is found in conjunction with mesoprosopy; but owing to the phenomena of hybridism or pathological causes (rickets), it may also happen that such correspondence is wanting; and that we have instead, for instance, a leptoprosopic face with a brachycephalic cranium or vice versa.
Accordingly, long and short faces are characteristics of race almost as important as the cephalic index. But leptoprosopy and chamaeprosopy are not in themselves sufficient to determine the form of the face. On the contrary, in the case of living persons it is necessary also to take into consideration the contour of the visage, which contains characteristics relating to race, age and sex. The races which are held to be inferior have facial contours that are more or less angular; those that are held to be superior have, on the contrary, a rotundity of contour; men have a more angular facial contour, in comparison with that of women; while children have a contour of face that is distinctly rotund.
The angularities of the face are due to certain skeletal prominences, owing either to an excessive development of the zygomata (cheek-bones), or to a development of the maxillaries, which sometimes produce a salience of the lower corners of the mandible, and at others a prominence of the maxillary arch (prognathism).
Accordingly, the facial contours may be either rounded or angular, and that, too, independently of the facial type; because in either case the visage may be either long or short.
Depending upon the rounded facial contours, the visage may be distinguished as ellipsoidal or oval; we may meet with faces that are long, short or medium ellipsoids (leptoprosopic, chameprosopic, mesoprosopic faces), even to a point where the contour is almost circular: the orbicular face. Similarly, the oval faces may be classified as long, short and medium ovals. The so-called typical Roman visage is mesoprosopic, with an ellipsoidal contour. The faces of Cavalieri and of the Fornarina (Figs. 85, 87), celebrated for their beauty, are mesoprosopic ovals—and the exceptionally beautiful face of Maria Mancini is a mesoprosopic ellipse (Fig. 86).
Countenances with rounded and mesoprosopic contours belong to the Mediterranean race, and the more closely they come to the mean average of that type and to a fusion of contours, the more beautiful they are.
Faces with angular contours may be: triangular (due to prominence of the cheek-bones, or zygomata, and of the chin); tetragonal, further subdivided into quadrangular (chameprosopic) and parallelepipedoidal (leptoprosopic, due to prominence of zygomata and corners of mandible); and polygonal, which may be either pentagonal, formed by the protrusion of the zygomata, the angles of the mandible, and the chin; or hexagonal, formed by protrusion of the frontal nodules, the zygomata and the angles of the mandible.
There may occur, in certain types of face, a very notable prevalence of one part over another, so much so as to produce sharply differentiated and characteristic physiognomies. Thus, for example, a prevalence of forehead characterises the higher and superior type of the man of genius (compare the portrait of Bellini or of Darwin). On the other hand, a prevalence either of the cheek-bones, or the lower jaw, or the angles of the mandible, together with an accompanying powerful development of the masticatory muscles, produce three different types, all of them chameprosopic, which represent, in respect to the face, inferior racial types, differing from one another, but which are frequently met with (at least to a noticeable extent) even among our own people, as types of the lower-class face, precisely because of the preponderance of the coarser features.
Combined with the general type of face, there are certain specified particulars of form of the separate parts; as, for example, in the case of the ellipsoid or ovoid types of mesoprosopic face, which seem to have attained the most harmonic fusion of characteristics, and consequently the highest standard of beauty, the eyes are very large and almond-shaped (the Fornarina, Maria Mancini, Cavalieri); angular faces are characterised by a narrow, slanting eye, through all the degrees down to that of the Mongolian; faces of low type have an eye characterised less by its form than by its smallness. The nose also shows differences; it is long and narrow (leptorrhine) in the more leptoprosopic faces, and short, broad and fleshy (platyrrhine, flat-nosed) in chameprosopic faces, especially in the lower types; in mesoprosopic faces it assumes its proper proportions, and occurs as the last detail or crowning touch of harmony in the perfect faces of the above-mentioned women.
Fig. 95.—Hexagonal face.
Fig. 96.—Tetragonal face (square).
Fig. 97.—Faces of inferior type (cheek bones prominent).
Fig. 98.
When one starts to make the first draft of an ornamental design, it often happens that the proportional relations are based upon certain geometric figures that might be called the skeleton of the ornamental design that is being constructed from them. Accordingly, when an artist wishes to judge of the harmony of proportions in a drawing, a painting, or a statue, he often reconstructs with his eye a geometrical design that no longer exists in the finished work, but that must have served in its construction. In short, there exist certain secret guiding lines and points which the eye of the observer must learn to recognise, to trace and to judge.
This is the way that we should proceed in studying the facial profile.
Let us take or assume a person with the head orientated (i.e., with the occipital point resting against a vertical wall, and the glance level).
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