may ultimately tend. The discoveries which I have made in the
Nervous System, observations too exclusively medical to appear in
this volume, I owe originally to the investigation of my present
subject; I saw that the whole frame was subject to influence in
union with the expression of the countenance; I was led to the
discovery of a particular system of nerves, the offices of which are
to control the motions of the muscles in respiration in speech and
expression.
The anatomy of the animal frame, as it regards the expression
of emotion or passion, is nearly related to philosophy, and is a subject
of the utmost difficulty and delicacy. We may hear the question
often discussed, of what use is anatomy to the painter ? and those
of the purest taste will say none at all. It leads the artist to represent
monstrous caricatures and the lineaments of death more than
life. This is quite true; this is what we see when an artist of no
natural talent, and possessed of no true feeling, introduces the
representation of bones and muscles instead of the fine forms of
health and vigour. But we return to the question, what are the
uses of anatomy ? As we treat of it here, it is the examination of
that apparatus by which the mind expresses emotion, and through
which its conditions are modified. We mean to examine the relations
and mutual influence of mind and body. As it regards the
painter this is an inquiry of great importance. It does not teach
him to use his pencil, but to be an observer of nature, to see forms
in their minute varieties, which but for the principles here elucidated
would pass unnoticed—to catch expressions so evanescent,
that without knowing their sources, they would escape him. It is
this reducing of things to their principles which elevates his art into
a connexion with philosophy, and without which it possesses no
character of a liberal art.
By anatomy, considered with a view to the arts of design, I
understand not merely the study of the individual and dissected
muscles of the face, or body, or limbs; I consider it as including a
knowledge of all the peculiarities and characteristic differences
which mark and distinguish the countenance, and the general appearance
of the body, in situations interesting to the painter or
statuary. The characters of infancy, youth, or age; the peculiarities
of sickness or of robust health; the contrast of manly and
muscular strength with feminine delicacy; the appearances of diseases,
of pain, or of death; the general condition of the body in
short, as marking to the eye of the beholder interesting situations
all these form as necessary a part of the anatomy of painting as the
tracing of the muscles of expression in their unexerted state, and
of the changes induced upon them as emotions arise in the mind.
The anatomy of painting, taken according to this comprehensive
description, forms not only a science of great interest, but that from
which alone the artist can derive the true spirit of observation,
learn to distinguish what is essential to just expression, and be
enabled to direct his attention to appearances which might otherc
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