in the middle of the head*; or that the figure is elegant, because
it is seven or eight heads in height, for the question still remains,
why do these proportions produce a beautiful head ?
Professor Camper betrays a still more remarkable degree of
negligence, in tracing the origin of our ideas of beauty, when he
says, we are pleased with a child without acknowledging it to be
beautiful; and that the form of a child, abstracted from its playful
vivacity, its perfect simplicity, or affectionate attachment, has nothing
pleasing in it. It is undoubtedly for these very reasons we
hold a child to be the most pleasing, and being the most pleasing,
the most beautiful object in the world. The natural form of a
child is the only species of beauty so perfect in character and expression,
that it cannot be excelled by art, nor receive addition by
the adoption of an ideal form; and yet to those who study this
matter more deeply there is an additional pleasure in viewing the
features of a child, which are formed to admit of a more perfect
development, when in the round and smooth form of infancy we
can anticipate those changes which shall accord with the course of
mental improvement.
* “ The head of the Apollo, or V enus, or Laocoon, is universally allowed to be
finer or more beautiful than the heads of our best proportioned men and women-
Whence does this proceed? Perhaps it is because in antiques the eyes are placed
exactly in the centre of the head, which is' never the case with us.” Again, “ The
proportions given by the ancients to their figures are not beautiful in our eyes merely
from a weak prepossession in favour of all that is handed down to us, but because
they have corrected the defects which arise from the laws of vision.”—-C a m p e r .
If we place before us (as I am in the use of doing in demonstrating
the bones of the head) a cast of the head of Mercury from
the antique, and of a satyr, said to be by Michel Angelo, the truth
of this principle will be manifested.
In the head of Mercury there is a combination of forms which
never existed in nature, and a general proportion of the head and
face, never to be witnessed in all the varieties of the living head;
yet is the whole, and each particular feature, perfectly beautiful.
The principle which has been followed in modelling the general
form is also visible in the individual features. What you distinguish
in looking to the profile is, that the upper part of the face is projected
forward, and thus the elevation and fullness of this part,
which is peculiar to the human countenance, are increased; but you
may perceive the same attention to characterise what is peculiar in
the form of the nose, the mouth, the ear, the chin. Take them as
parts, or take them as a whole, whatever would lead to the resemblance
of the brute is omitted or diminished. But when we look
to the satyr the reverse holds; there every feature, as well as the
whole form, are half brutish. The forehead is small and depressed,
the eyes near, the nose flattened to the upper lip, the mouth protuberant,
the ears tipped and sharp, and the expression of the whole
is goatish and savage; and the effect would be hideous but for
the lively and humorous human expression ingrafted on the physiognomy
of a goat or wild colt. In these two specimens of art
every proportion is contrasted; in the one there is combined a
y