Beauty: Illustrated Chiefly by an Analysis and Classificatin of Beauty in Woman

CHAPTER XVI.

COMBINATIONS AND TRANSITIONS OF THE THREE SPECIES OF FEMALE BEAUTY

As to the combinations of beauty, it must now be observed, that some one of these species of beauty always characterize the same individual during every stage of life; and, to the experienced observer, it never is difficult to say which of them predominates. Attention to the preceding principles will render this easy.

It is right to mention here the cause of this general predominance of one species of beauty over the rest. It depends on this, that the slightest original or accidental preponderance of strength in one system above that of the rest, though unobserved at first, leads to a more frequent employment of its functions, and therefore to a more perfect development of its organs, until at last the disproportion between these and those of the other systems, becomes characteristic of the individual.

In a truly beautiful woman, none of the systems described can exist in a great degree of degradation; but of the three, the nutritive or vital system is to woman the most essential. In England, from thirty to forty is generally the age of its highest perfection.

It often, however, occurs, that two, or even the whole of these species of beauty, are blended in considerable perfection. In those females in which it is found, the locomotive system is well developed in the length and elegance of the limbs; the vital or nutritive system everywhere presents soft forms, and rounds both body and limbs; and the mental or thinking system displays a capability of grace in action, notwithstanding the constrained attitude assumed to conceal the face.

Although there can indeed be no great degree of beauty in which this combination is not more or less the case, yet a union of all the three species of beauty, in the greatest compatible degree, is to be found only in some of those immortal images of ideal beauty, which were created by the genius and the chisel of the Greeks.

Having briefly spoken of these combinations, I may notice also those combinations which similarly occur among the temperaments, which, as already said, constitute partial views of the varieties I have been describing.

In relation to a combination of the phlegmatic and nervous temperament, I may refer to Richerand, who says, that, “among the moderns, the easy Michael Montaigne, all of whose passions were so moderate, who reasoned on everything, even on feeling, was truly pituitous. But in him the predominance of the lymphatic system was not carried so far, but that he joined to it a good deal of nervous susceptibility.”

Of women, more especially, it is observed, that they rarely present examples of the lymphatic temperament, unmodified by nervous mobility; whence come extreme vivacity in the sensations with great feebleness, determinations equally precipitate and unsteady, excited imagination and ephemeral tastes, absolute will, &c.

The sanguine temperament is similarly combined with the nervous one. Hence, the physiologist above quoted says, that “to the extreme love of pleasure, sanguine men join, when circumstances require it [he should have said, in some cases], great elevation of thought and character, and can bring into action the highest talents in every department: the history of Henry IV., of Mirabeau, and others, proves that.”

The ancients gave the name of bilious, to a temperament in which the sanguineous system is energetic, the pulse strong, hard, and frequent, the subcutaneous veins prominent, the development of the liver excessive, the superabundance of bile remarkable, the sensibility easily excited, yet capable of dwelling upon one object, the passions violent, the movements abrupt and impetuous, and the character inflexible. This is evidently a very compound temperament, and should never have been classed, any more than the two preceding, with the simple temperaments, the athletic or muscular, the phlegmatic or lymphatic, the sanguine, and the nervous, which I have noticed under the heads to which they belong.

In persons of this temperament, the skin is of a yellowish brown, the hair black, the muscles marked, the form harshly expressed. “Bold in the conception of a project,” says Richerand, “constant and indefatigable in its execution, it is among men of this temperament, that we find those who, in different ages, have governed the destinies of the world: full of courage, boldness, and activity, they have signalized themselves by great virtues or great crimes, and have been the terror or admiration of the universe. Such were Alexander, Julius Cesar, Brutus, Mahomet, Charles XII., the Czar Peter, Cromwell, Sixtus V., Cardinal Richelieu [and, he should have added, Bonaparte].... To attain to results of such importance, the profoundest dissimulation and the most obstinate constancy are equally necessary; and these are the most eminent qualities of the bilious.”

A still more compound temperament is the melancholic, in which disease is added to the bilious temperament, a derangement of the functions of the nervous system, and the diseased obstruction of some one of the organs of the abdomen, so that the nutritive functions are feebly or irregularly performed, the bowels sluggish, the pulse hard and contracted, the excretions difficult, the imagination gloomy, the disposition suspicious.

In persons of this temperament, the skin is of a still deeper hue, and the look uneasy and gloomy. Rousseau and Tiberius are excellent examples of this temperament, as associated with genius and virtue in one, and with truly royal vice in the other. In women, this temperament is rarely so intense as in men.

Of the transitions of beauty, I have now to observe, that, though one species of beauty always characterizes the same individual during every stage of life, yet it is remarkable, that the young woman (whatever species of beauty predominates) has always a tendency to beauty of the locomotive system;—that the middle-aged woman has always a tendency to beauty of the nutritive system;—and that the woman of advanced age has always a tendency to beauty of the thinking system.

Some women would seem, in the progress of life, to pass through all these systems (and the more perfect the whole organization, the more will this seem to be the case); but the accurate observer will always see the predominance of the same system.

CHAPTER XVII.

PROPORTION, CHARACTER, EXPRESSION, ETC

Winckelmann says: “I cannot imagine beauty without the proportion which is always its foundation.—The drawing of the naked figure is founded upon the idea and the knowledge of beauty; and this idea consists partly in measures and relations, and partly in forms, the beauty of which was, as Cicero observes, the object of the first Grecian artists: the latter determine the figure; the former fix the proportions.”

The great variety of proportions presented by the human body causes much difficulty in determining with precision what are the best. The difficulty becomes quite insurmountable if we attempt to assign precise dimensions to the details of configuration or to minute parts.

Many circumstances are opposed to the exactness of these measures. Even in the same person, one part is rarely in all respects similar to the corresponding part; we are taller in the morning than in the evening; and the proportions change at different periods of life. In different individuals, the differences are still more evident. Moreover, habits, professions, trades, all unite to oppose regularity in the proportions.

It has farther been observed that, in the conformation of woman, both as regards the whole and as regards the various parts, nature still more rarely approaches determinate proportions than in man.

It is remarked by Hogarth, whose views I now abridge, that in society we every day hear women pronounce perfectly correct opinions as to the proportions of the neck, the bosom, the hands, and the arms of other women, whom they have an interest in observing with severity. It is evident that, for such an examination, they ought to be capable of seizing, with great precision, the relation of length and thickness, and of following the slight sinuosities, the swellings, the depressions, almost insensible and continually varying, at the surface of the parts observed. If so, it is certainly in the power of a man of science, with as observing an eye, to go still farther, and conceive many other necessary circumstances concerning proportion.

But he says: “Though much of this matter may be easily understood by common observation, assisted by science, still I fear it will be difficult to raise a very clear idea of what constitutes or composes the utmost beauty of proportion.... We shall soon find that it is chiefly to be effected by means of the nice sensation we naturally have of what certain quantities or dimensions of parts are fittest to produce the utmost strength for moving or supporting great weights, and of what are most fit for the utmost light agility, as also for every degree, between these two extremes.”

After some illustrations of this, which naturally leave the method very vague, he adds: “I am apprehensive that this part of my scheme, for explaining exact proportion, may not be thought so sufficiently determinate as could be wished.” So that Hogarth’s method as to proportions, both general and particular, reduces itself to the employment of the eye and the nice sensation we have of quantities or dimensions.

But the Greek artists had not only done what Hogarth thus vaguely speaks of, but advanced much farther; and indeed all that has been done on this important subject belongs rather to the history of art than that of nature.

“It is not,” says Buffon, “by the comparison of the body of one man with that of another man, or by measures actually taken in a great number of subjects, that we can acquire this knowledge [that of proportion]: it is by the efforts which have been made exactly to copy and imitate nature; it is to the art of design that we owe all that we know in this respect. Feeling and taste have done all that mechanics could not do; the rule and the compass have been quitted in order to profit by the eye; all the forms, all the outlines, and all the parts of the human body, have been realized in marble; and we have known nature better by the representation than by nature itself. It is by great exercise of the art of design and by an exquisite sentiment, that great statuaries have succeeded in making us feel the just proportions of the works of nature. The Greeks have formed such admirable statues, that with one consent they are regarded as the most exact representation of the most perfect human body. These statues, which were only copies from man, are become originals, because these copies were not made from any individual, but from the whole human species well observed, so well indeed, that no man has been found whose figure is so well proportioned as these statues: it is then from these models that the measures of the human body have been taken.”

It is now necessary to lay before the reader the principles of the Greeks, as to the proportions of the human body. Much has been well done on this subject by Winckelmann, Bossi, and others; but, at the same time, from want of enlarged anatomical and physiological views, they have overlooked some fundamental considerations, and have failed to unravel the greatest difficulties which the subject presents. That the reader may be satisfied of the accuracy of my representations, I shall lay the statements of these writers before him in their own words, rendering them only as succinct as possible.44

Of the first epoch of art among the Etruscans and Greeks, Mengs says: “They preferred the most necessary things to those which were less so; and therefore they directed their attention first to the muscles, and next to proportion, these constituting the two parts the most useful and necessary of the human form; and this is, throughout, the character of their primitive taste. All this we observe in history, and in the divine and human figures which they have represented.

“In these figures,” he farther observes, “we find a proportion, impossible to be known and practised, without an art which furnishes sure rules. These rules could not be founded otherwise than in proportion, which was invented and practised by the Greeks.”

In this, Flaxman agrees, when he says: “It must not be supposed that those simple geometrical forms of body and limbs, in the divinities and heroes of antiquity, depended upon accidental choice, or blind and ignorant arbitration. They are, on the contrary, a consequence of the strict and extensive examination of nature, of rational inquiry into its most perfect organization and physical well-being, expressed in outward appearance.”

“That the Greeks,” says Bossi, “wrote much on this subject [their doctrine respecting symmetry] we have ample evidence in Pliny, Vitruvius himself, Philostratus the younger, and others.

“Polycletus did not confine himself to giving a commentary upon this fundamental point, but, in illustration of his treatise, according to Galen, made an admirable statue that confirmed the precepts laid down in the work; and ‘The Rule of Polycletus,’ the name given to this statue, became so famous for its beauty, that it passed into a proverb to express a perfect body, as we may find in Lucian.

“But of so many writings, which ought at least to equal the works that remain to us, and probably were superior, inasmuch as it is easier to lay down precepts than to put them in execution—of so many treatises, I say, not a fragment remains [except the few lines of Vitruvius], nor is there, now, any hope that a vestige will be found, unless something may remain for posterity among the papyri of Herculaneum.”

Now, to approach to the ancients in excellence is quite impossible, until some one shall explain the great principles on which they acted. Assuredly they are, in some of the most important respects, unknown at present. Servile imitation will never answer the purpose; and to learn as the ancients did, and reach perfection, perhaps, in as many ages, is not very rational, when we can avail ourselves of their practice to discover their principles. I will, in this chapter, endeavor to point out some of these principles in the practice of art, as I have already done in the general theory of beauty.

“It is probable,” says Winckelmann, “that the Grecian artists, in imitation of the Egyptians, had fixed, by well-determined rules, not only the largest, but even the very smallest proportions, and the measure of the length proper to every age and to every kind of contour; and probably all these rules were learned by young persons, from books that treated of symmetry.”

These rules, we know, were of three kinds—numerical, geometrical, and harmonic; and we shall see, in the sequel, that the loss of them has been much deplored. It is not a little curious, however, that the numerical and geometrical methods are, in some measure, actually practised even at the present day, and that the harmonic method (the loss of which has caused the greatest confusion) is easily deducible from anatomical and physiological principles, as I shall endeavor to show.

As to the numerical method, it is evidently that of which Vitruvius has preserved some notions, and which is at present practised by artists.

“As it is the painter’s business,” says Bossi, “to imitate a great variety of human bodies, and as the difference of parts in beautiful bodies is generally slight, and becomes, as it were, imperceptible, in the most usual imitations less than life, Leonardo perceived it was necessary for the artist to use a general measure, for the purpose of preparing historical compositions quickly. He required that the figure to be employed should be carefully selected on the model of some natural body, the proportions of which were generally considered beautiful.—This measure, he required, should be employed solely for length, and not for width, which requires more evident variety.”

“It has been observed,” says Flaxman, “that Vitruvius, from the writings of the most eminent Greek painters and sculptors, informs us that they made their figures eight heads high, or ten faces, and he instances different parts of the figure measured according to that rule, which the great Michael Angelo adopted, as we see by a print from a drawing of his.”

Winckelmann, however, shows that the foot served the Greeks as a measure for all their larger dimensions, and that their sculptors regulated their proportions by it, in giving six times its length, as the model of the human figure. Vitruvius says, “Pes vero altitudinis corporis sextæ.”

“The foot,” says Winckelmann, “which among the ancients was used as the standard of measures of every magnitude (for a given measure of fluids was also called by this name), was very useful to sculptors in fixing the proportions of the body, and with reason; for the foot was a more determinate measure than that of the head or face, of which the moderns generally make use. The ancient artists regulated the size of their statues by the length of the foot, making them, according to Vitruvius, six times the length of the foot. Upon this principle, Pythagoras determined the height of Hercules, by the length of the feet with which he measured the Olympic stadium at Elis.

“This proportion of six to one between the foot and the body, is founded upon experience of nature, even in slender figures: it is found correct, not only in the Egyptian statues, but also in the Grecian; and it will be discovered in the greater part of the ancient figures where the feet are preserved.”

“We would not omit mentioning,” says Bossi, “the erroneous opinion of those, who esteem the feet of females beautiful in proportion to their smallness. The beauty of the feet consists in the handsomeness and neatness of their shape, not in their being short, or extremely small: were it otherwise, the feet of the Chinese and Japanese women would be beautiful, and those of the Venus de Medici frightful.”

Such, then, is evidently the numerical method of the ancients.—Of the geometrical method, we have many illustrations.

A man standing upright, with his arms extended, is, as Leonardo da Vinci has shown, enclosed in a square, the extreme extent of his arms being equal to his height. This is evidently the most general measure of the latter kind.

Of the latter kind, also, is Camper’s ellipsis for measuring the relative size of the shoulders in the male, and the pelvis in the female.

So also is the measure from the centre of one mammæ to that of the other, as equal to the distance from each to the pit over the breast-bone.

We now approach the chief difficulty, which evidently formed a stumbling-block even to Leonardo da Vinci—that harmonic method which, strange as it may appear, will be found to afford rules that are at once perfectly precise, and yet infinitely variable. The apparent impossibility indeed of such a rule seems to have embarrassed every one. And the statement which Bossi makes in regard to Leonardo da Vinci, in this respect, is exceedingly interesting.

“He thought,” says Bossi, “but little of any general measure of the species; and that the true proportion admitted by him, and acknowledged to be of difficult investigation, is solely the proportion of an individual in regard to himself, which, according to true imitation, should be different in all the individuals of a species, as is the case in nature. Thus, says he, ‘all the parts of any animal should correspond with the whole; that which is short and thick, should have every member short and thick; that which is long and thin, every member long and thin; and that which is between the two, members of a proportionate size.’ From this and other precepts, it follows, that, when he speaks of proportion, he is to be understood as referring to the harmony of the parts of an individual, and not to the general rule of imitation in reference to dimensions.”—How clearly (notwithstanding the error as to all being short and thick) does this point to the harmonic method of proportion forthwith to be explained?

“It would seem he felt within himself that he did not reach the perfection of those wonderful ancients of whom he professed himself the admirer and disciple.

“It became, therefore, Leonardo’s particular care and study to approach as nearly as he could to the ancients in the true imitation of beautiful nature under the guidance of philosophy.

“But whether from want of great examples, or from not sufficiently penetrating, as he himself thought, into these artifices, or from comprehending them too late, he modestly laments that he did not possess the ancient art of proportions. He then protests that he has done the little he was able to do, and asks pardon of posterity that he has not done more. Such are the sentiments that Platino exhibits in the following epitaph:

“It is evident that these sentiments are not to be attributed to the imagination of the poet.”

Bossi, having no glimpse of the great principles for which Leonardo sought in vain, says: “Since, then, this great man could not satisfy himself in the difficult task of dimensions, while on other points he seems to dread no censure, it should give us a strong idea of the difficulty of determining the laws of beautiful symmetry, and preserving it in works with that harmony which is felt, but cannot be explained, and which varies in every figure, according to the age, circumstances, and particular character of each.

“And when we recollect that, though Leonardo sought successfully in Vitruvius the proportions which Vitruvius himself seems to have drawn from the Greeks, he yet lamented that he did not possess the ancient symmetry, it is easily seen that he did not mean by this science, as already stated, a determinate general measure for man, but that harmony of parts which is suited to each individual, according to the respective circumstances of sex, age, character, and the like.” Again, how clearly does this point to the harmonic method of proportion to be presently explained!