Turner and Mulready : the effect of certain faults of vision on painting, with especial reference to their works. The real and ideal in portraiture. The deterioration of oil paintings : three lectures / by R. Liebreich.

  • Liebreich, Richard, 1830-1917.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Turner and Mulready : the effect of certain faults of vision on painting, with especial reference to their works. The real and ideal in portraiture. The deterioration of oil paintings : three lectures / by R. Liebreich. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    substance, the shape of the forehead as determined by the bone. They are, however, of the greatest importance in various mimic motions of the face, inasmuch as they produce the folds in the skin of the forehead, and also the position and alteration of shape of the eyebrows. The broadest of these muscles, the frontalis, by means of its chief substance lifts the eyebrows straight up, and thereby forms on the forehead parallel folds which, with slight undulations, run horizontally over the whole forehead, bending down to the temples on both sides in curved lines. According to the thickness of the skin, and especially according to the degree of thickness of the layer of fat underlying the skin, these folds are more or less numerous, and broader or narrower; and they are most numerous in lean old men with thin skin. In the treatises on mimics and phy- siognomy, and on anatomy of expression, these horizontal folds of the frontal skin, and the uplifting of the eyebrows, are usually spoken of as giving to the face the expression of attentiveness, of astonishment, and of cheerfulness. It is a new proof how irrational it is to charac- terise such motions of the muscles taken isolatedly, because, accord- ing to their combination with other movements of other parts of the face, just the contrary physiognomic expression may be produced. Thus the horizontal folds and the lifted-up eyebrows are certainly expressive of attentiveness and astonishment, if the eyes are widely open; on the contrary, if the upper lids are only imperfectly lifted, those actions of the frontal muscles produce the expression of fatigue and drowsiness. Even without the real existence of drowsiness or fatigue, this expression will be found in all cases in which the muscle which lifts the upper eyelid has become weak, or, what comes to the same thing, where, in consequence of the lengthening of the skin of the eyelid, the task of lifting the eyelid has become too heavy for the strength of the muscle whose function it is to lift it. The material effect of such conditions is much stronger than that of the mimic motions, which, even if they have become a habit, nevertheless do not act mechanically in such a decisive manner as those constant contrac- tions which are required to assist the insufficient muscle of the eyelid. As an instance, I show you here the cast of a marble bust from the fifteenth century, which is in the Museo-ISTationale at Florence. It is done by Benedetto di Majano, and is worked in the manner characteristic of the Florentine school of that period. You see that the horizontal folds on the forehead, which are very strongly expressed, and strictly copied from nature, do not at all produce the expression of astonishment, attention, or cheerfulness. They evi- dently do not indicate any transient expression such as springs up suddenly, and dies away as quickly, and which, for that very reason, would be unfit for a portrait; but they do indicate such an habitual expression as was characteristic of the appearance of the individual. Measurements will prove this very easily. The eyebrows (you will observe) are, at their extremities, lifted up a quarter of an inch above their original length. Though the skin is considerably stretched