Facts or faces, or, The mutual connexion between linear and mental portraiture morally considered, and pictorially illustrated by a series of graphic heads of all the dispositions of the mind : with a dissertation on personal beauty, showing what it is, and what is mistaken for it, by a comprehensive view of constructive, ornamental, and expressive beauty, and their relative importance to each other also, an essay on complexion of character / by Thomas Woolnorth.

  • Woolnorth, Thomas.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts or faces, or, The mutual connexion between linear and mental portraiture morally considered, and pictorially illustrated by a series of graphic heads of all the dispositions of the mind : with a dissertation on personal beauty, showing what it is, and what is mistaken for it, by a comprehensive view of constructive, ornamental, and expressive beauty, and their relative importance to each other also, an essay on complexion of character / by Thomas Woolnorth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    116/316 (page 82)
    As the subjects of this passion possess such a controlling power over its secret workings in the mind, the same difficulty must necessarily attend upon its linear representation; and as it presents in its more concealed but equally restless form, an indefinite or doubtful expression—it is to be noticed that the annexed head represents Envy in the act, and supposes it sees the object of dislike. Eyes half closed, as though shrinking from the object. Eye-balls drawn under the upper lid, the color retiring from the iris below, leaving a paleness which is not natural to the subject. The eye-brows corresponding with the lids, and every line and feature a tendency to meet, as though concentrating to one object. The nose indicative of scorn, and the mouth of hatred. Expression deep and intense, occasioning a hectic appearance, not stationary, but going and coming with returning consciousness. Mistakes of poets rectified on their ordinary description—“ pale-eyed Envy,” emdous eyes being of all colors;—desertion of color what they must have observed; from the same physical cause as the color of the lips in malice, where there is an involuntary retiring, or falling back, as it were, upon its secret resources; or, as in opposition to passion, which, on the contrary, reddens; having no time for thought, comes out in gusts; “feeds its own flame, and in that flame expires.”