The eye : an index of character, health, and disease / by Angus Macmillan.

  • Macmillan, Angus, active 1864.
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The eye : an index of character, health, and disease / by Angus Macmillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    But what, perhaps more than anything, drew atten- tion to the subject, was the rapid stride made by the sister Arts of Painting and Sculpture, to each of which all that tended to throw light upon the expression of the human face and figure, upon its transient or permanent lines, became a most profitable, if not an essential study, for it was the province of the artist to give to his representa- tions of the gods and heroes, the characteristics according to popular notions of divinity and heroism. And even although he might not be required to decypher the human mind from external form, he was most assuredly expected to impart to each of his productions the ex- pression of a definite character; and so also was it with respect to Dramatic Art—the actors were obliged to assume the part of the individuals they professed to represent. If they wore the mask, it depicted the pre- vailing, the ruling passion or emotion of the character— and the mask was changed with the change of emotion intended to be depicted. If they performed without a mask, of course the face itself had to be tutored to its part—nor that alone, voice, gesture, demean our, action, all were counterfeited so as to put off the real and assume the prescribed identity. All this must have implied much study, and have given an impulse to the art of Physiognomy. Even those who were regarded as authorities upon Oratory, taught that every part of the frame of man was the proper study and instrument of the orator. And if we add that the human form is also the source whence the physician draws mainly his
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