The human figure : its beauties and defects

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

JUST PUBLISHED.

THE STUDENT'S ATLAS OP ARTISTIC
ANATOMY,

Jfor the Wist of (Sculptors, painters, anb Amateurs.

WITH THIRTY-FOUR PLATES.

BY CHARLES ROTH,

Professor of Sculpture at the Royal Academy, Munich.
EDITED BY C. E. FITZGERALD, M.D.

Vol. Fol., in cloth c

" Professor Roth's well-known and highly valued plates of the
human muscles and bones, with his nomenclature and descrip.
live notes are worthily reproduced in this complete portfolio." —

"The plan of the Atlas, which has been considerably enlarged
from its original form, is very simple and convenient. The two
first plates represent the bony framework of the body, and the
eight following ones the muscles in action. The figure plates are
carefully drawn and admirably printed, and each is followed by an
explanatory plate, in which the parts depicted are numerated,

are of especial interest to artists."— Daily Graphic.

" It is a bold experiment to attempt to combine at once the
classical, natural, and anatomical elements in drawing from the
nude, but in this the author has succeeded remarkably well.
The limitation to a single pose prevents all confusion, and very
much facilitates anatomical knowledge, whilst the addition of
separate sketches at the end of the Atlas furnishes an opportunity
for more detailed study of the limbs and head. The plates are
admirably executed, the engraving being smooth and even, and at
the same time sufficiently vigorous in the contrast of light and
shade. Dr. Fitzgerald's translation of Professor Roth's work is
altogether a valuable aid to the study of artistic anatomy, and in
itself a work of art ."-Lancet.

H. GREVEL & Co., 33, KING ST., COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

THE HUMAN FIGURE:

ITS BEAUTIES AND DEFECTS.

THE HUMAN FIGURE

ITS BE A UTIES AND DEFECTS.

ERNST BRUCKE,

EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN THE UN

WILLIAM ANDERSON,

Professor of Anatomy to the Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Lecture
Anatomy at St. Thomas's Hospital.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION, REVISED BY THE AUTHOR.

29 Illustrations bg ^trmann $aar.

LONDON:

H. GREVEL & CO.,
33, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.

1891.

At

CONTENTS.

PAGE

PREFACE vii

INTRODUCTION . J

I. THE HEAD AND NECK 8

II. THE ARM AND HAND 34

III. THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS 67

IV. THE ABDOMEN 88

V. THE BACK . 105

VI. THE PELVIS AND ITS RELATION TO THE TRUNK AND

TO THE THIGHS . . . . . . . 115

VII. THE LEGS AND FEET 153

CONCLUDING REMARKS 178

INDEX 185

PREFACE.

'TT^HE learned author of " Schonheit und Fehler
der rrienschlichen Gestalt " requires little intro-
duction either to the scientific or to the artistic world
in this country, for his name has been closely asso-
ciated with the progress of human physiology in all
its branches for upwards of forty years, and during
the whole of his professional career he has applied
much of his knowledge and power of research to the
elucidation of questions of art. His love for art —
doubtless an inheritance from his father, who was
a distinguished painter of portraits and historical
pictures — was brought into service as early as 1846,
when he was elected teacher of anatomy in the
Akademie der Kiinste, in Berlin ; and since this time
his innumerable contributions to scientific literature
have been interspersed with important essays bearing
upon the subject of his predilections. His " Physio-
logic der Farben fiir die Zwecke der Kunstgewerbe
bearbeitet " and " Bruchstucke aus der Theorie der

bildenden Kiinste " are well known and esteemed,
and his latest work, of which the translation is now
before us, gives in clear, untechnical style the out-
come of his ripe experience and close reflection upon
a topic which should appeal, not only to the student
of art, but to every one who desires to gain an insight
into the philosophy of human beauty.

The object of the volume is given by the author
in the opening of his preface. He addresses himself
both to artists and to amateurs, — " to the former, in
order to draw their attention to many things which,
we know from experience, they not infrequently
overlook ; and to the latter, in order to introduce to
them a way of studying works of art which, although
not habitually pursued by the amateur, is nevertheless
indispensable to the proper understanding and due
appreciation of them." For the amateur, indeed,
the indications offered in his pages are of especial
interest. Most persons cherish a secret conviction
of their capacity to arbitrate on any question of
personal beauty, — a fond belief that is not at all
disturbed by the knowledge that in any particular
case their friends will arrive with equal self-satis-
faction at conclusions of a different kind, — but there
are few who are prepared to advance cogent reasons
for the faith that is in them. There must, indeed,

be two factors in the ability to form a sound
judgment, — the innate sense of beauty of line and
surface which perhaps all possess, but in very
different degrees ; and a regulated comparative
study, for which Professor Briicke here furnishes a
guide, of the best examples in nature and art. A
liberal endowment with the first — a natural and
often inherited qualification — of course lightens and
fructifies the labour involved in the attainment of
the second, but both are equally essential for the
qualification of the true critic.

It will be noticed that our author, who desires
to spare his lay readers as far as possible, has been
unable to avoid altogether the introduction of ana-
tomical details, and this is sufficient to prove that
some acquaintance with the science is desirable for
those who would follow his system. Nevertheless,
it is certain that anatomy, unless studied from the
aesthetic aspect, is of little use. An anatomist may
be no more competent to give a verdict upon a
question of the beautiful than a person who has never
heard the name of a single muscle in his body ; for
we know that learned authors of anatomical text-
books will sometimes without a qualm admit pictorial
illustrations to their own writings that are as painful
to the artistic sense as a false note to the ear of the

musician. On the other hand, such a familiarity
with the human figure as may be gleaned by casual
and unreflecting inspection is of no greater value. It
has often been asserted that the marvellous achieve-
ments of the ancient Greeks in sculpture were a
result of their daily opportunities of seeing the nude
form ; but this theory is by no means satisfactory.
Some other nations, gifted with strong artistic
instincts, have possessed the same advantages, and
have derived no such benefit from them : the
Japanese, for example, have had continually before
them in their daily life types of manly and womanly
beauty, which, if not quite in accordance with
European ideals of perfection, are still worthy to
inspire the painter or sculptor ; and yet, although
this people will manifest in their delineation of a
flower, a bird, a monkey, or a fish, an unsurpassed
appreciation of grace and veracity, their renderings,
of human life are, from the academical point of
view, little better than caricatures. An illustration
of the same principle has just been afforded to me
by a friend who has had the portrait of a favourite
hunter painted by a local pictor ignotus. He believes
it to be an admirable representation, and theoreti-
cally his opinion should be conclusive, for he has
been associated with horses all his life, and is

regarded as a good judge of the points of the animal ;
but had he studied the equine form as Professor Briicke
teaches us to study the form of a man or woman,
he would have detected in the effigy a score of gross
errors of outline and proportion of which both he
and the painter now rest in happy unconsciousness.

For the higher successes in artistic presentment
of the nude a knowledge of the skeleton, joints,
and muscles must always be of the greatest import-
ance. It is not necessary that the painter or sculptor
should attack such a mass of detail as the student
of medicine is called upon to prepare for the satisfac-
tion of his examiners,— most of this would be useless
drudgery, — but, on the other hand, there are features
to which the future surgeon or physician devotes no
attention that for the artist will give a meaning to
every line that he draws or surface that he models,
a meaning that may not be patent to all, but that
will be appreciated by those who are educated to
look for the intellectual as well as for the imitative
faculty in a work of art. There are artists who
have maintained that all scientific accomplishment is
superfluous in the exercise of their calling, and who
have lived down to the creed, but their mistake is
demonstrated both by the history of art and by the
internal evidence afforded by its greatest monuments ;

for beauty in art is only well-selected, well-com-
prehended, and well-expressed truth, and science is
the glass which enables us to recognise and estimate
truths that are hidden from or but dimly conjectured
by the unaided vision of ignorance. The wisdom of
Ecclesiastes has said it, " The wise man is he who
knoweth the interpretation of things."

We do not know how the consummate science
of Pheidias was acquired. That he was a perfect
master of the superficial forms of anatomy can be
doubted by no expert who has studied the marvellous
relics of his genius that Mr. Frederic Harrison
proposes to restore to classic soil ; but it is im-
probable that he received the same kind of training
that was sought nearly twenty centuries later by
Leonardo da Vinci in his association with the
physician Marcantonio della Torre, and by Michel-
angelo with Realdo Colombo ; for the Greek sculptor
lived before the school of Alexandria had opened
the way for direct anatomical research by dissection
of the human subject, and we know, moreover, that
Hippocrates, his great medical contemporary, who,
we must believe, would gladly have availed himself
of any opportunities that were possible, had but the
crudest ideas upon the structure of the body. When,
however, we pass from the age of Pericles to the age

PREFACE. xiii

of Lorenzo de' Medici, a clearer light shines upon the
artist and his methods of learning, and we find that
painting and sculpture went hand in hand with the
practical study of anatomy, and that the greatest
masters were those most profoundly versed in ana-
tomical detail. It would be easy to fill a volume
with the history of the service rendered by artists
to anatomy and by anatomists to art, but this is not
the place to attempt such a task ; and it must be
enough to say that the story would only strengthen
the position taken by the author of the work
before us.

In conclusion, a word of appreciation should be
given for the beautiful specimens of wood engraving
executed for the author by Herr Hermann Paar.
It should perhaps be pointed out that most of the
anatomical drawings, although directly borrowed, as
is duly acknowledged in the text, from Hollstein's
" Anatomic des Menschen," are really English in
origin, and are copies from the vigorous and accurate
woodcuts of the brothers Bagge in Wilson's " Anato-
mists' Vade-Mecum."

WILLIAM ANDERSON.

INTRODUCTION.

THE following pages are addressed to artists and
to amateurs : to the former, in order to draw
their attention to many things which, as we know
from experience, they not infrequently overlook ; and
to the latter, in order to introduce to them a way of
studying works of art which, though not habitually
pursued by amateurs, is nevertheless indispensable
for the proper understanding and due appreciation of
them. There is a general consensus of opinion, saving
that of a few, among living artists, that the graphic
.and plastic arts have sunk from the level they formerly
maintained — painting even more so than sculpture ;
and nowhere is the fact more manifest than in Italy,
the great treasure-house of the Arts. The history
of painting in that country may be divided into four
periods : that of the newly-awakened art, when the
painters strove after high ideals, but could as yet
.achieve little ; the period of splendour, in which the
masterly character of the execution corresponded to
the lofty ^nature of the ideal ; the period of decline,
when the ideal aimed at had ceased to have any value,
though the painters were still masters of their craft ;

i

2 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

and, lastly, a fourth period, one without a name, when
not only had the ideals ceased to have any value, but
the artists' hands had lost their cunning.

And yet are not the Italians as gifted now as in
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries ? Does not the
spirit which they breathe into certain branches of
industrial art clearly show it ? And is it not proved
t by some of their modern works of sculpture, which
shine like lonely stars in a wilderness of unintelligent,
nay, inconceivable, rubbish ? *

The causes of the decline of the fine arts are of
divers kinds. They cannot all be enumerated here,
and some are not of a nature to admit of being over-
come. No reasonable person believes it possible for
the men of our day, arrayed in frock-coats, trousers, and
tall hats, to have an art such as was theirs who lived
in ancient times, or even in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries. But it is possible to fight against some
errors, and it is the purpose of these pages to combat
erroneous tendencies in the representation of the
human body.

The realism which dominates all art at the present
day is so interpreted by many of our artists that they
rate the results of their labour in proportion to the
accuracy with which they can reproduce the model.
Every detail, be it beautiful or the reverse, is copied,,
in order to ward off the charge of being " conven-
tional." And yet how dangerous is this slavish
copying of the model ! It is dangerous enough on

* As I once heard an Italian himself describe ii.—"J?oda/"

INTRODUCTION.

the other side of the Alps, but on this side it is even
more so. Northern sculptors who have passed a
considerable time in Rome, and have executed works
there deserving of praise for nobleness and refinement
of form, in a few years after returning to their own
country frequently degenerate in a marked degree ;
their forms grow coarse, and blemishes crop up which
occur much more often in the bodily structure of
Northerns than in that of Italians. This is the effect
of adhering to the model. When standing before the
living subject we tolerate much that the cold marble
may not offer to our gaze. Let me be forgiven for
making a somewhat base comparison : the artist
ought to know the defects of the human body just
as a judge of horseflesh knows the weak points in the
build of a horse. He need not on that account be
monotonous, or make all his figures conform to a
conventional standard ; but he will seek for beauty
in all her divers manifestations.

What, then, is the beauty of which we speak ? I
would define that figure as beautiful which can be
displayed to advantage in any position and under
any aspect that occurs in ideal art.

I have adopted a purely artistic standpoint in
making beauty depend, not on the subjective sense
of pleasure at the sight of any given object, but on a
much more definite factor, viz., a general conformity
to the demands of ideal art. Much has been written
about sensuous beauty and the beauty of sensuousness ;
but where sensuousness has been sought for its own

4 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

sake it has brought more harm than good. For to
this element it is owing that in the incipient decline
of Italian art the nobler ideals of female beauty gave
way to lower ones, and that at the present day painters
and sculptors take so little heed of the defects of their
female models.

As I have already remarked, a figure, to be beautiful
in our sense, must be capable of being displayed to
advantage in all positions and under all aspects which
present themselves in ideal art. This means, moreover,
that in any position occurring in ideal art, and under
any aspect, the figure must yield harmonious lines ; for
the ordering of the lines of the composition is the
point of primary importance in every work of art that
claims to be judged by a high standard. The fact
that in recent times the feeling for beauty of line has
fallen so much into neglect — one might almost venture
to affirm that it is only to be found in isolated in-
stances— involves a grave reproach to modern art, as
compared with that of antiquity and the renaissance.
It is the outlines of the features which determine the
general impression made by the face, and which stamp
it with their own character, rendering it clear or con-
fused, noble or ignoble, as the case may be. How else
were it possible to produce such effects as we see
produced by means of mere outlines, without a trace
of shading ? Even in favourable instances no impres-
sion of actual bodily presence can equal the trenchant
effect brought about by simple lines, not even in
Nature herself. This is demonstrated by the familiar

INTRODUCTION. 5

fact that the portrait painter shifts his model so as to
obtain more or less of the full face or profile, according
as he thinks thereby to arrive at the most satisfactory
picture. Many a head which produces quite a charm-
ing effect when seen in full face would, if painted in
profile, belong to the category of things not to be
tolerated. Indeed, were we as directly and imme-
diately conscious of the differences of plane of the
third dimension, i.e., that of depth, as we are of the
outlines which fall on the retina, we should in such
instances experience an equally disagreeable impres-
sion from the full-face portrait as from the profile.

I have purposely insisted on variety in position
and aspect, since it is possible for a great master so to
handle even models which leave much to be desired,
as to compel an acknowledgment of the harmony of
their lines. Rubens is a striking instance of this.
His models, children apart, are almost invariably of
a common type, especially his women. These are
plump Flemish girls between twenty and thirty years
of age. Sometimes the coarseness of his models ruins
the picture, as, for instance, in his Three Graces, which
move us only to laughter or disgust. Sometimes,
however, his genius conquers all obstacles, as in the
Nymph of Diana (according to some, Diana herself),
who carries a spear in her right hand and on her left
arm the spoils of the chase, and is accompanied by
her hounds, while a faun, bearing fruits of the field,
goes before her. Here details which would be coarse,
or perhaps repulsive, in the model are not shown ;

6 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

the lines, regarded in relation to the subject and the
surroundings, are perfect, and there is no denying
them a certain spirit, and even greatness. But success
in such a case only justifies the artist, not the model.
No one ever knew so well as Michelangelo Buonarroti
how to produce powerful and strangely harmonious
effects by means of figures in themselves open to
criticism, simply by his mode of placing and ordering
them and of distributing their lines. For him a
figure existed only in his particular representation
of it ; how it would have looked in any other position
was a matter of no concern to him. On this account,
and not merely by reason of any necessary failure
all round, did the tendency to imitate, or even go
beyond, Michelangelo, prove so fatal to artists of a
lesser calibre. The ancients acted in a wholly differ-
ent fashion. The sculptors of antiquity endeavoured
to produce the most beautiful Venus, Apollo, Juno,
or Minerva possible. If we placed the Venus of
Milo or the Venus de Medici in the position of the
Ariadne, they would still be as beautiful as before ;
the Crouching Venus might raise herself to her full
height without suffering any disparagement ; nay,
more, their nude forms are frequently placed, inten-
tionally it would seem, in attitudes which demand a
beauty absolutely without blemish.

As artists are not unfamiliar with anatomy, I
have combined anatomical considerations, so far as I
deemed it desirable, with criticism of the external
form. We moderns, who are no longer in a position

INTRODUCTION. 7

to stamp the human form on our minds by daily and
hourly contemplation of it, are driven to rely on our
anatomical knowledge to guide us among the mani-
fold variations of structure with which we have to
deal. If the anatomist should find that here and
there details have been simplified or treated some-
what diagrammatically, let him put it down to the
purpose of this work. No one knows better than an
anatomist like myself that perfect insight can only
be gained by studying the dead subject scalpel in
hand ; but I have preferred to sacrifice some detail
to my aim of instilling correct general notions rather
than expose myself to the danger of being difficult
to understand.

THE HEAD AND NECK.

NO -part of the human body has given rise to
more diverse opinions as to what should be
accounted beautiful than the head, and more especially
the face. And this is only natural, seeing that here
so profound an influence is exerted by character and
expression.

Since in this volume we are dealing exclusively
with their representation in art, differences of opinion
as to individual faces or reproductions of them are of
subordinate significance, compared with the important
fact that sculpture and painting differ essentially in
their respective modes of appealing to us. Apart
from the influence which colour as such exercises on
the spectator, the difference arises from the fact that
the eyes, which convey so much meaning in a picture,
lose the main part of their force in a statue or bust.
Moreover, the sculptor must aim at making the head
effective from whatever side it is viewed, while the
painter is satisfied if he can find but one good aspect
— that, namely, which he proposes to reproduce. The
sculptor must further endeavour to embody forms
which, in every change of light and every alteration

THE HEAD AND NECK. 9

of the point of view, shall, by a proper distribution of
light and shade, present under all circumstances and
equally at a distance the prominent features and
characteristic lines of the face. I say advisedly by
a proper distribution of light and shade, because the
distance at which works of sculpture are seen is
usually too considerable to allow of our effectually
employing the means afforded us, by the movements
of our eyes, of accurately estimating the gradations of
the third dimension — that of depth. The differences
of depth presented by the human face are too insig-
nificant when seen at a distance.*

Such are the considerations which controlled the
growth of the ideals of the Greek sculptors, ideals
which will never fade so long as plastic art exists.
The lines which they follow are familiar to us.

The forehead, or at least that portion of it which
is left uncovered by the hair, is usually rather low.
The eyebrows are well arched, and pass without a
break at the root of the nose into the border-lines of»
its bridge. This is essential, firstly, for the production
of a good profile, on account of the line leading from

* We perceive objects with our eyes singly, that is, at one
and the same point of the field of vision, since the image is
formed on the centre of the retina in both eyes at the so-called
yellow spot, or fovea centralis. Therefore the axis of the eye
passing through the latter point must be directed at the object.
When this happens simultaneously in both eyes, the angle
which the two axes make with one another becomes smaller
as the distance of the object increases, and for objects at an
infinite distance the angle ceases to exist, i.e., the two axes

10 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

the forehead to the bridge of the nose ; secondly,
by reason of the way in which the eyes are seen
when viewed from the side or in so-called three-
quarter view ; and, in the third place, because by this
means the shadows are so distributed, that even in
full face and at a considerable distance the continuity
of the nose with the forehead is maintained. Thus
the line passing from the eyebrows to the nose is
marked as we are accustomed to draw it in outline
drawings.

The bridge of the nose is straight and flush with
the forehead, not set at an angle to it, nor separated
from it by a depression. This is essential to the
noble simplicity of the antique type, which was
designed to produce its effect equally when seen
in strict profile.

The eye is set horizontally, and not in a line running
obliquely from above in a downward and inward
direction. Since this feature has >so often been in-
sisted on, I must observe that a slight rise in the line
of the eyes has not in all periods been regarded as
ugly. We find such eyes in the works of the early

are parallel. As the distance diminishes, the angle increases
in size, very slowly so long as the distance is great ; when the
object approaches so near that the distance between the two
eyes themselves is no longer very minute in proportion to the
distance of the object, the angle grows rapidly larger. For
this reason, when the distance is considerable, perceptions of
depth and range, that is, of larger or smaller distances from
the observer's eye, are by no means accurate unless light and
shade come to the assistance of our perceptive faculties.

THE HEAD AND NECK. I I

Italian masters, who had not as yet studied the antique,
and who in developing the art they inherited from the
Byzantines took their own course. Giotto and his
followers offer numerous examples, even in instances
where they are endeavouring to portray figures of
ideal beauty. The frescoes ascribed to Orcagna in
Sta. Maria Novella, at Florence, prove convincingly
that a noble and touching type of beauty is com-
patible with a moderately oblique position of the eyes.
In these instances the deviation from what we regard
as the artistic norm is not so much in the direction
of the arch of the brow as in that of the aperture of
the eye, which bends up towards the temples more
than is the case in works of art of the mature
renaissance.

The horizontal position of the eye-slit among the
ancients has been more often insisted on than the
circumstance that the outer angle of the eye is usually
carried farther backwards, in comparison with the
inner angle, than is the case in the majority of living
people we meet with. This has the advantage of
showing the eye better in profile. Of course it has
no influence on the direction of the line of sight, in
the physiological sense of the phrase, on the optic
axes — i.e., straight lines drawn from the object ob-
served to the central points of the two eyes. These
lines are, under all circumstances, dependent on the
position of the object on which the gaze of the eyes is
fixed. It is merely that a larger portion of the eyeball
is visible within the eyelids when seen from the side.

12 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

The eyelids of a sculptor's model, especially the
upper one, should not have too thin a border, and
the horizontal surface of the border should be sharply
divided off from the vertical surface. The aid which
the eyelashes render to the painter in drawing the
eye is denied to the sculptor. When the eye is wide
open, the eyelid should be separated from the ridge
of the brow by a simple and well-arched line, unen-
cumbered by irregular secondary folds. If the eye
is cast down, the line descending in profile from the
prominence of the brow to the point of the eyelid
corresponding to the centre of the cornea should be
straight and unbroken. During sleep the cornea is
directed upwards, and its position should be indicated
by a faint elevation of the eyelid.

The cheek-bones must not be too prominent, and
the surface of the cheek should pass evenly without
interruption into that of the upper lip. This is the
rule in antique works representing ideal female
beauty or the heads of beautiful youths. The line,,
occurring so frequently amongst ourselves, which takes
its origin just outside the nostril at its upper corner,
and, making a curve round the corner of the mouth,
ends there, is found only in figures of aged indi-
viduals and of satyrs, and in laughing figures. To
reproduce it in a face making a claim to ideal beauty
is a blunder which modern art, in its slavish imitation
of the model, unhappily does not always succeed in
avoiding. For we have among us a large proportion
of young and good-looking girls in whom this line

THE HEAD AND NECK. 13

is well marked, and thus artists are misled into
reproducing it.

This line, when not the result of age or of facial
contortion produced by laughing, is caused by pro-
minence of the cheek-bones, by excessive width of
the upper row of teeth as measured from the anterior
molars of one side to those of the other, or else by
the teeth being set obliquely with their crowns jutting
forwards and outwards, and their fangs retreating
inwards. These factors may act singly or together ;
and, further, the consistency of the fleshy parts, an
insufficiently tense skin, or the distribution of the fat,
may take some share in it.

A restricted width of the palate, measured between
the molars of each side, forms an important factor
in the beauty of a head in yet another respect. It
•stands in correlation with a modest span of lower
jaw, which thus is able to pass over into the neck
without the intervention of a strong ridge, so that
the surface of the cheek lying between the corner of
the mouth and the ear may be continued into the
lateral surface of the neck without any excessive accu-
mulation of fat in the latter. A similar narrowness
•of the palate may be observed even more strikingly
shown in the Dying Adonis in the Bargello at
Florence, ascribed to Michelangelo, than in most
.antique sculptures.

A mouth which is to serve the sculptor as a model
of beauty should display the characteristic lines
which we see in the antique, and the border-line

14 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

between the skin and the red part of the lips should
be distinctly marked by their contour, and not by
the colour only. A model who does not show this,
and in whom, though the lips and adjacent skin are
distinguished by colour, the contour of the mouth is
indistinct or unpleasing, is useless to the sculptor and
an unfavourable subject for the painter.

The lips of the closed mouth must be so adjusted
that the line of division between them is marked by
a deep shadow along its entire length from one angle
of the mouth to the other. The sculptor will fre-
quently have recourse to a deepening of the groove
in order to emphasize the line of division. Partly
with this object, and partly for the sake of the
expression, it was a practice, even in classical times,,
for the sculptor to leave the mouth slightly open.
The line of the closed mouth should form two waves
moving to meet one another, with their descending
parts in the centre. The notch so formed may be
more 'or less rounded. The form of the wave is
subject to a considerable range of variation ; but
where the wave is non-existent, giving place to a
mere arch or a straight line, such a mouth is of no
use to the sculptor. The slightly-opened mouth
should not terminate laterally in sharp angles, but
should be bounded on each side by a line running
from above in a downward and outward direction.

It is notorious that in many antiques the point of
attachment of the ears is placed higher than that
ordinarily occurring in the living subject, and this

THE HEAD AND NECK. 15

has been quoted as evidence for deriving Greek from
Egyptian art; but C. Langer ("Anatomic der ausseren
Formen des menschlichen Korpers," Vienna, 1884)
has observed, quite accurately, that this phenomenon
is by no means of universal occurrence in archaic
statues, and that in one of the best known, the Apollo
of Tenea, the ears are correctly set on the head.

The chin in the antique is rounded, often with a
slight median depression, and with the most convex
part of its surface directed less obliquely backward
and more forward than in most of the living faces
we see around us.

The antique type of face is regarded by many as
an ideal form which is not to be found at the present
day, and perhaps never existed at all ; but an atten-
tive observer may succeed in meeting with heads
in Italy, and occasionally even in Germany, which
approach this ideal very closely ; and I am informed
by an excellent artist, who has lived for a long time in
the East, that the type may be met with in Smyrna
in its purest form.

It is worthy of remark that the aquiline nose,
which is by no means of rare occurrence in Italy,.
never found any acceptance in relation to female
beauty among the artists of the middle ages and
renaissance. When they do deviate from the Greek
profile, they tend to make the bridge of the nose
no longer join the forehead by a straight line ; but
where they alter the form of the nose itself, they
never do it so as to convert it into an aquiline nose..

1 6 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

Indeed, they rather fall into the opposite tendency ;
and in the early renaissance period we not infre-
quently, in the heads of women or angels making
claim to ideal beauty, meet with noses which fall
considerably behind the antique in size. They are
not, of course, set on Greek heads, but are co-ordinated
with a childlike type of countenance.

In Raffaelle's pictures several heads are alleged to
be portraits of the Fornarina. The master is, how-
ever, made responsible for marked deviations from
the original, if the female portrait in the Barberini
Gallery at Rome, bearing the signature of Raffaelle
on the armlet, really represents the Fornarina. None
of the heads of the Fornarina so-called in his other
pictures has the accentuated aquiline nose of the girl
depicted there.

In the autumn of 1882 I saw in the Pinacoteca at
Lucca a Madonna which resembled the Fornarina
portrait more closely than any other I know of, but
the nose was less strongly marked. The Madonna
did not form part of the collection, but was stated to
be the property of a Contessa Nobili. By some it
was regarded as a work of Raffaelle, but by others
was attributed to Giulio Romano.

It has often been asserted that the ancients had
smaller heads than the existing race of men ; and,
according to the ordinary methods of measurement,
this is in the main correct. These methods have
certain practical advantages for artists when at work ;
but it is not scientifically correct to compare the

THE HEAD AND NECK. I/

height of the whole figure with the so-called height
of the head, because thereby the quotient is strongly
affected by the considerable range of variation in the
length of the legs. Now, among the moderns the
legs are often shorter than among the ancients, as
represented in their art. If, then, we were to com-
pare the height of the head in the living subject
with the height of the trunk only as measured from
the top of the scalp to the pubic region, we should
arrive at a result much more like that furnished
by measurements of the antique.

A second cause of the difference just mentioned
is the more extensive development of the facial skull
among the barbarian races whose descendants form
a preponderant majority of the present population
of Europe. The artist has to distinguish between the
facial skull and the cerebral skull, or brain-case, as
the development of the two by no means coincides,
and is the result of two different sets of causes. The
brain-case determines the shape of the upper part of
the head. If a line be drawn from the root of the
nose through the eye and the aperture of the ear,
— that is, the entrance of the external auditory
meatus, — and thence to the bony ridge in the occipital
region, which may be distinguished on each side
by the finger from the muscles and ligaments
which are attached thereto, all that lies above this
line forms the brain-case, and all below it the facial
skull ; and in the latter it is mainly the greater
development of the jaw which concerns us. In the

I 8 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

upper jaw it is an increase of its height that adds
to the dimension of the height of the head ; in the
lower jaw the projection of it in a downward direc-
tion, occasioned either by its size or by its oblique
position.

If the line above described be drawn on modern
profile portraits copied accurately from life, and on
profile portraits from the antique, the difference will
frequently be perceptible, especially if a perpendicular
line be drawn from the aperture of the ear towards
the neck.

C. Rochet lays it down that in a beautiful profile
head the distance of the aperture of the ear, or of the
tragus covering it, from the chin should not exceed
its distance from the scalp ; a proportion that is found
oftener in the antique than in life. He also asserts
that the Romans had the smallest under-jaw. His
studies on this subject are to be found in a lecture
delivered before the Anthropological Society of Paris,
on November 29th, 1866.

At the same time, among the Greeks, too, the
brain-case seems usually not to have been large,
and the high-arched crown of the head now so
often met with would seem not to have been of
frequent occurrence, to judge by the portrait statues
that have come down to us. That art, when it
has a free choice, should not reproduce it is not
wonderful. It should be mentioned here that the
Venus of the Esquiline, an antique work of art of
great beauty, has proportionately a large head one

THE HEAD AND NECK. 19

which would not look at all too small on the shoulders
of a living girl.

The neck in antique female portraits approaches a
cylindrical shape more closely than in most living
persons ; and, indeed, amongst the latter, the more
even its rounded surface is, the more beautiful it is
deemed. In many antiques which have the head
slightly bent forwards, so that the neck is inclined
rather obliquely in a backward and downward direc-
tion, its shape is strikingly cylindrical, its girth at
the top scarcely differing from that at its base. It
must be admitted, however, that the antero-posterior
diameter is somewhat longer than the transverse
diameter.

The following rough-and-ready rule may serve in
the choice of a model : When the neck is at once
thin and cylindrical, it is beautiful ; when it is
cylindrical and likewise thick, it may be very ugly,
but even uglier when it is thin and yet not cylin-
drical. For when it is thick its cylindrical shape may
be due to a somewhat excessive layer of fat ; and
when it is thin, but not cylindrical, this condition
may arise from excessive leanness. This rule, of
course, does not entitle the artist to make the neck as
thin and cylindrical as he chooses, but applies solely
to the choice of a model. Nature herself takes care to
keep within the limits which the artist should respect.
It is sometimes laid down that the circumference
of the neck should be equal to that of the calf of the
leg at its widest part, but this is incorrect. The neck,

20 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

when free from all swellings,* remains always more or
less behind the calf in size in individuals with a well-
developed muscular system. In the Sleeping Ariadne
of the Vatican the neck, to judge by the eye merely,
is scarcely thicker than the upper arm. The propor-
tion which the artist has adopted in this case certainly
deviates from what we ordinarily find in youthful
figures of similar build to the Ariadne, but it is not
beyond the range of possibility.

In a living model, who is otherwise well-fitted for
the representation of an ideal figure, such a condition
may, in general, be regarded as an advantage, as in
such a case the neck is sure not to be too thin for
the rest of the body, nor the upper arm too thick,
provided, as we have said, that the rest of the body
is suitable for an ideal figure.

Anteriorly the neck is bounded below on each side
by the line of the clavicles, or more accurately by a
line running above the clavicles, which should not
themselves be visible. Behind, it slopes away on each
side into the contours leading from the neck to the
shoulders. Apart from modifications caused by the
presence of more or less fat, these contours are deter-
mined, in the first place, by the superior fibres of
the trapezius muscle (Musculus cucullaris or trapezius}
and their state of contraction, and, secondly, by the

* Swellings of the thyroid body, and a swollen condition of
the deeper veins of the neck, are constantly met with in certain
districts, and may easily pass unperceived by the untrained
observer.

THE HEAD AND NECK. 21

muscles lying beneath them and their points of
attachment to the skeleton. The girls and women
of the Romagna are famed for the beauty of these
lines and of the attachment of the neck to the
shoulders. Cylindrical necks resembling the antique
I have frequently seen in Tuscany.

Furthermore, the line defining the contour where
the neck merges into the shoulder, when viewed from
the front, deserves special consideration. As already
mentioned, it is determined in the first place, apart
from the fat layer, by the trapezius muscle, which
takes its origin from the occipital protuberance and
ridge and spinous processes of the cervical and dorsal
vertebrae, and is inserted into the outer third of the
clavicle and into the scapula ; in the latter its in-
sertion can be traced into the inner border of the
acromion, and along the inner (upper) border of the
spine of the scapula. By its contraction it raises
the shoulder, and, when not otherwise prevented,
rotates the scapula on an antero-posterior axis so
as to bring its upper portion nearer to the spinal
column, while the lower angle is turned outwards.
It is chiefly the upper portion of the muscle that
contracts in this process, the lower portion being
only employed in holding the spine of the scapula
downwards and inwards.

Fig. i shows the muscles of the back of the trunk.
The fibres of the trapezius are marked I ; 2 denotes
the fibres of the deltoid muscle, which are inserted into
the outer (lower) edge of the spine of the scapula

22 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

opposite those of the trapezius ; they can work to-
gether with those of the trapezius when the arm is
to be set in motion. If, however, the arm is fixed,
and only the scapula is left free, then their action, as
will be evident, is opposed — i.e., when the fibres of
one muscle contract, those of the other attached to the
scapula opposite them are stretched out. The great

flat dorsal muscle (M. latissimus dorsi\ which "also
moves the arm, is marked 3. On the other side
of the trunk the trapezius and latissimus dorsi have
been removed so as to leave the scapula with the
muscles of the arm exposed, as also the muscles
running from the border of the scapula to the
spinal column (5), which raise the scapula and at
the same time bring it nearer to the median line

THE HEAD AND NECK. 23

(M. rhomboideus, also called M. rliomboideus major
and minor, because it is often divided into two un-
equal portions). Lastly, at 6 is shown another muscle,
which runs from the upper and inner corner of the
scapula to the transverse processes of the four upper
cervical vertebras, and by its contraction raises the
scapula in a more perpendicular direction (Levator
anguli scapula;].

It is evident, therefore, that the contour in question
must depend largely on the action of the arm. When
the arm is moved upwards and outwards, the shoulder
is also raised, and the fibres of the trapezius descending
laterally from the neck must contract, that is, they
all become shorter and thicker, and consequently the
muscle forms under the skin a convex mass of flesh.
When, on the other hand, the arm is moved as if to
reach the hollow of the knee of the other side from
behind, then those same fibres are stretched, i.e., they
become longer and therefore thinner, and the convexity
disappears.

But, apart from changes occasioned by such actions,
we meet with very marked individual variations in
the course taken by this line.

On looking at various figures with the arm hanging
perpendicularly downwards so as completely to relax
the trapezius, we find that some have a distinct con-
vexity between the top of the shoulder and the neck,
as for instance in the Venus de Medicis and in Holbein's
Lais Corinthiaca (Fig. 2), while others have no con-
vexity at all, and the line of the neck passes into that

24 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of the shoulder in a gentle curve, so that when it
reaches the top of the shoulder its direction has
been altered through nearly 90° without exhibiting
a single point of inflection, to use a geometrical
phrase. An instance is shown in Fig. 3, taken from
the frescoes of Orcagna in Sta. Maria Novella, at
Florence. Either line may have a good effect, but

the latter one is only appropriate to delicate youthful
figures, the former presupposing a riper form and
well-developed muscles.

When fat is present in any quantity, it is always
an important element in the convexity. It may also
happen that the difference in the two lines is connected
with variations of tone of the trapezius. Since this
muscle holds the shoulder in readiness for and assists

THE HEAD AND NECK. 25

to bring about every desired movement of the arm,
it is seldom completely at rest ; that is to say, even
when it gives no external sign of activity, it is receiving
from the central nervous system continuous impulses,
which maintain the shoulder in the proper position
for any change in the position of the arm. These

impulses vary in frequency and strength according
to the constitution and temperament of the individual.
Further, the convexity would seem to be more frequent
among people with short necks than with long ones ;
though this perhaps is related to the fact that the
fibres of the trapezius running from the edge of the
shoulder to the upper cervical vertebras have a shorter
and less perpendicular course.

26 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

Many persons, who have this convexity in a
marked degree, appear to be long-necked without
really being so, simply because the shoulder lies
unusually low — the reason being that the thorax is
not proportionately developed in its upper part, and
so causes a depression of the outer end of the clavicle.
If, however, the inner extremity of the latter bone is
also depressed by reason of the first rib being inclined
too much downwards, the neck is actually lengthened,,
since the fossa of the neck is then situated lower down.
The art of the patch-and-powder period offers abundant
examples of this type.

Such figures are peculiar in that they appear to
have longer necks when seen from in front than from
behind. In front the neck is long on account of the
low position of the fossa ; seen from behind it is
shorter, because the cervical vertebrae and their inter-
vertebral discs are not ab'normally long ; and hence
the fibres of the trapezius and the subjacent structures
in the region of the neck follow the usual track, and
are merely carried farther down in their outward
course so as to reach the low-lying shoulder.

A defect of the neck occurring not infrequently in
many districts consists in its girth being increased
from above downwards. The depression bounding
the neck at its lower end, and separating it from
the sternum, the fossa of the neck — which however is
only, strictly speaking, a fossa in lean individuals — has
in this instance vanished, and the lower part of the
neck seen in front has the appearance of being flat

THE HEAD AND NECK. 27

and wide. A neck of this kind may occur in combi-
nation with absolutely flawless beauty in the rest of
the body ; but the artist must nevertheless beware of
even attempting to reproduce it, as these necks are
found most frequently in regions where wens and
goitres are prevalent, and constitute, in fact, the com-
mencement of these pathological deformities. In these
and other forms of neck we find the contour in profile
divided from the line of the lower jaw by a sharp
receding angle. This is eminently unpleasing, and
even in ancient times sculptors selected attitudes in
which the neck was slightly bent at the nape, while
the head was turned upwards, so as to give a better
line to the contour when seen in profile. Naturally,
it depends on the nature of the model what can be
accomplished in this respect in dealing with the living
subject. There are, however, models to be found who,
in an appropriate position, leave nothing to be desired
with regard to this line.

In the male, especially in heroic figures, prominence
of the two sterno-mastoid muscles (Mm. sterno-cleido-
mastoidei} may be an ornament, but in the female it
is ugly ; and many a woman's figure, distinguished
by a well-developed muscular system, is marred by it.
Some figures, however, with well-developed muscles
are free from this defect, because the parts surrounding
the muscles in question are well provided with fat.
But a further factor comes into play— viz., whether
the muscles are favourably placed as regards their
points of insertion. It is favourable when the skull

23 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

has a small base, so that the two muscles lie not too
far apart, and when the upper end of the sternum and
the inner extremities of the clavicles adjoining are not
over-prominent.

Besides, the artist can do much in determining his
choice of attitude. The most favourable is that above
mentioned, in which the neck is somewhat inclined
forward at the nape and the head is slightly raised,
the face looking to the front or a little to one side.
The sterno-mastoid muscles should be neither con-
tracted nor stretched out, but relaxed, so that they
may accommodate themselves to the surrounding soft
parts and avoid any constriction of the skin.

In the choice of a female model the rule holds good
that the neck is to be preferred which, in different
aspects, offers somewhat concave and gently-curved
contours. If the anterior outline in profile view is
straight, it will make an ugly angle with the lower
jaw, while convexity of the same line implies either
a faulty structure of the cervical region of the spinal
column, or a swelling in the region of the thyroid
body. Convexity of the anterior line in three-quarter
view is the effect either of masculine development of
the sterno-mastoid muscles or of swollen veins in the
neck. Convexity of the lateral contours of the neck,
when seen from in front, may arise from a swelling of
the thyroid body, or else from excessive development
of the sterno-mastoid muscles.

We now approach the question whether a long neck,
a so-called swan's neck, is beautiful or not. Among

THE HEAD AND NECK. 29

the ancients the neck, save in a few Tanagra statuettes
is not long ; it has the proportions of the average
necks we see every day around us. A preference for
long slender necks shows itself first in the later middle
ages and early renaissance, and is associated with a
preference for slender forms in general. Thus the
neck in the Venus of Sandro Botticelli is in keeping
with the character of the whole figure — she could have
no other ; but whether one ought to be roused to
enthusiasm over such a figure, as many people have
been in recent times, is a matter of individual taste.
As I shall often have occasion to refer to this figure,
I have reproduced it here (Fig. 4).*

A long neck joined to a body that is neither tall
nor slender produces a disagreeable effect. Length
of neck is naturally related to the length of the spinal
column, and therefore of the trunk. Accordingly, if
the neck is too long in relation to the entire length
of the body, and, given a certain height of the whole
figure, the portion above the pubes is longer than the
portion below it, it follows that the legs must be too
short. During the German renaissance, and also,

* Though I am not one of those who worship this figure,
I am by no means insensible to the poetry and delicacy with
which the whole composition is penetrated, or to the dewy
freshness which pervades the picture. But, however much we
may feel ourselves prepossessed in favour of the genial and
original artist from whose school Filippino Lippi emanated,
we must not blind ourselves to defects when we are con-
sidering individual figures by themselves, and comparing their
structural details with the antique.

30 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

though less frequently, in the late Italian renaissance,
forms are met with which offend in this respect.

Finally, I must repeat that the lower the shoulders
are placed the longer does the neck appear to be.
The position of the shoulders in turn depends upon
that of the clavicles, and this again on the structure
of the thorax, so that with a thorax normally deve-
loped in a strong and healthy subject abnormally low
shoulders are not readily found.

Thus a long neck, although, when it is cylindrical
and flexible, in a good spiral line, it may exhibit a
feeling of considerable elegance, can only be accounted
beautiful if justified by its association with the rest of
the figure.

The position of the shoulders is liable to change in
one and the same individual, inasmuch as the thorax,
while expanding in inspiration, lifts up the shoulder
girdle which rests upon it (cf. Langer, loc. «'/.,
p. 189). It is well known that fright and surprise are
accompanied by a sudden inspiration, not, however,
immediately followed by an expiration. Under such
circumstances one of the means of characterisation
is to place the shoulders slightly higher than they
naturally would be in the same figure in a condition
of complete repose.

On the female neck may often be seen one or two
lines encircling it. They are not folds, though they
are the traces of folds which were present during
childhood. They were observed and reproduced
by the sculptors of antiquity, and may be seen in

FIG 4-

32 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

several figures of Venus. When they are met with
in the living model they should be carefully copied,
for they are an ornament to the female model,
inasmuch as they indicate a normal and healthy
development in youth, and generally occur only on a
fresh skin and one well-knit to the subjacent struc-
tures. They must not be confounded with folds such
as are easily formed on a slack skin in movements of
the neck. C. Rochet remarks : " The folds on the
anterior part of the neck are never marks of age
and ugliness ; on the contrary, they are found to the
number of one or two in young and comely persons
only, provided that they are not too thin. It is
otherwise with folds on the side of the neck, which
are true wrinkles, and make their appearance with
age" ("Traite d' Anatomic," p. 210). This statement
is so far inaccurate that it lays too much stress
on the position of the folds. The main point is
rather the nature of the lines, which in the one case
are wrinkles, in the other are fine grooves represent-
ing vestigial remains of the fat folds in the child's
neck. Sometimes they are carried round to the side
of the neck, but they are distinguished at a glance by
the fact that they are not true folds. The skin is every-
where closely applied to the subjacent structures, and
only forms a minute shallow groove along these lines.
Two very ugly pendent longitudinal folds, running
from the lower jaw on each side of the chin in a
downward direction, are characteristic of old age.
They were known to the artists of the later renais-

THE HEAD AND NCEK.

33

sance, and often made use of by them in figures of
Furies, impersonations of Plague, etc.

If the finger be passed along the spinous processes
of the cervical vertebrae, one such process rather more
prominent than the rest will be felt just below the
nape, where the neck merges into the back. This is
the so-called prominent vertebra ( Vertebra prominens).
At this point in many women, even when they do
not elsewhere show much tendency to fatness, a more
or less extensive mass of connective tissue laden with
fat is found. It is riot in itself a disfigurement, but,
unless the object be to depict a matronly figure,
painters and sculptors should beware of indicating it
as it is invariably a sign of advancing years.

II.

THE ARM AND HAND.

NEXT to a disproportionate length of the arm,
the commonest defects in the structure of
the bony frame are over-extension and an oblique
attachment of the fore-arm to the upper arm.

The upper extremity of the ulna projects, in a
manner familiar to all, beyond the elbow-joint, and
thus constitutes the small arm of a lever to which the
extensor muscles of the arm are attached. By reason
of the very shortness of the arm of the lever on which
these muscles work, they are enabled to extend the
fore-arm with a rapid motion and drive the fist for-
ward for the purpose of giving a blow or a push.
When the arm is bent, this piece of bone forms a
projection which has given to the whole bone its
German name, Ellenbogenbein. If the arm is extended,
the side of this bony process, which is turned towards
the humerus, fits into a fossa in the latter just abore
the joint, and thus, by a collision of the two bones,
any further extension of the arm is checked.

This does not happen till the fore-arm and upper
arm form a straight line, or even, when the extension
is carried so far, till the fore-arm forms with the

THE ARM AND HAND. 35

upper arm an obtuse angle on the dorsal side, i.e.,
that on which the extensor muscles lie. This latter
condition is what I term over-extension. I do not
care if it be asserted that a certain amount of over-
extension is normal. It is true that if we measure,
in a large number of individuals, the angle formed on
the extensor surface by the bones of the upper and
fore-arm when fully extended, we shall not find 180°
to be the average, but a slightly smaller angle, because
the by no means rare cases of considerable over-
extension affect the mean. But such a mean is of
doubtful value to the anatomist, and does not concern
the artist at all. The latter has to ask himself what is
the most beautiful among forms actually coming under
observation, and over-extension is unquestionably the
reverse of beautiful. I can call to mind an admirable
tragic actor who had a majestic figure ; it served ex-
cellently to display the harmonious plasticity of his
movements ; but whenever he extended his arm in
a moment of passion, the figure was marred by
over-extension of the arm.

This feature is peculiarly disagreeable in men of
a powerful build. It is more tolerable when present
to a slight degree in children and young girls, not as
improving the lines, but as helping to characterise
the flexibility of the youthful body, and therefore
occasionally to be sought after.

The second and very common defect is an oblique
attachment of the fore-arm. We must first distin-
guish between two different positions of the out-

36 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

stretched arm : that in which the thumb lies on the
outer side, called supination, and that in which it lies
on the inner side, known as pronation. Anatomically
the distinction between the two consists in this : that
in supination the two bones of the fore-arm, the
radius and ulna, lie parallel to one another, whereas
in pronation the radius crosses the ulna in an oblique
direction. If the arm is flexed at the elbow, and the
latter is held close to the body, it will be found that
the back of the hand can be turned first upwards and
then downwards. Here the angle traversed between
pronation and supination extends to about 180°.
With the arm extended the hand can be rotated
through 270° ; but the additional 90° should not be
put down to the account of pronation and supination,
but to that of a rotation of the humerus in the
shoulder-joint.

After these preliminaries let us consider the out-
stretched arm first in supination. If we imagine a
straight line drawn through the axis of the upper
arm and produced beyond it, such a line will not
coincide with the axis of the fore-arm, but will make
an angle with it, deviating towards the side of the
little finger. Thus, in a sense, every fore-arm is
attached obliquely to the upper arm and forms an
angle with it.

When, however, we consider the arm in pronation,
the case is altered. In order to pass from supination
to pronation, we rotate the lower flattened end of the
radius round the lower end of the ulna, and the hand

THE ARM AND HAND.

37

revolves on the axis of the little finger, as it were,
so that the thumb, which before lay on the outside,
comes to lie on the inside. In the process the fore-
arm and hand are brought much more nearly into a
line with the axis of the upper arm than in supina-
tion, because, though the ulna makes the same angle
as before with the axial line of the upper arm, yet
the whole mass, which formerly lay on the outside
of the ulna, is now, so far as it consists of the hand
and lower portion of the fore-arm, situated on its
inside. The angle formed by the attachment of
the ulna to the humerus varies in different people,
and is very often too small — smaller, that is, than is
consistent with beauty of line ; and this is what I
mean by an oblique attachment of the fore -arm.

A glance at such an arm when it is extended in
supination shows this deformity from the front as well
as from behind ; but it becomes more marked if that
part of the head of the humerus, which is most pro-
minent in front,* be found, and a string be fixed
there and stretched thence to the hand, so as to lie
between the two tendons of the flexor muscles which
project on the fore-arm, close to the wrist, when the
hand is flexed towards the fore-arm by muscular con-
traction and the flexion is prevented by external
resistance. These are the tendons of the M. palmaris

* This is the so-called lesser tuberosity (Tttberculum minus]
of the head of the humerus, which lies immediately to the
inside and in front of the groove in which the tendon of the
long head of the biceps runs up to the shoulder-joint.

38 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

longus and of the M. flexor carpi radialis, also known
as the radialis internus. The tightly-stretched string
should now pursue the following course : — On the
flexor side of the arm, when the hand is in supination,
a shallow depression is seen near the elbow. It is
caused by the tendon of the great flexor of the arm,
the biceps, sinking deep down between the masses of
muscle lying on either side of it towards its insertion
into the radius. The string should run midway over
this depression, or, at any rate, just to one side of the
deepest part of it ; and the further the string lies to
one side of the median line, the more oblique is the
attachment of the fore-arm. I would by no means
venture to maintain that a rectilinear attachment
of the fore-arm is the most frequent, and therefore
normal, in the anthropological sense ; but it is that
which may be employed in the most varied attitudes
without giving disagreeable lines, and which I there-
fore must perforce regard as the best for artistic
purposes.

An oblique attachment of the fore-arm appears to
be more common among women than among men
(just as an inward projection of the knee, the so-called
knock-kneed condition, is commoner among women) ;
at any rate, it is more often remarked in them.
Fashionable dress leads them to carry the arm more
• turned outwards than is the case of men. In con-
sequence, the outer condyle of the humerus, which
faces to the front in men in a state of repose, is in
women turned more outwrards, and the inner condyle

THE ARM AND HAND.

39

more inwards. Thus the common plane of the axis
of the humerus and the axis of rotation of the elbow-
joint would turn one surface to the front and the
other backwards ; and this is also the plane in which
the deflection of the obliquely-attached fore-arm falls.
When, therefore, fashionably-dressed and tightly-laced
ladies in whom the fore-arm is obliquely attached are
seen from in front or behind, the defect is observable
in the oblique position of the fore-arm as compared
with the vertically-pendent position of the upper arm,
in spite of the loosely-hanging hands being usually
pronated.

C. Langer has remarked (loc. cit., p. 269) that the
ulna, when flexed on the humerus, does not lie
directly over it, but is deflected to the inside. This
deflection becomes marked in proportion to the
obliquity of the attachment of the fore-arm, since
the axis of rotation is proportionately deflected from
the position at right angles to the longitudinal axis
of the humerus. Just as the knock-kneed condition
has its origin in a deformity of the lower end of the
femur, so the obliquely-attached fore-arm arises from
a deformity of the lower extremity of the humerus,
and not from any deformity of the ulna.
. Every one can lay the tips of the fingers on the
shoulder-joint of the same side, but the arm and hand
do not take up a similar position in the process in
every case. The more obliquely the fore-arm is
attached to the arm, the more must the hand be
turned outwards, or else the humerus must be proper-

40 THE HUMAN FIGURE.'

tionately rotated outwards. This is readily explained
by the difference of position which the strongly-flexed
fore-arm assumes with regard to the upper arm,
according as its attachment is straight or oblique.

Nevertheless, an accurate knowledge of the shape
of the arm is requisite to enable the observer, on
looking at an arm even when strongly flexed, as e.g.
in the Sleeping Ariadne or the so-called Diana of
Gabii, to determine at once whether it is obliquely
attached or not. When, therefore,' the artist has to
work closely on the lines of his model, and the latter
is defective in this particular, he should endeavour
to conceal the defect by means of an appropriate
attitude, having recourse either to flexion or to pro-
nation. Seeing that the oblique fore-arm is deflected
outwards from the axis of the humerus in the ex-
tended position, and inwards when completely flexed,
there is always a median position which shows the
form of the arm to the best advantage. But how
obliquity of the fore-arm, even when moderately bent
and in pronation, will yet betray itself, may be seen
in Fig. 5, which is reproduced from a photograph
from life.

On the other hand the defect may, as we have said,
be concealed by careful arrangement. A favourite
attitude with sculptors is that of a girl plaiting her
hair. In this instance the artist may copy his model
faithfully, even when the fore-arm is not faultless, if
only the inner condyle of the humerus does not make
an angular projection. One thing, however, must be

THE ARM AND HAND. 4!

guarded against : the hand belonging to the side on
which the plait hangs down should be the lower one,
that of the opposite side the upper ; by this means a
degree of flexion is obtained in both arms, such as
to prevent the defect being perceptible. In this
way arms may be available, which would be of no

Fie. 5.

use when extended in supination. Very slight defects
of this nature may become imperceptible in the
extended arm, as soon as it is pronated. It may
be formulated as a rule that this has taken place if
the axis of the outstretched pronated arm appears
straight.

How much pronation helps the appearance of a
moderately oblique fore-arm is evident from Fig. 6,

42 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

which is a reduced copy of a drawing by G. L. Rochet
(from C. Rochet, " Traite d'Anatomie," Fig. 28). I
have indicated by a dotted line the direction of the
axis of the upper arm when produced. It will be seen
that the whole of the carpus lies outside the dotted

line. In pronation the lower end of the radius is
rotated over the ulna, so that the former comes to
lie on the inside of the lower extremity of the latter,
and then the produced axis of the upper arm will
pass through the carpus.

I have also indicated the axis of rotation of the

THE ARM AND HAND.

43

elbow-joint. In this it will become clear why, when
the arm is strongly flexed, the wrist comes to lie
more and more inside the shoulder, in proportion to
the degree of obliquity of the fore-arm. It would
lie directly on the shoulder if the axis of rotation
stood exactly at right angles to the axis of the
humerus, or, what comes to the same thing, if the
plane in which the fore-arm moves during flexion
were parallel to the axis of the humerus. This is
not the case, however. The external superior angle
formed by the axis of rotation with that of the
humerus is an acute angle, and consequently the
wrist, which, when the arm was extended in supination,
was deflected outwards, will be deflected inwards
when flexed through more than 90°.

Hitherto I have distinguished between the axis
of the upper arm and that of the humerus. By the
former I do not mean the axis of the bone, nor the
axis round which the pendent upper arm rotates in
the shoulder-joint, for the latter axis would pass
through a point the horizontal distance of which
from the surface of the joint is not altered during
the rotation. What is meant is the straight line
drawn through the mean centre of a continuous series
of transverse sections of the upper arm. This is the
line which the eye seeks, for it would be the true
geometrical axis of the upper arm if the latter had
the form of a cylinder. If produced, it must still
pass through the middle of the carpus, if in pronation
the outstretched arm is to appear straight.

44 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

A peculiarly unpleasing effect is wrought by the
combination of obliquity of the fore -arm with over-
extension. When such an arm is extended in supi-
nation, the inner prominence of the lower extremity
of the humerus makes an angular projection on the
inner side, and yields a very ugly line.

I have shown above how the lines of the extended
fore-arm with only moderate obliquity of attachment
may be improved by pronation. If, however, the
angle resulting from the obliquity is still further
removed from 1 80°, the lines will continue to be bad
in pronation. The angular prominence formed by
the inner condyle of the humerus is then no longer
masked by pronation, but is, in fact, rendered more
emphatic by the depression which is formed some
three finger-breadths below it, and which arises from
the state of tension in which the fascia of the fore-arm
is maintained by its connection with the tendon of
the biceps ; another depression lies opposite it on
the radial side of the arm. Since the arm in being
pronated is, as a rule, also rotated in the shoulder-
joint, the angle between the humerus and ulna, which
with the arm extended in supination faced outwards,
now faces to the front, whereby the lower extremity
of the ulna becomes prominent as compared with the
upper extremity. The radius is now rotated over
the ulna thus obliquely placed, and, when pronation
is complete, in such a way that its anterior end lies
behind, or, if the arm is raised, below that of the ulna.
All these concomitants yield restless and inharmonious

THE ARM AND HAND.

45

lines, which have a bad effect aesthetically in the
male and female figure alike.

The form of the male upper arm depends so much
on the muscular development and the action repre-
sented, that further details would be out of place here.
In the female it is generally accounted beautiful in
proportion to its roundness when the fore-arm is
partly flexed ; among the ancients, too, the upper
arm gravitates towards a cylindrical form. In the
renaissance period, however, we frequently find ex-
amples of an upper arm which, as is often the case
in nature, is laterally compressed ; and the contrast
is heightened between the more powerful development
in the direction of depth, i.e., in an antero-posterior
direction of the upper arm, and that of the fore-arm
in the direction of breadth. The masters of the re-
naissance were, in fact, more rigidly naturalist than is
usually admitted in current statements on the subject.

A cylindrical upper arm is materially dependent on
the following conditions : viz., that the olecranon be
short and project but little during flexion of the arm ;
that the tendon of the biceps be short and be inserted
as high up as possible into the radius ; and that the
subcutaneous fat be well-developed in relation to the
muscles. Boys, as a rule, have flatter arms than girls.
Whereas the later masters usually gave female arms
to their angels, even when otherwise of a male type,
Andrea del Sarto by preference furnished his with
boys' arms.

Very marked and beautiful girls' arms were given

46 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

by Palma Giovane to his angels, in whom, however,
the female type prevails throughout.

The effect of the muscle tone must also be con-
sidered in connection with the form of the arm.
Living muscle is so soft when relaxed that every
portion of it obeys the law of gravity. It is softer
even than at any time after death, when once rigor
mortis has set in, although when the rigor is at an
end it may seem as if complete flexibility of the
limbs were restored.

Nevertheless, in different individuals differences in
the resisting power of the relaxed muscles are per-
ceptible to the touch. This is generally attributed to
so-called muscular tone. I will not enter here into
the various views which are held as to its origin, but
will content myself with mentioning its existence and
that of the differences above referred to, and will only
add that the latter have nothing to do with bodily
strength. Some men possess great bodily strength
though their muscles are excessively soft when relaxed,
and offer very little resistance to the touch. But the
softer the relaxed muscles are, the less will they tend
to retain their natural shape, and so adapt themselves
to the cylindrical form which the skin and fat layer
stretched over them seek to give them.

This softness of the relaxed muscles is connected
with another appearance which deserves mention here.

If the pronated fore-arm be flexed to rather less
than a right angle, and so supported that the upper
arm forms a horizontal bridge between the shoulder-

THE ARM AND HAND.

47

joint and the support, the biceps becomes relaxed,
and owing to its weight the middle part, being but
slightly bound to the surrounding tissues, sinks down
until the entire muscle acquires a bow shape, convex
below and concave above. This gives to the anterior
lower side of the upper arm an outline which at the
first glance is repellent, because we are not accustomed
to see the line in this shape. However, this line,
\vhich can easily be demonstrated on any model, should
not remain unnoticed. Figures not infrequently occur
with the pronated fore-arm flexed and supported, and
in these the appearance above mentioned must be
indicated in order to express completely the condition
of repose which, as a rule, they exhibit

Although the ancients gave their preference to a
cylindrical arm in the female, and that shape is in
reality highly esteemed, yet it cannot be denied that
with regard to the lines it presents it fails under some
circumstances to be so attractive as a form which is
less nearly cylindrical.

A female arm in which, owing to a strongly developed
muscular system, the triangular muscle of the shoulder
(M. deltoideus} is well marked, and, further, the ex-
tensors and flexors can be distinguished in their
respective positions, more or less, according to the
action of the arm, may be beautiful and excellently
adapted for reproduction in the arts. Such an arm
will not have a masculine appearance, provided
that the bones are cast in a feminine mould, and that
the furrows between the muscles are not too much

4 8 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

emphasized. This will be secured if a moderate layer
of fat fills up the hollows, so that they pass gradually
into the elevations. This form of arm is specially
suited for figures of caryatides, but even the greatest
masters have not hesitated to give it to other female
figures. For instance, it occurs in the just-created
Eve of Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, and in Raffaelle's figure of Peace in the
Vatican. A less strongly marked but instructive arm
of this type, modelled with very little aid from ex-
traneous sources, is found in a figure holding a trumpet
and standard by Perino del Vaga, which hangs near
the principal door of the long hall in the Doria Palace
at Genoa.

This form of upper arm, which by means of its
defined muscular system makes itself intelligible to
the mind, has the further advantage for the sculptor
of presenting a greater variety of line from different
points of view. Its successful presentation is no easy
matter, and demands a good model and careful in-
sistence on detail. Quite recently Agostino Felici, of
Venice, has given a brilliant proof of the superiority
of this type in his Veneziana (Local Exhibition in the
Palazzo Pisani in the autumn of 1881). The problem
here was the more difficult as the arm was a fat one.
Notwithstanding, the forms of the structures lying
under the surface were distinctly recognisable.

It will be well to notice here a prejudice which is
widely spread among the public. Many mothers are
afraid of their daughters doing any exercises with the

THE ARM AND HAND.

49

arms, lest the latter should acquire a masculine shape.
It is remarkable, however, that no apprehension is
shown if these same daughters practise the piano
for several hours every day, exerting certain muscles
of the fore-arm in a violent and exclusive fashion in
doing so. Yet there is, in general, no foundation for
the fear. Bodily exercises only affect the form of
the body disadvantageously under two conditions :
either when they are begun at too early an age, or
else when they are so excessive as to produce emacia-
tion. That violent exercise may be taken without
injury in this respect is proved by the well-known
gymnast who, under the name of Leona Dare,* has
displayed the beauty of her arms in all the great
cities of the world.

A well-rounded upper arm is as rare among
youthful members of the higher and middle classes
as it is common among women who are in the second
summer of their beauty. Formerly this was even
more striking than at the present day, when in many
girls the arms are better developed by exercises.

Thinness of the upper arm must not, however, be
attributed solely to want of muscular development,
but also to absence of fat. In a healthy person,
leading an easy life, fat is chiefly deposited in the
tissues through middle life, generally from the twenty-
fifth, and not infrequently from the twentieth year
onwards. However, this deposit of fat takes place

* The Leona Dare here referred to was, in the seventies,
a member of Renz's Circus at Vienna.

50 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

especially in certain regions, while in others a decrease
may be simultaneously observed. It may be said
that the fat migrates at different periods of life from
one part of the body to another ; and to this fact is
related the frequency with which, in young girls, the
upper arm is so thin as to be positively ugly. The
phenomenon is so familiar that no intelligent sculptor
would model the upper arm of a Hebe so as to be
thick in comparison with the fore-arm.

There is yet another defect of beauty which occurs
in both sexes, and is also reproduced occasionally in
sculpture. Sometimes we receive an impression as if
the upper arm did not run truly up to the shoulder,
and did not fit on to the joint, but rather to a point
slightly lower down, • near the armpit. I was first
struck by this in a St. Sebastian. At first I thought it
was merely a piece of bad drawing ; but afterwards I
was convinced that the fault really lay with the model.
If the bone of the humerus be looked -at straight
from in front or from behind, and an imaginary median
or axial line be drawn through the lower third of it,
and if a similar axial line be then drawn through the
upper portion of the bone, it will be found that the
two axes do not form exactly a straight line, but
make an angle, an extremely obtuse one indeed,
but still an angle. This change in the direction of
the bone commences in the lower half of its middle
third part. It is still visible when the bone is turned
round until its dorsal surface (i.e. that which looks
behind when the arm is rotated outwards) is turned

THE ARM AND HAND. 5 I

outwards, somewhat as it is when the arm is placed
akimbo, only the change of direction is now seen to
commence at a slightly different spot. It is this
deflection in the shaft of the humerus — a deflection
varying in amount in different individuals — which
gives rise to the above-mentioned defect. It is
greatly intensified by leanness, that is, by absence
of fat, in a well-developed muscular system. This
causes the deceptive appearance of the arm not
fitting into the joint, when the shape of the bone is
defective, to be very striking, by reason of the depres
sion which lies between the insertion of the deltoid
and the origin of the great extensor muscle of
the arm, and by reason of the shape given to the
dorsal surface of the upper arm by the fleshy belly
of that muscle when the muscles on the flexor side
are similarly developed.

Besides lack of fat, it is mainly the length of the
olecranon (pointed elbow) that contributes to the
deceptive appearance when the arm is bent at a
right angle, because the insertion of the great extensor
tendon is set far back, and its spreading out gives
rise to a flat surface that yields no line with the
contours of the flexor side to lead the eye directly
to the centre of the ball-and-socket joint forming
the shoulder. When, therefore, a figure has to be
represented as holding the arm akimbo, or as
lifting or holding an object with the arm bent at
a right angle, it is necessary to examine the model
well to see whether his arm is suitable for the

52 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

given action, or whether it should be replaced by
another. But in this case the defect we are con-
sidering, besides its practical interest, has this theo-
retical quality, that we know the reason why we feel
the lines to be bad : we feel them to be bad because
they do not guide us to a spontaneous,' conception of
the true connection of the limbs.

The form of the fore-arm in the male, as in the
case of the upper arm, is so much determined by
the development and action of the muscles as to
allow of no special remark as to the upper part of it,
at any rate. In the female its beauty is held to con-
sist in its approach to a cylindrical form in its upper
portion when bent towards the upper arm. If a
transverse section be taken in imagination through
the fore-arm so bent, such a section will approximate
most nearly among familiar geometrical figures to an
ellipse whose major axis runs obliquely from above
and outwards in a downward and inward direction.
In pronation its direction will tend to be more
vertical, in supination more horizontal. Now, a
woman's arm is considered more beautiful in propor-
tion as the excentricity of the ellipse is diminished,
i.e., the more it approximates to a circle. Of course
it does not follow that the artist should make the arm
cylindrical, but only that he should prefer that model
in whom the flexed fore -arm is round to one in whom
it is flattened. The extended fore-arm is always
more or less flat, especially in supination ; less so in
pronation.

THE ARM AND HAND. 53

In figures of Hercules the lower portion of the fore-
arm is often invested with an unusual breadth. This
can only be caused by the large space occupied by
the extremity of the radius, which is flat and broad
beneath, and that of the ulna, which lies beside the
former. It is, therefore, breadth and massiveness of
bone that are here represented. This may be appro-
priate to Hercules, who is more or less a personifi-
cation of brute force ; otherwise one is inclined to
maintain that a man's strength lies in his muscles
rather than in his bones, and it would be extremely
inappropriate to characterise by such means the
supernatural strength of an Achilles.

The lower part of the fore-arm should not be made
too broad in the female, and its diameter, measured
from the dorsal to the under side, should not be too
much reduced in proportion to the transverse diameter.
Fore-arms marred by this defect are found especially
among the German races and in individuals of bony
build. German sculptors are easily misled into re-
producing them by their native models. Some fore-
arms, nevertheless, are to be found that have a broad
lower extremity, and yet are not without a beauty
of their own. Here, however, it is not the breadth
of the bones that determines the form, but a layer of
fat which is developed much more than usual on the
outer side of both radius and ulna. It is present in
arms that are furnished generally with a considerable
amount of adipose tissue. Such arms usually ter-
minate towards the wrist in a slight depression, which

54 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

gives them a certain resemblance to children's arms.
This type of arm was most frequently adopted by
masters of the period of the Decadence, but it also
occurs in the work of Titian and Correggio. A certain
breadth is desirable in the lower portion of the fore-
arm when the hand either is not small or is broadened
out by action, as, for instance, in grasping a staff; for
if the line of transition from the arm to the hand
expands too suddenly, it produces a bad effect, and
one to be avoided if possible.

Sometimes a shallow furrow runs transversely
across the lower surface of the fore-arm. It lies at a
distance below the elbow about equal to the breadth
of the ring and little fingers put together. In appear-
ance it resembles the lines on the neck which I have
described above as children's lines. Artists have
seldom taken any notice of it ; but when present in
the model it may be rendered without demur, though,
of course, without exaggeration. Like the lines on
the neck, it has nothing to do with wrinkles or
folds, and may be present on a perfectly fresh and
youthful skin.

The lower surface of the lower portion of the fore-
arm also deserves special attention. On it may be
seen in youthful individuals of both sexes, when not
too lean, two shallow furrows when the hand is bent
backwards as if to rest the head on it. One lies near
the median line, but a little on the side towards the
thumb. It follows the inner border of the tendon of
the flexor carpi radialis. The other one lies more to

THE ARM AND HAND.

55

the side of the little finger, and follows the line of the
tendon of the flexor carpi ulnaris. Between the two,
when the hand is bent in the position above described,
lies an elevation, which, as it is continued upwards, is
merged in the general rounded under surface of the
arm. It is caused by the bent-back carpus thrusting
forwards the soft parts lying on its lower surface.
When the hand is straightened and then flexed, the
appearance of the parts is changed ; and if the hand
be passively flexed, the median elevation may be
made to sink in so far as to be converted into a
shallow depression. It is quite permissible for the
artist to reproduce these phenomena if he meets with
them in a well-shaped and not over-lean arm ; but
he should guard against one thing — viz., representing
the tightly-stretched tendons. They are always
ugly, and it is justifiable to indicate them only when
the subject demands the presentation of violently-
contracted muscles.

I ought also to mention a particular deformity to
which the fore-arm is subject when it is flexed and
also weighted, especially in persons who are lean,
and whose muscles are not well developed.

From the lower third of the humerus there arises
from the external condyloid ridge a powerful
muscle called the supinator longus ; it runs down
the fore-arm, passing about halfway down into its
tendon, and is inserted by means of the latter into
the lower end of the radius, along the -base of the
so-called styloid process, and therefore on the thumb

56 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

side of the radius. The chief function of this muscle
consists, as its name implies, in bringing about supina-
tion. When the fore-arm is held in the elbow-joint
firmly in any position by means of the flexors and
extensors, and then pronated, the origin and insertion
of the supinator longus are thereby shifted away from
each other ; if it is now contracted, it tends to bring
these two points into their original positions, and so
restores the condition of supination.

Besides this main function it has also a subsidiary
function. When the arm is flexed, and radius and
ulna are held firmly in their parallel position by other
muscles, the points of origin and insertion of the
supinator longus are so placed that its contraction
causes a further flexion of the arm. It may thus
serve to flex the arm or keep it flexed, in accordance
with the principle that all the muscles of the human
body that are able to support one another do so.

If the arms are bent and weighted — for instance by
a heavy vessel held in the hands before one — the con-
tracted supinator longus projects as a ridge on the
upper part of the fore-arm extending to the upper
arm. The lines of the arms, especially when not well
provided with fat, may be very much disfigured by
this action. This disfigurement is also exhibited in
individuals with undeveloped muscles, as in that case
the muscle does not become prominent by its swell-
ing up, but by its being seen to be tightly stretched
between two fixed points. Indeed, if a fat layer is
absent in addition, the disfigurement becomes even

THE ARM AND HAND. 57

more marked than in muscular persons, since the
muscle is flatter and more angular. Further, this
action may render the tendon of the biceps, and
even the portion of it which joins the fascia of the
fore-arm, disagreeably conspicuous.

A very common defect in models of German origin
is the excessive prominence of the lower extremity of
the ulna behind the wrist. I merely mention this for
completeness' sake, as the defect itself is so ugly
that no artist would think of reproducing it on any
female arm which was intended to be beautiful.
Sometimes, however, this does happen in mediaeval
pictures, in consequence of lean and bony models
having been selected. Nor less ugly is the pointed
projection of the upper extremity of the ulna in the
flexed arm, the " pointed elbow," which is the result
of unusual length of the olecranon, and of leanness.
This, too, has not always been avoided by artists ; and,
among other instances, it is a blemish in the Venus
of Sandro Botticelli (cf. Fig. 4, on p. 31).

A long olecranon is, under any circumstances, a
defect. If the arm is bent at an angle of less than
90°, it makes a pointed elbow ; if at right angles,
the contour of the extensor surface of the upper
arm is spoilt, because it then descends in a straight
line, and forms a right angle with the contour of the
extensor surface of the fore-arm, whereas with a
short olecranon it is curved at the lower end, so as
to form a rounded obtuse angle instead of a right
angle.

58 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

Finally, if the arm is extended, a long olecranon
in this position reaches so far upwards that it pushes
the tendon of insertion of the triceps, and partially
also the skin before it, and so forms an ugly fold,
which, if a considerable amount of fat be present,
yields a very prominent and vulgar-looking outline.
A short olecranon in the same position gives rise to
a small fossa only, which may be more or less deep
according as over-extension is present or not.

It should be added that not only the length of
the olecranon, but also its shape, is a matter of con-
sideration. When the posterior edge of the ulna runs
up in a concave curve to the end of the olecranon
and forms a sharp angle with its terminal surface,
the elbow is more pointed than when the bone is
more rounded at its termination. An example of
an elbow that is beautiful in spite of strong flexion
is afforded by the so-called Diana of Gabii.*

A long olecranon generally occurs as part of a
fore-arm that is itself unusually long ; and this is
oftener the case in long-armed than in short-armed
individuals. And thus a pointed elbow is more
frequent among the former. The upper arm may
also, however, be too long, not merely in comparison
with the length of the body and with the length of

* I follow the usual custom in giving it this name, though,
with C. Friederichs (" Bausteine zur Geschichte der griechisch-
romischen Plastik," I. The Casts in the New Museum at
Berlin), I cannot see in this admirable figure anything but a
girl in a short chiton, about to put on or take off her upper
garment.

THE ARM AND HAND. 59

the trunk from the scalp to the pubes, but also in
comparison with the fore-arm, though this would
seem not often to be the case.

Long arms are notoriously ugly, and are an attri-
bute of the lower races. A model is not easy to find
in whom the arms are too short as compared with the
legs, but there is no lack of specimens in whom they
are too long.

Apart, however, from the length and shape of the
olecranon, another feature has to be considered as
affecting the beauty of the elbow.

If a longitudinal axis be imagined drawn through
the humerus, the middle portion of which must for
the present be regarded as being cylindrical, this axis
will not cut the axis of rotation of the elbow-joint,
but will pass behind it on the extensor side. This is
connected with the fact that the lower third of the
humerus is slightly bent forward towards the flexor
side. By this means the prominence of the olecranon
is diminished. When, therefore, the arm is bent at
a right angle, unless the olecranon is of excessive
length, the angle formed at the elbow by the ulnar
outline of the fore-arm and the outline of the upper
arm is not a right angle, but an obtuse angle, which,
as we have seen, has an agreeable effect.

The above-mentioned bend in the humerus is very
rarely too much accentuated in men who otherwise
have well-shaped limbs, but it frequently happens
that it is not marked enough, particularly among
the German races ; the result being that the form

60 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of the flexed arm is angular, even when the length
of the olecranon alone is not sufficient to account for
this. The defect becomes especially prominent when
the extensor muscles of the upper arm are poorly
developed, and but little fat lies between them and
the skin.

Lastly, I must mention the inner condyle of the
humerus, which, though it has no bearing upon the
shape of the elbow in the strict sense of the word,
can yet give the whole joint an ugly angular appear-
ance by jutting out too much, or by carrying its
sharp edge too far backwards.

In passing on to the consideration of the hand we
are met, first, by the mode in which the wrist is
connected with the middle portion of the hand or
metacarpus. Here we find two types prevailing.
According to one, the wrist (by which I do not mean
the bones of the carpus, but the entire section of the
limb corresponding to the carpus) is so attached to
the hand, that both lie in the same plane when the
hand is pronated and extended in a line with the
arm ; according to the other, the wrist makes with
the hand an obtuse angle at the dorsal surface.
The latter form is the more beautiful, as it gives a
far more graceful line to the hand when extended in
pronation.

If the eye follow the dorsal contour of the fore-arm
in an example of the first type, it will be seen to run
straight without any break into that of the back of
the hand. In the second type, however, it forms an

THE ARM AND HAND.

61

arched elevation over the wrist, and only regains a
course parallel to its former one at the commence-
ment of the hand. In this instance the wrist is
recognised as a distinct piece intervening between
fore-arm and hand, whereas in the first type nothing
is distinguishable between arm and hand but a mere
border-line.

Likewise in flexion of the hand on the fore-arm

the contour yielded by the second type has more
movement and variety, as it is, in addition, more
advantageous, when the hand is bent backwards,
because it offers a more rounded and less angular
curve. As an example, I give in the accompanying
woodcut (Fig. 7) the clasped hands of Domenichino's
Magdalen in the Pitti Gallery. Since the second
type is rarer in the Northern than in the Latin races,

62 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

the artist should be on his guard against reproducing
anything distinctly ungraceful in his Northern model.

The hand is a part of the body constantly exposed
to view. Its effect is always wrought through its
form alone, and not through psychical elements, as in
the case of the face. Perhaps this is the reason why
there is so much unanimity in the judgments ex-
pressed about it. If one does occasionally meet with
an unreasoning enthusiasm for exceptionally small or
unusually long and narrow hands, it should be re-
garded merely as the affectation of a few lay persons,
in no degree affecting the general verdict. To one or
two points I must refer in detail.

In hands that are in general well-made but not fat,
the fingers taper regularly from the base to the tip,
neither becoming thicker at the joints than between
them, nor the reverse to any considerable extent.
And this is the form given them in art. Fingers
which are thicker at the joints are so obviously ugly
that they are now never reproduced. It was done
sometimes in the middle ages and in the period of
transition to the renaissance, at a time when the
figure of the Madonna was still endowed with the
leanness of asceticism. The latest example of this
that occurs to me came from the brush of Fra Filippo
Lippi, and is the Madonna, No. 162, in the Corsini
Gallery at Florence. No master, perhaps, has been
so misinterpreted in regard to his artistic intentions
as Fra Filippo.

Female hands do, however, occur in which the

THE ARM AND HAND. 63

fingers taper very markedly, though irregularly, from
root to tip. In these the first phalanx pf the finger,
reckoning from its base, has a more or less developed
dorsal cushion of connective tissue and fat, giving
rise to a not inconsiderable thickening. The second
phalanx has a similar though smaller cushion ; while
the third phalanx is narrow and bears narrow nails,
which lengthwise are straight, but transversely are
cylindrically arched.*

The back of this kind of hand is usually somewhat
fat, sufficiently so to make it even and to exclude
any prominence of the tendons and blood-vessels.
Such hands occur by no means exclusively in fat
women, but are likewise met with in quite young girls,
mainly in North Italy, and especially in the Venetian
territory. They have been introduced only to a
very limited extent in monumental art, though not
infrequently present in figures of Venus and female
figures of a genre character. They offer more mobile,
less severe lines than hands in which the fingers taper
quite uniformly. This is especially noticeable when
the fingers are moderately flexed, and at the same

* This form of nail, which should not be too short as
measured from the free border to the fold of skin, is an
ornament to the female hand. Nails that are short, broad
and flat, or more arched lengthwise than across, are vulgar.
Ribera had a peculiar liking for painting vulgar nails ; or,
rather, his coarse naturalism led him to copy the models he
picked up in the streets.

The arching of the nails increases from the index finger to
the little finger, The difference is greatest between index
and middle finger, least between the ring and little finger.

64 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

time bent backwards towards the back of the hand.
This bending back of the fingers may be reproduced
in art, without hesitation, when appropriate to the
subject ; for it may be regarded as normal in the
female sex, and is not infrequently found in men,,
though in them it gives an impression of softness and
of feminine character. A less marked but normal
bending backwards, produced passively by mere
pressure on the balls of the fingers, occurs between
the middle and terminal phalanges.

With respect to the attachment of the finger to
the hand, it should be mentioned that a sharp and
clean-cut range of basal connections gives better lines
than where the fingers are connected at the base by
weblike folds of skin. The outline of the hand, with
the fingers extended and separated, should exhibit
the intervals between them bounded, not by a pointed
arch or an acute angle, but by a transverse line,
making, with the diverging outlines of the fingers, a
right or a more or less obtuse angle.

I must close this section with a warning : arms
and hands of remarkable beauty are often met with
in women at an age when the rest of the body is no
longer fit for representation in the nude. Sometimes,
indeed, the arm only developes its full beauty at a
comparatively mature age. Now, the sculptor must
not be misled into introducing an arm of this type
into a figure representing youthful beauty. The arm
of the Clio who is inscribing the name of Cavour on
his monument in Milan has excited the admiration

THE ARM AND HAND. 65

of spectators innumerable ; but it is the arm of a
lady who has attained the years of ripe experience, as
indeed befits the muse of history, and not that of a
girlish beauty.

However, instances of the long-continued duration
of a beautifully-formed arm are by no means of
general occurrence among women, even when healthy
and well nourished and developed. Sometimes a
change sets in at quite an early age, which in others
only reveals itself later. It is coincident with a
certain slackness of the skin and also of the muscles
when in a condition of non-activity. Muscles that
are not stimulated to activity, as is well known,
lack firmness of consistency. This quality, as above
mentioned, differs much in individuals, though we are
unable to trace any connection between it and the
degree of muscular power present in any given case.
Slack muscles of this kind are often so soft that,
whenever the surrounding tissues allow of it, they
sink under their own weight and hang down, unless
held up by the tenser surface of a fascia or of the
skin. In consequence, a defect is apt to show itself,
which is observed when the arm is flexed and the
hand pronated. If the arm is well developed, and
also well preserved, it will, under these circumstances,
retain its round shape, not exactly cylindrical, but of
a rounded form, which, in transverse section, becomes
gradually more elliptical towards the wrist. If, how-
ever, the arm is not well preserved, but is none the
less well nourished, the line of the ulna will be trace-

5

66 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

able on the outside, followed, lower down, by a plane
surface, which may even be slightly concave in its
upper part, and then by a more or less marked
bulging downwards, caused by the slack and pendent
pronator and flexor muscles, whereas the extensor
surface of the fore-arm, especially in its anterior part,
has a flat form.

It is only necessary to open at random the pages
of the comic journals to find abundant examples of
the characteristic lines of such arms depicted in
female humpbacks, washerwomen, etc. ; they are,
moreover, not absent in the work of Rubens, who
dealt with them quite in a serious spirit. At the
present day there is little fear of such arms being
taken as a pattern ; still, the portrait painter should
be on his guard, if he meet with them, of giving any
indication of such a form. The artist must lend his aid
in such a case, and his artistic licence will assuredly
be accounted to him for righteousness. It is related
of Van Dyck how, on his journey to England, he
took with him certain models with remarkably
beautiful hands, in order to paint from them the hands
in his portraits ; and I have never heard that com-
plaint was ever raised against him that the hands in
his portraits did not resemble those of the originals.

More conscientious, perhaps, is the course taken
by the portrait painter who seeks to display the arm
of his sitter to the greatest advantage by selecting an
appropriate attitude or action, and also by concealing
from view parts that do not gain by being seen.

III.

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS.

" I "HE first point to be considered is the form of the
-•- thorax. It should not be flat or at all com-
pressed in front, nor, on the other hand, should the
sternum project while the ribs curve round obliquely
to join it in front (chicken-breast, Pectus carinatuni}.
The more the ribs are arched, the better is the effect.
Again, the thorax should not become narrowed in its
upper portion too rapidly or too prominently. A
broad chest and shoulders — -the latter, however, not
separated from the former as isolated parts of the
structure — are especially favourable to the lines of
figures indicative of manly vigour, while the thorax
should be of such a compass in its upper part as
to bring the breast into direct continuity with the
shoulders.

Canova has given us a model of a finely-propor-
tioned thorax in his Perseus. There is a tendency
in modern times to depreciate this master, on account
of his affectation and the occasional lameness of his
composition. But he has a claim to lasting fame, for
he was intimately acquainted with the beauties of the
human body, of the female body especially, and he

68 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

knew how to give them expression. No one who
goes to Possagno, and studies the collection of casts
from Canova's works preserved there, can fail to
be convinced of this. I selected his Perseus as an
example because the form of the thorax is there the
leading feature ; the development of the muscles is
comparatively weak. The ancients conceived their
heroes as more muscular and more powerfully built.

The thorax is always admirably shaped in antique
art, though its dimensions may vary in regard to
capacity, being greatest in the figures of certain gods
and heroes. Examples of finely-developed muscular
chests are at hand in the sculptures from Pergamon ;
for instance, in the Zeus brandishing the thunderbolt
and the Warrior (Ares ?) who stands opposite Artemis
as she shoots. The groove over the breast-bone in
many ancient and modern statues corresponds to the
space intervening between the points of origin on
either side of the great pectoral muscle, and is
specially marked in figures of Hercules in order to
emphasize the extraordinary development of those
muscles.

Among the sculptors of the renaissance, who had
not before their eyes daily the athletes of ancient
times, this groove is no longer treated with the same
emphasis. For instance, in Michelangelo's David it
is altogether absent in the upper, though present in
the lower part.

The defects of most frequent occurrence in the
male thorax are depressions between the breast and

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 69

the clavicles, and also between the breast and the
shoulders, depressions under the breast, a want of
depth in an antero-posterior direction, an uneven
sternum, and visibility of the costal cartilages which
adjoin it on each side. I shall return to some of
these defects in treating of the female thorax, and
will now merely add a few remarks on the shoulders
in the male.

Every one who has observed the Farnese Hercules
closely must have been struck with the apparently
unnatural development of the lower portion of the
deltoid muscle, and many persons doubtless have
attributed it to the same spirit of exaggeration that
shows itself in the muscles of the flanks in the same
figure. I once, however, observed similar shoulders
in a compactly-built gymnast of extraordinary
strength. Their shape is due to the rapid convergence
and overlapping of the fibres in the lower part of the
deltoid, which gives rise to a marked elevation con-
tinuous with one a little higher up, which constitutes
the lateral curve of the shoulder. In individuals who
are very lean and also lack flesh, the head of the
humerus gives rise to this lateral curve, which con-
sequently terminates just below it. When, on the
other hand, the deltoid is strongly developed, the
most prominent part of the muscle is not that cover-
ing the head of the humerus, as there the fibres are all
spread out, but immediately below it, where the fibres
are converging to their insertion.

The lines which the herculean type of deltoid

7O THE HUMAN FIGURE.

muscle offers in its various aspects are not elegant,
but they serve to express enormous physical power,
and may be beautiful just as sheer force is beautiful
when sympathetically treated, as Michelangelo treated
them when dealing with masses of highly-developed
and strongly-accentuated muscles.

On such shoulders as these, where little fat is
present, may be seen peculiar grooves and furrows,
which otherwise are not perceptible on the shoulders.
They follow the direction of the fibres of the deltoid,
and come most clearly into view when it is stimulated
to action, and at the same time prevented by external
resistance from contracting overmuch. They are due
to the flesh of the muscle being divided into good-
sized bundles, whose adjacent surfaces lie more or less
vertically to the skin, and correspond to the said
grooves or furrows.

In the female a thorax which is too broad in its
upper part may be disfiguring, especially if, by reason
of the form of the ribs, its breadth is acquired at the
expense of its depth, that is, at the expense of its
antero-posterior diameter. This is the broad, flat
thorax which is particularly common in the Anglo-
saxon race.

The best female figures have a thorax whose trans-
verse diameter is large enough to join the shoulders
on to it, so that they do not stand apart and form
isolated wing-like structures, so to speak ; but, on the
other hand, it must be neither too large in proportion
to its depth, nor in relation to the diameter of the

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. /I

upper arms and shoulders. Shoulders and arms that
are narrow in comparison to the extent of the chest
have always a poverty-stricken appearance.

Passing fashions must not be allowed to mislead us
into thinking that the same does not hold good of the
draped figure. The effect is really just as bad ; only
our sense of it is blunted by custom. We need only
go to S. Sebastiano, in Venice, to see what were the
views of Tommaso Lombardi on this point.

The breast, in the more restricted meaning of the
word (Mamma), is somewhat differently placed in
different women. In some it is turned more out-
wards, so that the nipples are, comparatively speaking,
widely separated ; in others they are much closer
together, and directed more to the front. This de-
pends in part on the degree of development of the
breast. The breast in developing draws after it the
skin which it requires for its increasingly convex
surface, and as the skin on the side of the body yields
more readily than that lying between the breasts, the
nipples come, at a later period, to lie nearer to each
other relatively than they did before the movement
consequent on the development commenced. On this
account, and also by reason of the thorax having more
slender proportions, the nipples are set closer together
in women than in men. With a given breadth of
thorax preference is justly accorded to a wide diver-
gence of the nipples.

" The breasts should always live at enmity with
each other," is the remark I once heard from a

72 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

sculptor ; " the right breast should look to the right,
and the left to the left." At the same time, the
hollow between them must not be too deep, but
should slope down gradually to the level of the
sternum. If the thorax is well developed in its
antero-posterior diameter, this aids the formation of
breasts of the above type.

Apart from the foregoing, however, other differences,
which equally depend on the structure of the thorax,
occur in the position of the breasts among women.

With regard to the height at which the breasts are
attached to the body, differences are found bearing
no relation to pendulousness arising from their weight
or want of consistency, but manifesting themselves at
an early stage of development. Among models, in
other respects equally good, preference should be
given to those having breasts set high up on the
thorax. This is invariably the case in antique
sculpture.

In the Venus of the Capitol indeed this does not
at first sight seem to be so, but the lower position of
the breasts must here be attributed in part to their
weight, and to the attitude of the whole figure. Un-
usually high breasts occur on the so-called Venus
Genetrix, No. 265, in the Uffizi.

At first no decided rule prevailed in Italian art.
Many painters took the antique as their model ; others,
however, e.g., Correggio in his Danae, adopted a lower
line of attachment for the breasts. But then this
celebrated picture, which has not escaped some very

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 73

severe censures,* does not make upon us the im-
pression of being an ideal work of art so much as
the portrait of a model of whom the master, whether
rightly or wrongly, aimed at giving a faithful and
realistic representation.

Not, however, until the period of the decline of
Italian art is reached, do we find a preference
accorded by many masters to a lower attachment of
the breasts, such as does, in fact, occur very often in
nature.

A like tendency to set the breasts low down is
found in certain masters of the German renaissance ;
the fault being evidently due to the badness of the
models they employed. The position of the breasts,
considered with reference to the subjacent ribs,
undergoes but very slight variation. When, there-
fore, the ribs about halfway down take an oblique
course downwards, the attachment of the breasts will
be a low one ; but when the arc formed by the ribs
does not sink anteriorly, the breasts will lie higher up.
With respect to the shape of the breasts, the 'first
condition is that their lower border shall not be
bounded by any trace of a fold, not even when the
model is standing upright, with the arms hanging at
the side. Antique sculpture knows no such fold in
the representation of the nude ; where the presence
of such a fold might be looked for, the breasts were
always covered with drapery. Not until the Italian
artists ventured once more to reproduce the naked
* Cf. Burckhardt in the " Cicerone."

74 . THE HUMAN FIGURE.

human form does this fold appear, and its occurrence
may be ascribed to the scarcity of girls who could
be found to sit as models, and to the constraint and
want of freedom with which their forms were copied,
owing to the fact that the artists had so little oppor-
tunity of observing them.

This serves to explain the low attachment and
pendulous, if round, type of breast, bounded below
by a hard line, which is found in the renowned Venus
of Sandro Botticelli in the Uffizi (Fig. 4, on p. 31).

Later, also, when the domination of the antique
models was uncontested, occasional and in part
deliberate deviations from the classical type are met
with ; as, for instance, in the figure of Eve in the large
picture of Angelo Bronzino, the Descent into Hades,
in the Uffizi. It is possible that the artist intended
to characterise her wifehood and motherhood. But
such deviations also occur elsewhere, e.g., in the
Three Graces by Francesco Morandini (Uffizi,
No. 1,240). One of them has round breasts, the
second more conical breasts (the third is only seen in
back view), but in both the nipples point downwards,
and not, as with the ancients, either forwards, or else
forwards and outwards.

The last-named peculiarity is probably due merely
to the model selected by Morandini ; with another
model he would doubtless have drawn different
breasts.

Among the ancients, however, we have to dis-
tinguish several forms of breast. To begin with the

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 75

simplest, the breast may be set on the thorax like a
cone, which, if cut through its axis, would exhibit an
angle of 90° or more.* The breasts of the Braschi
Venus, in the Glyptothek at Munich,! approximate to
this type ; and still more do those of a Nymph by
Canova, which I saw at Possagno, but of the exact
title of which I have unfortunately made no note.
This form of breast is never found in women who
have borne children, even when they have not suckled
them ; because during pregnancy changes take place
in the breast affecting its consistency for all later
time. It is required of this form that it should
scarcely yield at all to the force of gravity, and that
its shape should be almost the same in the recumbent
as in the upright position. It is excessively rare for
breasts of this type to attain any considerable size,
since only very occasionally is their consistency
sufficiently firm to maintain the form when the
dimensions are increased. More frequently such
.breasts are found as a transitional stage in young
girls. The cone is then smaller and lower down, and

* Though I do not add " or less," I do not mean to assert that
this may not occur. On ancient Egyptian monuments we see
breasts in which the height is equal to more than half the
diameter of the base ; and examples are still to be found, so it
is said, among the daughters of the fellaheen ; later these
breasts become very limp and pendulous, so much so that
occasionally a fellah woman is met with carrying her baby on
her back, and suckling it from her breast, which is thrown
over the shoulder.

t By some regarded as a free imitation of the Cnidian
Aphrodite of Praxiteles, an opinion based on certain coins.

76

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

sometimes exhibits at a little distance from the nipple
a quite small but somewhat steeper slope, after which
the surface of the cone regains its former contour.

From this conical breast we can derive a second
type. If the surface of the cone be imagined as
bulging out at some distance from the apex, and the
nipple on the apex as beginning to raise itself more
distinctly from the surrounding area, the whole will
tend to assume a form consisting of a hemisphere with
the nipple on the top of it.

Before, however, this shape is finally reached, the

force of gravity begins to make itself felt, in conse-
quence whereof the lower portion of the former conical
surface grows more convex and rounded, and thus
we arrive at the form of breast seen in most antique
figures of Venus, including those of Medicis and Milo.
In Fig. 8 the dotted line shows the rectangular section
of the purely conical breast, while the continuous line
shows the antique Venus breast derived from it. In
various statues the shape is more or less divergent,
according as the angle, here drawn as a right angle,
exceeds it more or less, and becomes an obtuse angle.

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 77

A step further brings us to the breast of the Capi-
toline Venus. This is larger and heavier, and the
increase of heaviness is evident. In my judgment a
limit is here reached which should not be exceeded
in ideal figures.

Michelangelo's figures have breasts of an essentially
different type from the antique. They are more
rounded, and more affected by the force of gravity.
I am not referring only to the figure of Night, in which
the breasts are those of a mature woman, but also to
those of the Dawn and of the Leda, assuming that the
marble Leda is a genuine work of Michelangelo.* In
these figures the breasts could scarcely be replaced
by others without disturbing the unity of the whole ;
taken by themselves alone, however, they fall far
behind the antique type. If the figures in question
be imagined as made of flesh and blood, and no longer
in a recumbent position, but standing upright, this
will be admitted by any one who knows the difference
"between the recumbent and the standing model.

But it was just the hand of the great master which
was able to throw any given body into its most
favourable form, and which knew how to weave into
his magic lines structural details which under any

* It is described as such in the Bargello at Florence, but I am
not acquainted with the results of antiquarian research touching
it. The corresponding picture, of which several examples are
extant, must not be confounded with the Leda which Michelangelo
painted for Alfonso d'Este — a different composition, as is evident
zfrom Vasari's description. This Leda was represented in a
wholly different attitude.

78 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

other circumstances would have disturbed their har-
mony. Michelangelo had also a fondness for sepa-
rating the breasts by a broad intervening space, and
marking them off from this space by definite lines.
Every breast that is at all movable glides a little on
the subjacent surface, downwards when the model
stands up, and outwards in the recumbent position ;
but this is not the reason why in Michelangelo's
figures the breasts are set so far apart, for, in the first
place, they have not drawn the skin with them to any
remarkable extent, and, secondly, in the figure of Night
the body is so much raised that the shifting ought
to be rather downward than lateral. The left breast
might possibly be drawn outwards by the retracted
arm, but not so the right breast, the contour of which
is nevertheless sharply defined at some distance from
the sternum.

Widely-separated breasts of this kind do also occur
in the antique, e.g., in the Barberini Venus. Compare
these with those of the Capitoline Venus. The great
difference which is here visible cannot be put down to
the attitude alone.

In nature these breasts are seen more especially
in tall women, with a broad thorax which is rather
flattened than well-arched, and with a small round
Mamma ; for the more circumscribed the boundaries
of the breasts, the further apart will they lie on the
broad surface of the thorax ; and the less the sternum,
with its attached costal cartilages, is rounded in
front, the less gradual will be the slope of the breasts

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 79

towards the median line, and the sharper will be the
boundary line dividing them from the surface on which
they lie.

It is not necessary for every breast to commence
with a conical shape, and later to grow rounder as its
mass enlarges ; it may develop from its origin as a
low rounded eminence. Such a breast is seen in the
lovely but very mutilated antique in the Naples
Museum known as a Psyche. As it is only quoted
here for an illustration, it does not concern us whether
its present form is the original one or is the result of
a later restoration of the statue.*

If we examine the various sculptures of the best
period in ancient art, we shall find numerous variations,
though none that can be reckoned as defective. As
far as the representation of the breast is concerned, the
ancients are unsurpassed for delicacy of feeling, and
they appear to have had no lack of models.

I will now mention a mode of representing the

* In C. Friederich's " Bausteine zur Geschichte der griechisch-
romischen Plastik," I. The Casts in the New Museum at Berlin,
at p. 253, we read the following words with reference to the
restoration of the Psyche : " Moreover a ruthless reworking of the
trunk at least has been carried out, whereby the injured portions,
instead of being mended, have simply been chipped away. The
breasts, especially the right one, have thereby been rendered
quite flat ; further, the right thigh and the drapery have not been
left untouched." I cannot trust to my recollections of the original,
which are too old and indistinct ; but on examining a good plaster
cast, which still retained its seams, I could discover no clear
traces of the chiselling away. The figure in its present condition
also affords no evidence to justify such an assumption. The
right breast is indeed less prominent than the left, but this is

SO THE HUMAN FIGURE.

female breast, unknown to antiquity and the renais-
sance,* but one which may occasionally be seen in
works of art at the present day. The chisel of the
sculptor fashions on each breast a low circular eminence
of from 3 to 3^ centimetres in diameter, gently rising
towards the centre, at which point stands the nipple
erect, while its border is marked off from the skin of
the breast by a rather sharp outline. This elevation
does actually occur, but it may be present or absent
in the same breast at different times. In the nipple
and around it in the so-called areola lies a layer of
muscular fibres which contract very slowly. In doing
so they cause the elevation in question, which disap-
pears on their being relaxed, and the contour of the
nipple then passes, as in the antique, insensibly into
that of the breast.

It is not sufficient, however, to study the form and
position of the breasts alone by themselves ; we must
also consider them in connection with the thorax on

accounted for by the attitude. Perhaps it might be suggested
that the former should be rather more concentrated ; but if there
is an error here, it is one that may just as well be placed to the
account of the original artist as to that of the restorer. The
general flatness of the breasts is here an attribute of youth. If
the figure is to be regarded as a Psyche, then these breasts are,
at any rate, more appropriate to the poetical conception of the
figure than the hemispheres which are given to Psyche in the
Farnesina. There the close adherence to Apuleius always seemed
to me to be overstrained.

* The marks which were observed by Winkelmann round the
nipples of the Antinous of the Belvedere may be related hereto ;
but my memory as to the details of the original is not distinct
enough to allow of my asserting this.

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 8 1

which they lie. A well-arched thorax not only affords
the breasts a better position and surface, but also
determines the outward form of the whole bust. One
of the most frequent faults we meet with in this
connection consists in the junction of the ribs with the
sternum becoming visible. When not attributable to
excessive leanness, this is due to a sickly disposition
in childhood, and any model in whom it is perceptible
should be rejected forthwith.

Further, no prominence ought to be present on the
upper part of the sternum, accompanied below, as it
usually is, by a depression between the breasts. This
blemish is caused by the Manubrium sterni, the portion
of the breast-bone lying between the clavicles and first
two pairs of ribs, being attached to the meso-sternum,
not in a straight line, but at a projecting angle. The
effect is equally bad if an inwardly projecting angle is
formed at the same point. The clavicles, moreover,
ought not to project so as to show where they lie ; least
of all should the skin sink in above and behind them,
so as to give rise to a pair of pits.

The entire surface extending above the breasts to the
neck and shoulders should be gently convex, without
any prominent elevations or depressions, and, above
all, the transition to the shoulder should be gradual
and unbroken. The pit of the neck should be only
lightly indicated. It is difficult to lay down any rule
as to the line dividing the neck from the breast, as its
character is subject to great variation, according as the
neck is inclined or set quite upright on the thoracic

6

82 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

spinal column. In the first condition, which is seen in
the Venus de Medicis, the Capitoline Venus, that of
Milo, and likewise in the Venus of the Esquiline, this
boundary line is the softest and least marked, though
at the same time the most complete ; in the second
case it may be entirely obliterated in front, though
more strongly marked at the sides ; and if fatty tissue
be present, it may even become a fold lying between
two cushions of fat.

Between the breast and the shoulder lies a familiar
prominence, constituting in part the anterior wall of
the armpit ; it is reproduced with admirable effect in
numerous antique sculptures, and especially in the
Venus of Milo. Those artists who take the antique
as their pattern are careful to repeat it, since they know
how to value the beauty of the line that it offers from
different points of view. It is frequently not to be
seen in the living model, because its presence is con-
ditional on three factors which are not always found
associated together. The first of these is the vigorous
development of the pectoral muscles, especially of the
M. pectoralis major ; the second is the presence of a
moderate layer of fat, neither overmuch nor too little ;
the third factor is a breast with a firm consistency of
its own, a breast that neither yields to the force of
gravity nor drags on the skin lying between itself
and the axilla.

Fig. 9 shows this feature clearly though not
strongly developed, from a photograph of the living
model,

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 83

It is notorious that even those artists who never
trouble themselves about the antique frequently make
alterations in the breasts, as those of models in other
respects well formed and well trained are often no
longer in a condition to allow of their being faithfully
reproduced. In making such corrections, attention
should be likewise paid to the anterior wall of the
axilla, and the antique taken as a model.

What has been said above holds good for figures of
women who are in the prime of life, and have attained
a vigorous development. The artist must learn by

experience, from the study of quite young and slender
models, how far he should depart from the requirements
insisted on above, when his object is to represent the
opening blossom of beauty. He must be very careful,
however, not to confound development that is incom-
plete, though normally healthy, with meagre and
sickly development. Above all, he must guard
against attempting to give an impression of youth
by a thorax of poverty-stricken proportions ; for a
normal well-developed thorax differs from an ill-
developed one in youth just as much as in later life,
even if it is not quite similar to that of the adult.

§4 THE HUMAN FIGURE,

It is well not to place too much confidence in the
models that present themselves, especially in Germany,
.as the German thorax is far oftener badly developed
than the thorax in the Latin race. Nevertheless, in
Italy also defects are met with in this respect. One
that I have often observed since, I was first struck
with in a graceful figure of Innocence of Milanese
origin. This defect consists in a depression below
the breast, just beneath the mammary gland, and is
always associated with a poorly-developed thorax. I
•do not intend to dilate here on the ravages committed
by the corset in giving a modified and wholly un-
natural shape to all the lower part of the thorax.
Unhappily the corset is often worn at an early age, in
order, as mothers foolishly express it, " to form the
figure." It is just those girls who during the period
of their development have no waist, and in whom,
therefore, the lower part of the thorax is full and
round, that grow up with the most beautiful figures.
They get rid later of their temporary squareness by
upward growth.

Let us now pass on to the shoulders. Apart from
their being placed too high or too low, their com-
monest defect consists in an imperfectly-developed
deltoid muscle. This blemish is partly inherent in
the race, but in part, also, it arises from the fact that
in the female portion of the middle and upper classes
the muscles are very little exercised, and the deltoid
least of all. This muscle is brought into play when
the arm is raised high above the head — as, for instance,

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 85

in picking apples from a tree when one is standing
on the ground, or in hanging up linen on the drying
lines, or in supporting a burden which is being carried
on the head, or in raising a weight above the head.

These, however, are movements which girls of the
higher classes seldom have occasion to perform, and
which, even if it were the fashion, they would be
prevented from executing by the nature of the clothes
in which, from an early age, they are attired. Such
are the bodices in which the shoulderpiece does not
rest on the upper bony portion of the shoulder, but
is carried right across the deltoid muscle. If a girl
so dressed tries to lift her right arm up into the air,
she has to bend the upper part of her body to the
left, because it is only with difficulty that she can
make an obtuse angle between her arm and her body.
When the deltoid is badly developed, the shoulders,
unless well provided with fat, are angular above,
owing to the prominence of the -bony framework
formed by the distal end of the clavicle and the free
end of the scapular spine, the acromion. From this
angular summit the surfaces then fall away without
the required amount of convexity. The addition of
fat may improve the shape, but it will never achieve
that beautiful roundness which in well-modelled
shoulders converts them into something more than
the mere upper end of an arm. Rauch's celebrated
wreath-throwing Victories, so well known through
countless reproductions, with all their beauty have a
weak and meagre look about the shoulders.

86 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

Whether it be owing to the race, or the habit of
carrying and supporting light burdens on the head,
Italy produces far more well-formed shoulders in
women than Germany, and evidence of this may be
found in Italian art. If any one desires a striking
illustration of the difference between German and
Italian types, let him compare the slender form of
the Herodias of Vincenzo Dati, in the Baptistery of
the Cathedral at Florence, with the above-mentioned
Victories of Rauch. Even in the delicately-formed
Madonna of Mino da Fiesole, in the Cathedral of
Fiesole, the shoulders are vigorously developed.
Indeed, it is not too much to say that the art of the
renaissance attached more importance to well-formed
shoulders than that of antiquity ; at any rate the del-
toid becomes more marked in the former, since during
the renaissance, especially in the earlier part of that
period, the upper arm was represented as less fat and
less cylindrical than it is in classical works of art.

Not exactly on the summit of the shoulder, but a
little behind it, may sometimes be seen a small fossa,
which, when the arm is lifted upwards and backwards,
becomes a crescent-shaped depression. The latter is
also found in other individuals as the result of the same
movements. 1 1 arises in consequence of the contraction
of the deltoid, which swells up, while the bones to which
it is attached remain deep below. In some persons,
however, a small fossa remains visible when the arm
hangs loosely at the side. As this is rather rare, the
fossa does not form part of the general impression

THE BREAST AND SHOULDERS. 8/

which the memory retains of a well-formed shoulder.
Therefore the artist cannot exactly be required to
reproduce it. On the other hand, it is no disfigure-
ment, no defect of beauty, and is present only in
individuals having vigorous muscles and a skin well
knit to the subjacent tissues.

IV.

THE ABDOMEN.

THE abdomen in the male is of value in art in
proportion as it is small in size and exhibits
certain normal details.

Smallness of the abdomen in healthy men in the
prime of life is mainly conditional on its not being
distended by large masses of food and gaseous
products ; but it also depends on whether the iliac
crests are very widely separated or not, since they
determine the width of the lower portion of the
abdomen, by providing points of insertion for the
abdominal muscles.

Inhabitants of southern countries generally have
a smaller abdomen than men of the north, because
they are satisfied from their youth upwards with a
less amount of nourishment ; and the children of the
richer classes have usually a smaller one than those
of the poor, as they are brought up on more nutritious
and therefore less bulky fare. For the rest, the con-
dition of the health and individual development are
the factors chiefly concerned. When the abdomen
has to harbour large masses of digested and undigested

THE ABDOMEN. 89

food-stuffs, and intestinal gases are present in quantity
and the abdominal muscles are not powerfully
developed, the form of the abdomen is always bad.
To enter more into detail, the primary condition is
that the depression corresponding to the tendinous
portion of the abdominal wall between the recti and
oblique muscles be visible. As this is a depression
and not a furrow, its course cannot be laid down
with rigid definiteness, but it may be found by
dividing the abdomen across into four equal parts at
the height of the navel, when the first vertical dividing
line on either side of the navel will coincide with the
depression in question. It is seen to descend from
above in a nearly vertical line, then bend slightly
inwards, so that, if still visible at the upper border of
the pelvic region, its course may be pursued down-
wards at a little distance to the inside of the anterior
superior iliac spine. This lower portion, however, is
often indistinct, though the model cannot merely on
that account be regarded as useless. A well-rounded
base to the thorax contributes materially to the de-
finiteness of this depression in its upper part. The
arched character of that region is derived from the
ascending processes of the recti muscles ; then on
either side is a lateral elevation formed by the external
oblique muscles which descend from the ribs, and
between these two the depression in question has its
origin at the .base of the thorax. If the cartilaginous
ribs are too much bent out in this region, the form of
the abdomen suffers in consequence.

90 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

The median line of the body has to be mentioned
next. In muscular persons a depression is seen
running along the sternum between the points of
origin of the great pectoral muscles. Starting from
this it is possible to trace the median line, with more
or less interruption, down to the navel. In female
antique statues it does not form a groove beyond this
point, but in heroic figures it is often indicated also
between the navel and the pubic prominence.

This groove, which corresponds to the tendinous
band between the recti muscles of each side, called the
linea alba, varies in distinctness according to the
attitude,* and may be entirely absent in the female,
including the upper portion, without the model being
thereby rendered unserviceable. For instance, to
judge from a photograph lying before me, it would
appear to be invisible in the Venus of the Esquiline.
When it does occur, however, in the model, the artist

* The appearance of the groove is, especially in its lower por-
tion, dependent chiefly on the action of a muscle, the pyramidal
muscle of the abdomen, which takes its origin from the two pubic
bones on either side of the symphysis, and also from the sym-
physis itself. Its fibres run on either side upwards and slightly
inwards towards the median line, and are inserted into the fibrous
tissue of the linea alba. When therefore they contract, they draw
the linea alba downwards, and stretch it in doing so. In the
process the linea alba sinks down amid the surrounding structures,
and so gives rise to a groove on the surface, as it tends to form a
straight line, extending from the ensiform process of the sternum
to the symphysis pubis. The main reason why this groove is less
often visible in women, and cannot be traced so far down, is
that the abdominal wall is more richly supplied with fat, partly
also that the muscles are less strongly developed.

THE ABDOMEN. 91

should be careful to copy it. Otherwise he will not
merely deprive his figure of an ornament, but also
suppress a feature by means of which the expression
of its action might be much enhanced.

Sometimes a line is visible, even in the upright
position, lying transversely at some distance above
the navel, or, in lieu thereof, a pair of transverse
depressions lying on either side external to the recti
muscles, and meeting at right angles to the longitu-
dinal groove above described. This line corresponds
to the crease or fold which is formed when a person
standing upright leans forward, or sits in a leaning
attitude. In individuals who are at once muscular
and wanting in fat, several tendinous bands of the
recti muscles of the abdomen, known as the inscrib-
tiones tendinece, may be visible at the surface. They
are often defined in antique sculpture to a degree
that we are scarcely acquainted with in the ordinary
model. We must, however, recollect that the
sculptors of ancient times probably had opportunities
of making observations on famous athletes, such as
we no longer possess. That these transverse creases
may also be visible in thin individuals of only
moderate muscular power is evident from the an-
nexed copy of a photograph from the life (Fig. 10).
The limits of the abdomen towards the thorax vary
very much with the attitude, differing according as
the modelling of the lower thoracic region is pro-
minent in its anterior central portion, or is obliterated
through the stretching of the recti muscles which are

92 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

attached to the cartilages of the fifth to the seventh
rib, and to the lateral portions of the ensiform process.
The latter takes place more especially when the hip-
joint of the supporting leg is over-extended, so as to
cause the ilio-femoral ligament to be stretched ; and,
the obliquity of the pelvis being slight, equilibrium
is restored by a forward movement of the pelvis.
In order that all these details may be visible, the

abdomen must not be overloaded with fat. But ideal
male figures are seldom represented as having much
fat. Some figures of Bacchus, which, in spite of their
youthful beauty, display a certain fullness of form, are
an exception to this rule ; but even then the fat layer
must not be such as to obliterate entirely the details
of the modelling of the abdomen, but only such as to
soften them and render them less prominent.

The fat layer of the abdomen must, in general, not

THE ABDOMEN. 93

exceed the proportion found in the softer parts of the
rest of the body. Regard must always be had to the
conditions of youth, and care taken not to approxi-
mate to the type of older men, in whom the amount
of abdominal fat has increased relatively to that of
the arms and legs.

Just as absence of fat, to a certain degree, from the
abdomen is becoming in the male, so leanness, in the
ordinary sense of the word, i.e., leanness arising from
a poverty of muscular development, is very prejudicial.
In the latter case, the abdomen is not only bad from
want of definition, and movement called forth by the
muscles, but its lower portion is further disfigured by
the prominence of the iliac crests.

We are, by reason of our models and observations
made in bathing resorts, so accustomed to see male
figures with poorly-developed muscles and an ill-
conditioned thorax, that we are constantly tempted
to charge the ancients with exaggeration. The pro-
minences especially on the upper region of the
abdomen, and on the lower part of the thorax, are
frequently stated to be mere figments of their
imagination. But we should be cautious in passing
such judgments. The accompanying woodcut (Fig. 1 1),
drawn from the photograph of a powerful but by no
means herculean man, should be considered. Here
we see the same features exposed to view as in
the ancient heroic figures, only less strongly marked.
May not the ancients have had models in whom they
noted the details that they reproduced in marble?

94

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

What shape ought to be given to the navel ? We
may distinguish between a projecting and a depressed
navel. The former was not unknown to the Greeks,
though they gave the preference to the latter. The
./Egina marbles, indeed, exhibit a moderately-convex
navel ; its convexity, however, is so much sunk below
the surrounding surface, as not to project beyond the
level of the abdominal wall.

As a matter of fact, not only is the convex navel
at the present time the rarer form, but also the less
agreeable, as in it the umbilical ring is less perfectly
closed than in the depressed form. Were the closure
more imperfect still, and the umbilical ring yet wider,.
a pathological condition known as umbilical hernia
would exist. However, even when this condition is
not present, it is possible to feel with the finger the

THE ABDOMEN. 95

border of the incompletely-closed umbilical ring. In
the recumbent position the convex navel sinks in,
or, at any rate, can be easily pressed down. In the
upright position, however, or if subjected to the
pressure of muscular contraction, as during an action
of the bowels, the umbilicus becomes prominent once
more ; and its imperfect closure, and the communica-
tion with the abdominal cavity, are thereby rendered
manifest.

The position of the umbilicus should not be de-
termined with reference to the vertical proportions of
the whole figure, as is frequently done by artists who
make use of certain systems of measurement in which
the navel serves as the central point. The result is
to place it too high in short-legged and too low in
long-legged persons. The position of the navel has
nothing to do with the length of the legs, and should
be determined solely with reference to the propor-
tions of the trunk. It has a better effect when placed
relatively high rather than low down. Ordinarily the
umbilicus is situated higher up when the obliquity
of the pelvis is slight than when it is pronounced.

The same principles apply in general to the female
abdomen, but at the outset we have to deal with a
larger amount of fat. A rounded and somewhat
prominent abdomen, of a form not found in women of
more mature age, is by some regarded as a charac-
teristic of virginal beauty. If, however, an attempt
is made to translate it into marble or bronze, as has
frequently been done, the result at once proves how

96" THE HUMAN FIGURE.

ill-advised such an attempt is. Many such figures are
met with in the art of the German renaissance, but
the impression they produce is not a pleasing one.

Success in this respect is equally difficult to painters,
who in others may claim to take greater liberties.
Even so great a master as Giovanni Bellini is an
instance. Can any one look at his allegorical figure,
No. 236 in the PinacotecaContarini ( Venice, Accademia
delle Belle Arti), with entire satisfaction ? It is con-
ceivable, however, that the artist intended here to
represent the woman as enceinte. The name given to
the figure in art histories, La nuda verita, might then
be appropriately rendered as Sincerity. This is not
impossible, as she holds in her hand a tondo, in which
is mirrored the face of a man.

In a model that shall be adapted for ideal figures,
the two longitudinal depressions, which I have men-
tioned above in treating of the male figure, ought
to be visible on the outside of the sheath of the recti
abdominis muscles. Lower down they pass in the
female subject into a kind of flat depression or
valley, the superior elevated boundary of which forms
a circle, having for its centre or close thereto the
umbilicus. This valley is bounded inferiorly by the
iliac furrow at the sides, while in the centre it descends
to a second elevation, the pubic prominence, or mons
Veneris.

The circular elevation round the umbilicus is caused
by a layer of fat generally present in women, such
as also occurs in greater or less quantity in the mons

THE ABDOMEN. 97

veneris. If the artist holds faithfully to the configura-
tion above described, he will not so readily lose his way
in contours that are often difficult to understand.

It should, however, be mentioned that the groove
between the abdomen and the pubic prominence is
frequently very shallow in slender youthful forms.
This cannot justly be regarded as a defect. In the
Venus rising from the Sea of Sandro Botticelli (Uffizi,
Florence) it is well marked, although doubtless faith-
fully copied from a long and slender model ; little trace
of it, however, is to be seen in the Graces in the Opera
del Duomo at Siena. The Venus of the Esquiline>
likewise a youthful figure, though revealing a smaller
and fuller type of model, shows it in a marked degree.
It is, perhaps, somewhat emphasized here by the
attitude ; but it is not due to this cause alone, since
it is more marked than in the Capitoline Venus, who
is also bending forward and is evidently a woman
of more mature development. The contours of the
maiden's abdomen are spoilt by pregnancy and
childbirth. As a consequence, the abdominal walls
occasionally become so thin and flaccid that the shape
of the subjacent coils of the intestine is visible on the
surface and their movements perceptible.

Even when this is not the case, either the fat
disappears from the umbilical region or is absorbed in
a general adipose layer more evenly distributed over
the whole abdomen, though it may be thickest at a
short distance round the navel.

After the tension which the skin and subjacent

7

9« THE HUMAN FIGURE.

connective tissue undergo during pregnancy they
seldom recover their former firmness, and thus it
becomes intelligible that the fat deposited in them is
no longer held in position so rigidly as before. When
present in considerable quantity it draws the skin of
the abdomen after it by its weight, and so tends to
make it pendulous.

Such far-reaching changes are, however, by no means
the rule ; and indeed the mere fact of childbirth need
not permanently disfigure the abdomen. The so-called
scars of pregnancy — that is, scar-like depressions in
the lower abdominal and inguinal region, of oblong,
mostly rhombic form — are ordinarily though not
always present. Less often a brown line, called the
linea fusca, is seen ascending from the mons veneris
towards the umbilicus. But these and other disfigure-
ments may disappear after a time ; and indeed this
may be the case to such a degree that the medical man,
who has to give his opinion in a court of justice as to
whether a woman has been a mother or not, might be
left in doubt in some cases by the general aspect of
the abdomen, if a closer examination of the genital
organs did not furnish a conclusive answer. This is
a well-known fact in forensic medicine.

The bust, it is true, never regains the ideal shape of
youth, but the modifications it undergoes furnish no
guidance to the medical expert, unless unmistakable
changes have taken place in the nipples or in the
areola. Every artist of experience knows well enough
that the breasts often leave very much to be desired,

THE ABDOMEN. 99

even in young models who have never been mothers.
Their early deterioration is the result partly of the
natural looseness of the connective tissue associated
with so extensive a glandular mass, and partly of a
want of compactness in the skin, and partly also of
emaciation following previous deposition of fat, or it
may be of a fresh deposit of fatty material. However
good her apparent recovery, a model who has once
been a mother is always to be accepted with great
caution (except when required only for some particular
portion of the body) when the artist has an ideal
figure in view, even where we are purposely left in
doubt as to whether it represents a girl or a married
woman. A model of this kind should be chosen only
when it is desired to stamp the figure with the cha-
racter of wifehood or motherhood — as, for instance, in
Michelangelo's Night and in various figures of Eve,
where this has been carried out with an evident
purpose.

A material and peculiarly objectionable disfigure-
ment of the female abdomen is caused by the
premature use of the corset. In the first place, the
natural form of the thorax in its lower part and of
the upper part of the abdomen is destroyed ; and, in
addition, the flanks are ruined by being laced up.
The line of the flank from the waist should form a
convex curve, either unbroken and continuous with
the line of the thigh down to the great trochanter,
or it should form a slight elevation above the iliac
crest, with a very shallow depression just below it.

IOO THE HUMAN FIGURE.

But when the flanks have been disfigured by lacing,
the iliac crest projects as a ridge, which may be
conspicuous as far as to the anterior superior iliac
spine. A still more obvious disfigurement consists in
the skin and fat of the abdomen being pressed down-
wards, and forming a swelling over the border of the
pelvis, which extends farther down laterally than in the
centre. These deformities may be observed even in
the corpse ; and just below the swelling that is formed
in the centre, the scalpel comes upon the M. pyramidalis
abdominis. It is to the activity of this muscle that
the strangely ugly form assumed by this disfigure-
ment seems to be due.

A low umbilicus produces a still more unpleasant
effect in the female than in the male. Its position is
defined most conveniently by comparing its distance
from the pit of the neck, that is, from the upper end
of the sternum, with its distance from the point where
the lines of the flexure of the thighs meet at the apex
of the fork.

If the latter distance be taken as 100, the former is
equal to 174 in the Graces of the Opera del Duomo
at Siena, and the same in the Venus of the Vatican,
who holds up her hair with her right hand, and in
her left carries a vase for unguents. In Sandro
Botticelli's Venus it amounts to 167 ; in a woman
5 feet 3^ inches high, whose measurement was taken
by Schadow, to 162 ; in the Venus de Medicis,
calculated by him for the erect position, to 160; and
in a woman 5 feet 6 inches high measured by him only

THE ABDOMEN.

101

to 157. The artist is free to make his choice among
these ratios, for even in the Graces at Siena the
umbilicus is not unduly low, though its position
would be no longer tolerable if the line of the flexure
of the thighs, both in them and in the above-named
Venus, made a less obtuse angle.

Where the boundary line between the abdomen
and the pubic prominence is visible in the upright
posture, a very common practice is to carry a straight
line from its lowest point to the fossa of the neck,
and to fix the umbilicus on it at such a point that its
distance from the fossa of the neck is the double of
that from the lowest point of the boundary line
aforesaid.

The position of the umbilicus is, however, materially
dependent in one and the same individual on that of
the body. When the body is bent on the thighs,
and therefore the obliquity of the pelvis is increased,
the umbilicus descends ; while the opposite takes place
when the obliquity of the pelvis is much diminished,
so as to bring the ilio-femoral ligament into a state
of tension. If, however, the spinal column is flexed
in bending the body, which takes place mainly in the
lumbar vertebrae, the umbilicus shifts relatively up-
wards, since the sternum is brought closer to it, and
so the distance between the umbilicus and the pit of
the neck is diminished.

When the body is bent forwards in the lumbar
region, a transverse crease is formed on the ab-
dominal wall above the navel ; as seen, for example,

IO2 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

in the so-called Danaid of the Vatican — in which,
however, be it said in passing, I can only see the
figure of a woman about to perform her ablutions
(Fig. 12). It is also excellently shown in the beautiful
figure of Susannah, in Lauritz Tuxen's picture of
Susannah at the Bath. In Fig. 13 an example of it
is given from a photograph of a female model.

The same crease is produced when the body is
bent forward in the sitting position. It is caused
by the lowest part of the thorax, together with the

lumbar vertebrae, moving backwards, and drawing the
abdominal wall after it. In girls who are young and
thin it is simply a crease, below which the abdomen
rises into a rounded elevation, while the skin above it
forms a flat surface, being stretched across from one
side of the thorax to the other.

When, however, a larger quantity of fat is present,
a fold rather than a crease is formed ; and this is also
the rule in every ..fairly-well-covered frame, though
no rule is without its exceptions. When it does not
occur as a fold in a body whose contours are other-

THE ABDOMEN.

103

wise well rounded enough for the purposes of the
artist, but appears quite distinctly as a crease, it
should be regarded as an essential mark of beauty ;
and it has been so accepted by artists of reputation,
as, for example, by Moretto of Brescia in his Venus
Lamenting the Dead Adonis, No. 592 in the Uffizi.*

FIG. 13.

A second fold frequently, though not invariably,
makes its appearance when the fat is still more
conspicuously present ; it runs right and left from the
navel for a short distance only. If still more fat lies
between the sternum and umbilicus, or if the skin

* With reference to the authorship of this picture, I have re-
tained the attribution of the Catalogue. Crowe and Cavalcaselle
and Lermolieff agree in ascribing it to Sebastiano Luciani.

104 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

is unusually slack, two folds may be formed above
the navel in place of the single one first mentioned.
Their number may even be still further increased in
women who have borne children ; but artists should
not suffer themselves to be misled into reproducing
an abdomen marked with numerous folds — not even
by Michelangelo's Night, which has four transverse
abdominal folds, two above and two below the navel.
In this instance the sculptor was not concerned to
represent ideal beauty, but to emphasize the charac-
teristics of maternity. Michelangelo has done this
with a boldness which no one can be encouraged
to imitate who does not also share the master's
marvellous powers.

Grooves, creases, and even folds running between
the navel and the lower pelvic boundary line, must
never be copied, not even if present in models who
are young and otherwise well-formed ; since they are
not associated with the normal development of the
human body, but are the consequence of prejudicial
forms of clothing, and, above all, of the use of stays.

V.

THE BACK.

THREE things are of cardinal importance in
determining the beauty of the back : the curve
•of the spinal column, the position of the shoulder-
blades, and the shape of the thorax. The curve
of the spinal column varies with the posture of the
body, but only to a limited extent in the thoracic
region. Apart from minute variations caused by the
respiratory movements, the curve in that region is
fairly constant, especially in old people! This is a
consequence of each separate vertebra being conjoined
to the whole framework of the thorax, the individual
parts of which grow less flexible with advancing
years. The principal movements take place in the
cervical and lumbar regions of the spinal column,
in the latter of which regions the power of movement
diminishes rapidly upwards towards the thorax, the
lower vertebrae of which, in their turn, are more
mobile than the upper ones.

This restriction of mobility to the lumbar region
is related principally to the actions of arching
and drawing in the back. Lateral and rotatory

IC6 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

movements give rise in addition to alterations of
form in other parts (cf. Langer, loc. tit., p. 181). The
form of the curve of the human spinal column in
the erect posture is so well known that I need not
enter into detail here. It is chiefly a question of the
degree of curvature ; and in this point antique statues
dating from the best period of Greek sculpture down
to the decline of pagan art in Rome may be taken
as a pattern. In a few examples of archaic Greek
art, such as the Apollo of Tenea, the concavity of the
lumbar region of the spinal column is exaggerated
to a degree unsuited for imitation. In part, perhaps,
it arises from the stiff and rigidly-upright posture of
the figure. The more erect the body is, the farther
is the centre of gravity shifted backwards. The ver-
tical line, however, drawn through the centre of gravity
of course must not fall behind the heels, otherwise
the erect posture would be impossible. Therefore the
lumbar region of the spinal column is bent in, and
thus the central mass of the trunk is shifted farther
forwards to make a counterpoise. The military
maxim to put in the stomach and stick out the
chest is no natural position, but one that has to be
acquired by drilling.

The masters of the renaissance period frequently
went beyond the antique pattern in this matter of the
curvature of the spinal column, but it is not on that
account desirable to imitate them. It is, in any case,
difficult to lay down any very definite rule, since, owing
to the important part often played by the line of the

THE BACK. lO/

spinal column of a figure in the main lines of a
composition, a more marked curve may occasionally
be justified under the circumstances.

The more flexibility the model has in the thoracic
region of the spinal column, the better it is. This is
especially the case with regard to lateral flexibility.
The latter is unaffected by the respiratory movements,
but comes into play when the shoulders are raised and
lowered, e.g., in lifting up the right arm to reach some
object, such as fruit, placed on high, while the left
arm hangs down and bears a moderate burden, as, for
instance, a basket half filled with fruit. In such a case,
the more the lateral flexibility of the spinal column
is retained, the more charming is the curved line of
the backbone resulting from the action. An instance
of it may be seen in Giovanni da Bologna's Roman
carrying off a Sabine Woman (Florence, Loggia dei
Lanzi).

Furthermore, the power of rotating the spinal column
on itself, so that the transverse axis of the body through
the shoulders no longer lies in the same plane with
that through the pelvis, diminishes with age, and it is
always an advantage for a model to retain this power
in a high degree.

The next point that may be regarded as essential
to the beauty of the back is the position of the shoulder-
blades. As a matter of course, in very muscular
persons the shoulder-blades, by reason of their strongly
developed muscles, form a considerable prominence on
either side of the spinal column, as may be seen in the

108 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

executioner who is turning his back in Raffaelle's
Judgment of Solomon in the Vatican. This is not
inconsistent with beauty, provided that these pro-
minences are connected with the median groove of
the back and with the neck by the muscles attached
to the posterior border, or the superior angle, or to
the spine of the scapula, in such a way as to form an
organic whole. We are, however, concerned with a
different point. In many persons the posterior edge
of the scapula becomes conspicuous by drawing the
attached muscles with it, and forming under the skin a
roof-shaped prominence, which constitutes a very ugly
feature. When in such a case the arm is allowed to
hang loosely down, the edge of the bone is seen to be
directed obliquely, and the lower angle projects in a
most ungraceful fashion. This is by no means merely
the result of leanness. In some very lean individuals
it is not found at all, while, on the other hand, the
objectionable position of the shoulder-blade may make
itself visible through a considerable fat layer.

A lean back, one that is free from fat, may be
faultless, and this not only in the male, but in the
female also ; in the latter case, however, it must present
a surface in which there may be depressions, but no
projections. At first sight this may seem like a
contradiction, and it may be objected that there can
be no valleys without hills. But the contradiction is
apparent only. Any one who knows how to describe
a stretch of country will draw a distinction between a
plain from which rise separate hills or chains of hills,

THE BACK. ICQ

and a plain which is scored by single valleys or
depressions. It reduces itself to this, that the charac-
teristic features in the one case project above the
general level, while in the other they sink below it.
In a lean back of this type the play of the muscles
will be visible under the skin, but no projecting angles
or edges of the bones. I must repeat here that by a
lean back I understand merely one that is free from
fat ; for a back in which the muscles are not adequately
developed is, under all circumstances, ugly.

Where a well-formed back is overlaid with a moderate
cushion of fat, there may generally be seen on either
side of the median groove, in the region of the shoulders,
a shallow longitudinal depression running from above
downwards, a longitudinal pit. This pit corresponds
to a depression near the hinder border of the scapula,
which lies between the point of origin of the infra-
spinatus muscle on the one hand, and the insertion
of the great rhomboid muscle (M. rhomboideus major)
on the other. Although covered not only by the skin
and fat layer, but also by the fibres of the trapezius,
it is nevertheless frequently visible at the surface, and
should be carefully reproduced, as it is of great import-
ance in the distribution of the surface of the back, and
helps to break its monotony. Its presence also affords
evidence of a well-developed muscular system, as its
depth increases in proportion to the prominence of the
surrounding muscles.

This pit is seen most clearly when the arm is
actively rotated in the shoulder-joint outwards, be-

110 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

cause then the infra-spinatus muscle contracts and
thickens. On the other hand, it is smoothed away
when the arms are folded in front, because the upper
arm in doing so revolves to the inside, and at the
same time, by shifting the shoulders forwards, stretches
and flattens out the rhomboid muscle.

The third material element in the beauty of the
back is the shape of the thorax, which must neither
be abnormally conical in form from above downwards,
nor have its circumference unnaturally narrow in its
lower region. The latter is frequently the case in.
the female sex, as the result of wearing a corset at
an early age. I lay stress on the early age, as this
is far more injurious than using such an arrangement
when growth in height and girth is completed. As
regards height, the limit, as is well known, is reached
much sooner than in relation to girth. For the
latter no limit under fifty years of age can be re-
garded as certainly definite, since not only the bones,
but the soft parts also, are concerned. • The latter
element, however, does not here enter into con-
sideration, as no increase of girth by deposit of fat
is in question, but only addition to the width of
the shoulders and loins through bone-growth, and
this usually ceases among us in the female sex at
twenty years of age, or a little earlier. If the use of
stays is first adopted at this period of life, it cannot
spoil the shape of the back very speedily — at any rate
not during the time in which the individual is likely
to sit as a model. Under these circumstances it

•suffices to lay aside the stays for a short time in
order to restore the original shape. The same state-
ment cannot be made with equal certainty as regards
the abdomen, which, even at the later stage of life, is
easily disfigured permanently, especially by the forma-
tion of one or more disagreeable transverse folds in the
lower abdominal region. Still worse are the ravages
inflicted by the corset, not only on the abdomen, but
also on the back of those who wear it before or
during their development, and make use of it for
the purposes of personal display. Girls who do this
are quite useless as models.

The tightly-laced body is at once recognisable in
back view by the contraction which manifests itself
on either side of the spinal column in the lower
thoracic region, and by the dwindling resulting there-
from, forming, as the eye descends, a violent contrast
with the hips, which, owing to their bony framework,
maintain their original position.

Such a back is repulsively ugly, and it would be
scarcely conceivable that any artist could think of
reproducing it, were it not that examples of it are
to be found.

As a rule one hears artists less frequently lament
the lack of good models for the back than the absence
of those who are good for the breast, abdomen, or feet.
This is natural, since, with the exception of the use of
stays and the habit of suspending heavy dresses from
the hips, the life of most girls at the present day does
not involve conditions productive of injury to the

H2 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

back ; and whereas the abdomen and breast only too
easily forfeit their beauty with increasing-- years, this
does not apply, in anything like the same degree, to
the back.

Among the ancients we often meet with a somewhat

FIG. 14.

rounded back and a forward inclination of the neck —
an attitude not regarded as elegant in the draped figure
of a girl. The erect bearing required of girls at the
present day does not occur with -any frequency in art
till the Roman period.

The annexed woodcut (Fig. 14), from an engraving

THE BACK. I I 3

in " Gorii Mus. Florentinum," vol. ii., represents the
bust of the goddess Roma cut on a sardonyx. The
pose is very characteristic ; and the thorax exhibits a
roundness which is rare in Greek sculpture.

The pose of the neck in Greek female figures is
partly due to the desire to show it off to the highest
advantage, as has been mentioned above in the passage
relating thereto. Distinctions were also drawn by the
ancients themselves in this matter. The afore-men-
tioned pose of the neck is found chiefly in statues of
Venus and in genre figures, whereas figures of Juno
and Minerva stand more proudly erect. Archaic and
archaistic figures are similarly distinguished by a more
upright and, if occasionally stiff, yet frequently solemn
and imposing bearing.

If we look at the back of an individual or of a statue
in the upright posture, we can easily trace the line of the
backbone as it descends between the shoulders down-
wards, until it is lost in the sacral region, where we see
on each side, at a little distance, a depression longer
than it is broad ; these pits are more or less oblong from
above downwards. The elevated masses which lie
between them and the line of the backbone consist of
the lower part of the dorsal muscles which are attached
to the sacrum, and in part, too, of the overlying fat.

From each of these pits there runs obliquely down-
wards and inwards a line towards the cleft between
the buttocks, where the two lines meet. They are
either traceable through their entire course, or they
are so far indicated as to be easily completed in

114 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

imagination. What lies above and to the inside of
them forms part of the dorsal muscles, and of their
tendons and processes ; what lies below and outside
them belongs to the gluteus muscles. These lines
form two sides of a triangle, defined above towards the
back more or less distinctly, according to the degree
of inclination of the body, and known as the sacro-iliac
triangle. It varies in form according to the inclination
of the pelvis, according to the form of the sacrum and of
the adjacent iliac bones, and according to the extent
of the fatty layer. It may present a convex surface
to the view, or it may be flat ; it may, in addition,
exhibit a median or two lateral depressions ; but, in any
case, it must be recognised by the artist and intelligently
worked out in its details, where he is dealing with
a youthful and well-preserved body in dorsal view,
whether in the male or in the female.

It is very beautifully shown in that one of the Three
Graces of Raffaelle who turns her back to the spectator.

It is also well reproduced in Forster's engraving after
this picture, which has been spread broadcast by
means of the " Blatter fur vervielfaltigende Kunst."

I cannot understand the palpable neglect with which
this region has been treated in one of the finest statues
of antiquity, the Venus of the Capitol. We are almost
compelled to suppose that in its original position the
back was not accessible to observation. I judge so
from the plaster cast which is in the Academy of Fine
Arts at Vienna. Since I first observed this I have
had no opportunity of examining the original.

VI.

THE PELVIS AND ITS RELATION TO THE TRUNK
AND TO THE THIGHS.

WHEN we look at antique male statues, we
observe a striking uniformity in the course
of the iliac line — the line, that is, running down-
wards from the hips towards the genital organs. It
is practically identical in archaic statues, in works
belonging to the finest period of Greek sculpture, and
in examples of Roman plastic art from the time
of the Emperors down to the complete decline of
pagan art.

Nevertheless, it is not very easy to find in the
living model instances of this line, which was per-
sistently reproduced through so many centuries in
ancient times. In the first place, where in the
antique we see a more or less prominent roll of flesh
lying above the iliac crest, we usually find none in
well-proportioned young men of slender build, such
as are represented in antique statues and reliefs, but
frequently in lieu thereof a depression, situated,
however, a little higher than the fleshy ridge of the
antique ; for the latter, as we shall see hereafter,
includes the iliac crest, whereas the depression which

I I 6 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

we meet with in the living subject always lies above
the level of the iliac crest.

The difference just referred to is connected with
a second one no less remarkable. If we have a
living model before us, we observe that the iliac line
descending from the iliac crest makes a slight curve
as it follows the course of the inguinal fold, i.e., of
the fold which, when we bend the thigh, and at the

\r

FIG. 15.

same time turn it inwards towards the median plane
of the body, is formed between its inner border and
the lower abdominal region ; lower down the line is
lost in the pubic hair. As its continuation, but no
longer as forming part of the iliac line itself, we may
regard the line which descends between the thigh
and the scrotum and forms the border line between
the former and the perinaeum, i.e., the region between
the scrotum and the anus.

In antique sculpture, however, the line descending

THE PELVIS.

117

from the hips has a very different shape. It com-
mences with an almost horizontal portion beneath
the fleshy ridge, runs for a short distance inwards,
and then bends downwards at an obtuse angle,
sometimes almost at a right angle ; and pursues
a curve convex on the outside and below. The
annexed woodcuts illustrate the two forms of line.

T

Figs. 15 and 16 show the ordinary iliac line from
photographs of models, the original of Fig. 1 5 having
both hands raised, that of Fig. 16 holding a vase in
the right hand. Fig. 17, taken from Sybel's " Welt-
geschichte der Kunst," shows the iliac line of the
Diadumenos.

Before entering into further detail as to the differ-
ences between the antique and the living model, it
will be convenient to examine how far the inclination

I IS THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of the pelvis exercises any influence on the iliac line
in the male.

If a man stands erect, firmly planted on both feet,
at the same time exerting as little muscular effort as
possible, the hip-joint is always a little over-extended.
If we imagine the body to be lifeless, and if while
holding the legs firmly in the above position we
were to make an incision from the front surface

hi,;

f

w\

FIG. 17.

inwards towards the neck of the femur, cutting
through everything, skin, muscles, vessels, nerves, and
finally also the anterior wall of the fibrous capsule
of the joint by which the femur is attached to the
pelvis, the trunk would fall backwards. Now, very
.strong bundles of fibres run in the anterior wall of
this capsule, which take their origin from the superior
or iliac portion of the border of the acetabulum, and
from thence upwards as far as the anterior inferior
iliac spine ; and, becoming united in front of the

THE PELVIS. I 1 9

head and neck of the femur, take a downward course
to the point of their attachment on the anterior
inter-trochanteric line of the femur.

These bundles are known collectively as the ilio-
femoral ligament ; and it is this ligament which,
when in standing upright we avoid all muscular
exertion not absolutely necessary, keeps the body
from falling backwards, so that it is said, not without
reason, that, when standing in the easiest possible
position, we use no muscular action to support the
body, but suspend it in the hip-joint to the ilio-
femoral ligament.

It is owing to the presence of this ligament that
no one, not even the most supple ballet-dancer,
can extend the leg horizontally backwards without
bending the body well forwards.

On the length of this ligament, and on the amount
of play it allows, depends, moreover, the position
assumed by the pelvis in relation to the thigh ancj
to the horizon in an easy upright posture.* If< it
allows considerable freedom of movement, then the
superior opening or inlet of the pelvis is turned more
vertically upwards ; but more to the front, when the
ligament is short, and consequently the freedom of
movement is restricted. In the former case we speak

* It has recently been incorrectly asserted that no position
actually exists in which the ilio-femoral ligament is stretched,
and that it is merely a theoretical abstraction. Any model may,
however, be placed in such a position, even though it be not
one which is assumed naturally by everybody, and will afford
conclusive proof that a number of antique statues are so posed.

120 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of a slight inclination, in the latter of a strong inclination
of the pelvis. Among us an excessive inclination of the
pelvis, especially in the female sex, is a more frequent
defect than the reverse. When the inclination is
excessive, we fail to obtain in an easy upright posture
the beautiful simply-curved line, .which we see, for
instance, in the well-known picture of Nicholas
Poussin, called the Arcadian Shepherds. For with
excessive inclination of the pelvis the abdomen is
projected forwards instead of the pelvis, and a
correspondingly deep hollow is seen above the
sacrum in the lumbar region of the back.

If, on the other hand, the inclination is too slight,
the pelvis projects in an ungraceful fashion, and the
trunk makes a conspicuous angle with the thighs.
But this is a defect of less frequent occurrence.
Excessive inclination of the pelvis may also mar the
lower part of the back by causing the sacrum to
project too much, while insufficient inclination may
mar it by giving it too flat an appearance.

The typical antique iliac line in male figures, on
the first impression, suggests to us that we have
before us a pelvis of slight inclination, with the iliac
crest bent unusually far inwards. The whole bearing
of the figure, as a rule, implies a very small degree
of pelvic inclination. If, further, the inward projecting
angle of the iliac line is caused by the anterior
superior iliac spine, as we are at once led to assume,
then the whole wing of the osilium must be directed
less downwards and outwards than among us, and

THE PELVIS. 121

more upwards and inwards ; we have, however, no
actual proof that in those times the human pelvis
ever had a shape so different from that of the
present time, much less that it was the prevalent
form.

Among the bones of men belonging to ancient
times which I have had an opportunity of investi-
gating, I have not met with a single osilium giving
evidence of such a structure, though it is true I
have examined no Greek bones, but only those of
Italic origin. Among the skeletons of the Felsinea
Necropolis one only exhibited a somewhat more
marked curve forwards and inwards of the iliac crest ;
but it was not so marked as would be implied by the
antique type, if the above interpretation were correct.
I have also found a more pronounced inward curve
than is now normal in a female Egyptian mummy
at Parma, but it was not present in an adjacent male
mummy. The fact that in the anatomical figure
by Cigoli, in the Bargello at Florence, the anterior
superior iliac spine is more turned inwards than
usual, and thus approximates to the antique type,
does not assist us. We are bound, therefore, to
entertain the possibility that the bend in the iliac line
may not indicate the anterior superior iliac spine, and
that the latter may lie to the inside of it, somewhere
in the soft parts of the abdominal wall.

On this supposition let us try to determine its
exact position as nearly as possible.

Four great muscles lie in the abdominal wall : the

122 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

rectus (Fig. 18, i, and Fig. 19, 7), the external oblique
(Fig. 1 8, 2), the internal oblique (Fig. 18, 3), and the
transversalis abdominis muscle (Fig. 19, 4).

The rectus muscle is enclosed in a fibrous sheath
composed of fibres belonging to the tendinous portion
of the oblique and transversalis muscles.

Tendinous fibres of the internal oblique muscle,
and likewise tendinous fibres of the transversalis,
though only to a certain depth, contribute to the
hinder wall of the sheath. Nearly on a level with
the anterior part of the iliac crest is a spot*

* The point marked 6 in Fig. 19 is made visible by the removal
of all the left rectus muscle up to where it is situated, while the
rest is seen in section. It is only necessary to follow the divided
surface of the muscle in an outward direction until the point is

THE PELVIS.

123

(Fig. 19, 6) at which all these fibres leave the hinder
wall of the sheath and pass into the anterior wall, so
that from this point downwards the muscle is only
separated from the body cavity by a connective tissue
layer, independent of the muscles, the so-called fascia

transversalis, and by the peritonaeal membrane. The

reached where the above-described change, in the course of the
tendinous fibres, takes place. The right rectus muscle is retained
in its entire length, and is seen in profile in tig. 19, 7, and in
front view in Fig. 18, i. The left rectus is, in the latter figure,
covered by the anterior wall of the sheath in which it lies.
Tig. 18, 5, indicates the pyramidal muscle, which has been
mentioned above in the description of the abdomen, as the
muscle which, by its contraction, stretches the linea alba.

The illustrations are copied from those of the abdominal
muscles given by L. Hollstein, in his " Anatomic des Menschen "
(Berlin, 1885).

124 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

bend in the typical antique iliac line lies about on
a level with this point. Is it possible that this
change in the course of the fibres could, in a race
with powerful muscles, unfettered by close-fitting
clothing, have affected the surface of the body
much more than with us ?

There is, however, yet another possibility to be
considered. The rectus muscle has three tendinous
bands (Jnscriptiones tendinece). Occasionally a fourth
is present, which lies midway between the umbilicus
and the symphysis pubis, and, as a rule, is only
visible in the outer , part of the muscle. As this
band still occurs, though only in a minority of
instances, it may have been normally present in
antiquity ; and since such bands are closely attached
to the anterior wall of the sheath of the rectus above
mentioned, it is not inconceivable that the surface
might be affected by them. By this I do not mean
that the fourth band is visible as such, since the iliac
line does not run where it lies. It is merely sug-
gested that it exercises a more powerful tension, and
thereby causes the iliac line to prolong its horizontal
course beyond the anterior end of the iliac crest.

This view, however, is open to a serious objection,
viz., it invariably happens that, when in the antique
the outer limit of the sheath of the rectus can be
recognised, the inward projecting angle of the iliac
line does not reach up to it, but leaves a space of
some two fingers' breadth intervening.

Are we to accept one of these possibilities as the

THE PELVIS. 125

•cause of the difference between the antique and the
modern iliac line, or must we believe that a blunder
was committed in the very beginning of antique
sculpture, and perpetuated during its entire history?

A final judgment is not rendered less difficult when
we learn that the antique type of iliac line is not
wholly without its exceptions.

I recollect having seen a very fine torso in the
Vatican in which the iliac line did not display the
typical form, but might have been faithfully copied
from an existing model. The Ganymede of the
Uffizi, a masterly if disagreeable specimen of
naturalistic sculpture, also shows no trace of it.*
Besides these, examples are found intermediate be-
tween the two extremes.

In a few antiques we find the natural iliac line in
addition to the typical line, the two being separated
from one another by a slight elevation.

Thus I was unable to discover any definite solution
of my doubts until I had an opportunity, through
the kindness of the distinguished sculptor, Cav.
Agostino Felici, in Venice, of observing a powerfully-
built young man who sat to him as a model. The
antique line was quite distinctly and unmistakably

* It is well known that the Ganymede was a mere torso when
first discovered. Benvenuto Cellini supplied the head, arms,
feet, pedestal, and eagle, but it has never been suggested that he
made any alteration in the region of the pelvis. The absence of
the typical iliac line may perhaps be attributed to the youth of
the model, although present in other antique representations
of figures quite as youthful.

126 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

present in him. The lateral muscle masses lay im-
mediately -on and over the iliac crest, so as .to leave
a depression, not above, but below the crest. The
fleshy roll was not due merely to the fat layer, which
was by no means pronounced. By tightening the
skin upwards I could feel the iliac crest as an essential
part of the prominence. The latter extended up-
wards into the region of the flank, since the abdominal
muscles, which here lie under the skin and fat, are
attached to the iliac- crest.

The lower border of the prominence formed the
transverse outer (lateral) branch of the antique iliac
line. It ran considerably beneath the iliac crest,
descending anteriorly less than the latter, and then
suddenly bent at an angle downwards into the inner
(medial) descending branch of the same line. Its
whole course resembled very closely that of the iliac
line of the Apollo Belvedere. On examining the apex
of the angle with the hand, I could feel the anterior
end of the iliac crest — that is to say, the anterior
superior iliac spine. Thus all doubt was removed as
to this being the cause of the angle, and similarly
there can be no doubt that in antique statues the
angle is to be referred to the same origin. The only
question remaining is whether in several antiques in
which the two angles are nearer to each other than
in the Apollo Belvedere and in our model, the
sculptors have adhered strictly to nature, or whether
in these instances they have deviated therefrom.

Afterwards, through the kindness of. the sculptor

THE PELVIS.

127

Prof. Kuhne, in Vienna, I was enabled to examine a
second model illustrating the antique type. This
man was also a Venetian. He had formerly been a
gondolier, and was no longer young ; and although
not exactly stout, he had a considerable layer of fat
extending on the side of the body down the flanks
so as to overhang the iliac crest, and causing the
transverse branch of the typical iliac line to run in a
less slanting and more horizontal direction even than
in the preceding model. Variations in this respect
are likewise met with in the antique, and the course
of the transverse branch of the line in question is
dependent not only on the form and position of the
pelvis, but also in the fat layer, in so far as the latter
affects the elevation or depression respectively of the
surface.

In no case, however, must we be led into regarding
the transverse branch of this line, in antique statues,
as indicating the site of the iliac crest itself, but only
as a depression below the latter. The iliac crest
constitutes the bony basis of the lower part of the
prominence, which, owing to the softness of its upper
portion, is called the fleshy ridge or roll.

From the foregoing we can now recognise the two
factors which practically determine the course of the
horizontal branch of the iliac line.

The first factor, the shape of the pelvis being taken
as constant, is its inclination, since it is evident that
this branch will run less horizontally in proportion
as the inclination of the pelvis increases ; and the

128 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

second factor is the amount and distribution of the
fat on the flanks. The branch has its fixed point of
origin at the anterior superior iliac spine ; it does not,
however, thenceforth follow the iliac crest, but runs
below it ; and, other circumstances being equal, the
thicker the layer of fat over the external oblique
muscles and the iliac crest, the lower does the branch
run, and therefore the more horizontal it is ; and the
fat, by its tendency to hang downwards, causes the
roll to pass over into a hollow groove later, i.e., further
downwards than is the case in leaner individuals.

It is hardly necessary to say that the form of the
pelvis, and of the alas of the iliac bones more
especially, exercises some influence, but this may
vary in so many ways and by such fine gradations
as to render it impossible to lay down any general
statement on the subject. To follow it out in detail
would only be possible by first examining the living
model and then investigating preparations of the
pelvis in the dead subject.

On the last-named of the two models I made
some measurements which present certain features
of interest. The greatest transverse diameter of the
upper pelvic region, including the fleshy masses
lying above the alae of the iliac bones, amounted to
322 millimetres. This was about 17 mm. less than
the greatest diameter in the region of the hip-joint,
since the latter amounted to 339 mm. The distance
between the two angles so often referred to was
250 mm., and the greatest transverse diameter,

THE PELVIS. 129

measured in the depth of the furrow of the horizontal
branch of the typical iliac line, amounted to 318 mm.
The furrow was thus overhung by the fleshy roll
above it to the extent of 2 mm. only on either side ;
a fact, however, which does not prevent the line from
being traced with absolute certainty, as it was defined
with sufficient clearness.

The straight horizontal furrow or step, frequently
seen to be sharply marked' on antique male statues
between the abdomen and pubic prominence, and
uniting the descending branches of the two iliac
lines, has originated in the sculptural representation
of the upper edge of the pubic hair. Its origin may
still be recognised in several statues ; for instance,
in the Harmodius at Naples, the Choiseul-Gouffier
Apollo in the British Museum, the Doryphoros
of Polycletus at Naples, the Farnese Diadumenos in
London," and others.

Its origin makes clear to us further why the
line is in many figures produced so far towards
the thigh as to interrupt the natural connection
of the descending branch of the iliac line with the
furrow between the scrotum and thigh.

The ancients appear to depart in this matter still
further from nature, but they encountered the diffi-
culty that the artist had to represent a feature not
naturally adapted for sculpture, and yet one that
could not be passed over.

* All these statues are figured in Sybel's " Weltgeschichte
der Kunst."

9

ISO THE HUMAN FIGURE.

There is, however, another mode in which the
descending branch of the iliac line and the furrow
between scrotum and thigh may be disunited, which
is quite consonant with nature. In statues in
which the weight of the body is thrown on one
leg while the other is free, the disconnection is
frequently seen above the supporting leg, though
absent, or, at any rate, less distinct, above the other.
The pelvis lies in a slanting position, and its lower
portion presses more heavily on the thigh of the
supporting leg than when the weight is equally
distributed on both legs. In this way a cushion
projects on that side, appearing as a lateral elevation
of the pubic prominence, and the descending branch
of the iliac line passes above it in an inward direction
towards the median line, while the furrow between
the thigh and scrotum in passing upwards remains
below the cushion, and turning outwards is prolonged
into the line which arises as a fold of the flexure
between the trunk and the thigh when the thigh
and knee are raised to a position at right angles to
the body.

This is very clearly seen in the Discobolus who
stands upright holding the quoit in his left hand,
which hangs at his side, while he bends his right
arm at the elbow, and gesticulates with the hand
and fingers, as if he would utter some remark con-
cerning the cast about to be made. The famous
Hermes from Olympia with the infant Dionysos
exhibits the same feature.

THE PELVIS. 131

When the interruption above described is distinct
on both sides, the descending branches of the typical
iliac line are usually united by a line passing between
the abdomen and the pubic prominence, and having
the form of a curve convex below.

Obviously the most important question for us from
a practical point of view is this : Ought the artist
to reproduce in his works the antique typical form
of iliac line or not ?

There can be no question as to the excellent
effect which the line produces. Even at a distance it
gives proportion to the figure, and helps to diminish
the superficial area of the abdomen. It gives an
air of solidity ; and when we see it in the living
model, there is no denying that it enhances con-
siderably the impression of force and manly beauty.
It is undoubtedly within the artist's right to impart
to his work a feature which he regards as of the
highest beauty, even if he has only seen it in a
single instance, or has only a single unimpeachable
proof of its occurrence ; but he is scarcely justified
in giving form to a feature the very existence of
which in the present or in the past is a matter
of doubt.

Our artists are fully entitled to make the second
toe of the foot longer than the great toe, since, though
not the rule in the existing race of men, it does occur,
not only in children, but likewise in adults, and more-
over in adults of the Aryan stock, as I shall show
further on ; in many antiques, however, we find the

132 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

iliac line with the inward angles brought curiously
near to each other, and so deeply and ruggedly
defined that the modern artist cannot but hesitate
about reproducing it until it is forthcoming in a
living example. He should, however, seek for models
who show an approximation to the antique type,
and avoid reproducing an abdomen such as was
possessed by the model who served Rembrandt for
his Christ before Pilate.

The artists of the renaissance and of modern times
have varied in their practice, adopting sometimes the
antique type, and sometimes the form now prevalent
in nature. A striking example of the former is seen
in the Perseus of Benvenuto Cellini, in the Loggia dei
Lanzi at Florence, and in the Mars of Sansovino, on
the staircase of the Ducal Palace at Venice. In the
instance just named the artist has misunderstood his
antique pattern, as he has prolonged the line running
from the hips horizontally as far as the sheath of the
recti muscles.

We also find the antique form of line in drawings
attributed to Raffaelle. Later the artists adhered
rather to the modern type which they observed in
their models. Thus I do not remember ever to
have seen an instance of the antique type in the
nude male figures of Guido Reni.

In a drawing in the Uffizi (No. 2), ascribed to
Andrea del Verocchio, both lines, the realistic and
the antique, are present together, and the same
thing also occurs elsewhere, and occasionally passes

THE PELVIS 133

over into the type in which the descending branches
of the typical form unite into an arch carved below,
and lying between the abdomen and the pubic pro-
minence, while the line between the pubes and the
thigh merges into the flexure of the thigh, and so
follows a course below the iliac line and quite
distinct from it.

If we inquire why the typical iliac line is not

)

present in an antique female figure, the answer is
that the form of pelvis which really gives rise to
the typical line, and is indispensable to its pro-
duction, is extremely rare in the female.

In the female pelvis the alae of the iliac bones are
generally less perpendicular and curved inwards than
in the male ; they slant outwards more, and thus the
distance between the two anterior superior iliac spines
is increased. To this last-named feature it is mainly
due that the presence of the line which we see in

134

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

antique male figures becomes impossible in the
female.

I have, nevertheless, once observed a very marked
indication of it in a photograph from the life, from
which the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 20) is copied.
It was quite possible, in the distribution of light and
shade, to recognise the point corresponding to the
angle in antique male statues, and from it to trace
the typical Jline more or less distinctly downwards

and outwards ; but owing to the greater width of
the pelvis relatively to its height, the angle is more
obtuse, and the descending rami of the typical line
are less perpendicular. When this is taken into
consideration, such indications are traceable in antique
female figures more or less distinctly ; for instance,
in the three famous statues of Venus, that of Milo,
the Capitoline, and the Medicean.

Fig. 21, which is also reproduced from a photograph
of the living model, exhibits this line, and likewise
forms approaching the male type.

THE PELVIS.

135

In the female we may distinguish two extreme
types, which, at first sight, are difficult to reconcile.
In the first, the inguinal line, that is, the line
separating the thighs from the pubic prominence
and the lowest part of the abdomen, ascends, as in
most living men, direct to the anterior superior iliac
spine.

The characteristic feature of the second type is
that the inguinal line pursues a different course from
that of the iliac line, bending outwards, and being
traceable at some distance below the anterior superior
iliac spine as a transverse line separating the trunk
from the thighs. It becomes a line of the flexure
of the thighs ; and though it may disappear or be
very slightly marked when the leg is kept quite

136

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

straight, it may become conspicuous, if the thigh is
flexed a very little, as, for instance, in walking, as
is seen in the female figure of a group in marble
belonging to the Marchese Nicolini, in the vestibule
on the first floor of the Bargello at Florence.

Fig. 22 illustrates the first type, Fig. 23 the
second. These two types are, however, connected

FIG. 23.

by an intermediate form, in which the two lines are
equally conspicuous. According as the one or the
other is more pronounced, the figure approximates
to the first or second type.

When both lines are present and completely
separate, they generally take the following course :
the iliac line proper starts from the anterior end
of the iliac crest, which either projects, as is the

THE PELVIS. 137

case in lean persons, or is concealed by the tissues
lying over it. The line does not commence as a
fold, but as a slight depression ; follows in the main
the direction of the femoral arch (Arcus inguinalis,
also called Fallopius', or, less correctly, Poupart's
ligament, a tendinous line running on either side
from the anterior superior iliac spine to the anterior
ends of the pubic bones, where they meet in the
pubic prominence) ; bends with a curve inwards,
and unites with that of the opposite side at the
boundary of the abdomen and the pubic promi-
nence.

Occasionally we also see a depression running from
the starting-point of our line in a horizontal direction
outwards, and forming an obtuse angle with it. It
thus corresponds with the angular bend, \vhich, how-
ever, comes nearer to a right angle, in the iliac line
of the antique male figure. Instances of its occur-
rence were given above in Figs. 20 and 21.

The second line is that which has just been de-
scribed. It arises at the inner side of the thigh,
ascends in a diagonal direction between the thigh and
the pubic prominence, and then bends outward in a
transverse direction, thus dividing the thigh from the
whole of the trunk rather than from the abdomen
only. The distinct development of this part of the
line, and its controlling influence on the distribution
of the proportions of the whole figure, characterize the
less frequent type, one, however, which largely con-
tributes to the beauty of many works of antiquity

138 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

and the renaissance. The main characteristic of the
ordinary type consists in the external portion of
the second line being marked either very faintly or
not at all, and in the line which ascends between
the pubes and the thigh passing over more or less
distinctly into the depression which descends from the
anterior superior iliac spine, or at any rate running
more or less closely to it instead of tending to diverge
from it.

The form which these lines take is, in a great
degree, dependent on the attitude of the body ; so
much so that in one and the same figure one side
may apparently* approximate to the extreme form
of one type, and the other side to the other type,
as may be seen from the accompanying woodcut
(Fig. 24). It is reproduced from the photograph of a
girl carrying a vessel on her head, and supporting it
with the right hand. But the attitude is not the sole
element. Two persons standing in exactly the same
attitude will exhibit differences, which are the result
of variations in the distribution of the fatty tissue,
and also in the form of the pelvis. The course taken
by these lines is further closely connected with the
obliquity of the pelvis, and with the direction of the
neck of the femur, since it is evident that if the latter

* "Apparently," because a careful examination of the figure
will show that on the left side the line of the flexure of the thigh
does not ascend to the anterior superior iliac spine, but to a
point situated at nearly three fingers' breadth distance below and
outside it.

THE PELVIS.

139

is directed much upwards, the trochanter will come
to lie more below the line about which the thigh-bones
rotate when flexed on the trunk, than if the neck of
the femur lies in a horizontal position. This line
passes, in fact, through the centre of the head of the
femur.

In several very beautiful figures bequeathed to us

by antiquity and the renaissance, the lines of the
flexure of the thighs meet at a very obtuse angle ;
and, owing to the iliac line proper being invisible,
form the principal lines of distribution of the figure,
in which the thighs are then marked off from the
whole trunk rather than merely from the abdomen.

The ancients have also left us a series of statues
in which the thighs are only divided off from the
pubic prominence, or but very little further, by a

I4O THE HUMAN FIGURE.

definite and easily-traced line, while the remainder
of the border region between the trunk and the
thighs presents a soft fleshy surface. The renaissance
also produced similar figures, though usually more
distinct demarcations were preferred. In ancient
times people sat less often, while they lay down and
stood upright more than in later times.

It depends on circumstances whether a distinct
demarcation or an even surface of transition should
be preferred. The first may be preferable particularly
in monumental and ornamental figures calculated to
be viewed from a distance, while the latter may
rather be selected where the distance is less, and a
form of beauty is aimed at which the spectator shall
realize for himself in flesh and blood.

It should be added that it is possible for three
furrows to be seen on the hips, one above the other,,
shallow indeed and indistinct, so as to be visible only
in a favourable light. They are to be found, for
instance, above the free leg of the Capitoline Venus.
The lowest one forms the border-line between the
thigh and the mons veneris, and marks off the thigh,,
which is slightly advanced from the body, or rather
from the hip. The second lies on a level with the
depression between abdomen and mons ; and the
third and last runs from the site of the anterior
superior iliac spine outwards, and corresponds
anatomically to the horizontal branch of the typical
iliac line of antique male statues.

Now let us consider a little more in detail the

THE PELVIS.

141

inclination of the pelvis, and its influence on the
general appearance of the figure. The woodcut
below (Fig. 25) represents a human pelvis as seen in
profile, on which three lines are drawn, meeting in
the axis of rotation of the acetabulum ; one is a line
of dashes, the second a continuous line, and the third
dotted. Let us first take the continuous line, and

FIG. 25.

afterwards the dotted line, as being vertical ; then it
is evident that the inclination of the pelvis is greater
in the latter case, and it is further evident that all
points on the pelvis situated below the point of
rotation are then shifted backwards, the lowest points
being shifted the furthest backwards. If we next
take the line of dashes as the vertical line, the
inclination is less, and all points on the pelvis below

142 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

the point of rotation are shifted forwards, the lowest
being shifted furthest. Thus, when the inclination is
marked, these points all lie further backwards ; and
more forwards when it is slight.

Now all the muscles lying on the inside of the femur,,
except the sartorius, take their origin, so far as they
have a pelvic origin, in a line beginning at the upper
end of the symphysis pubis and ending at the tuber-
osity of the ischium. All these muscular attachments,
therefore, lie further back when the pelvic inclination
is considerable, and further forward when it is slight.
It follows that, other things being equal, when the
inclination is great, the inner surface of the thigh will
be flattened in a diagonal direction from the front
and outwards to the back and inwards. Where the in-
clination is slight, the same surface in its upper portion
will, under like circumstances, be more rounded.

Likewise it is clear that the pubic prominence, the
position of which is determined by that of the pubic
symphysis, will be lower when the pelvic inclination
is great than when it is slight. Now' since the iliac
line, which descends from the anterior end of the
iliac crest, runs down between the pubic prominence
and the thigh, the thighs, if their surfaces are flattened
away inwards from the front, leave a wedge-shaped
space enclosing the pubic prominence, which is
drawn down between them.

The effect is different when the inclination of the
pelvis is inconsiderable, especially if the inside of the
femur is furnished with a good cushion of fat. Such

THE PELVIS. 143

thighs, when the pelvis is not over-broad, and when
the neck of the femur does not lie too much in a
horizontal position, close up completely almost at the
surface, without leaving a deep interval, as in the case
of strong inclination.

I regard the second type as preferable, since the
figures which exhibit it are, in general, better adapted
for reproduction than those of the former type.
They have better shaped thighs, and a more com-
pletely closed junction of the thighs ; they do not
thrust the abdomen forwards in standing and walk-
ing, and present a better contour of the entire figure,
not only in front, but from the side also. The thighs,
however, if a side view is desired, must be powerful,
as their antero-posterior diameter is smaller than it
would be if the pelvic inclination were considerable,
because the ischial bones lie more to the front. If
we seek for examples of pelvic inclination in art, the
Eve, in the Loggie of the Vatican, who is picking the
forbidden fruit for Adam, presents a degree of in-
clination that ought not to be exceeded. An equally
marked inclination may be ascribed to the Eve in
subsequent Expulsion from Paradise, but cannot be
so accurately determined on account of the forward
movement of the figure.

An example of the smallest allowable degree of
inclination is furnished by the Three Graces in
the Opera del Duomo at Siena (formerly in the
sacristy of the Cathedral), especially in that one who
is turning her back to us in Lombardi's photograph

144 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

and also in the one standing to the right hand of
the latter.

The ancients were, in general, not fond of a strong
inclination of the pelvis, either in the male or the
female, for they have seldom given it a place in ideal
art. With regard to the angle at which the lines
separating the thighs from the pubes meet, great
variety prevails among them. In the Three Graces
above mentioned it is very obtuse, far exceeding a
right angle. In the Venus, No. 134 in the Uffizi,
who is girding on the sword of Mars, and has a vase
covered with a cloth at her side, it is considerably
larger than in the Venus de Medicis. It is less than
a right angle in the Esquiline Venus in the Museum
of the Capitol. The latter is the realistic figure of a
well-formed vigprous girl, still young and of faultless
proportions, though the head is rather large in com-
parison with other antique sculptures, which leads
one to infer that the original was not above middle
height.

When the ilio-femoral ligament is long,— and, the
shape of the pelvis being constant, a long ligament
causes the pelvic inclination to be slight,* — it has a

* I am speaking here of the anatomical or true inclination of the
pelvis, as measured by the angle which the axis of the pelvis
makes with the plane of the thigh-bones when the ilio-femoral
ligaments are stretched. It should be distinguished, not only
from the occasional, but also from the habitual pelvic inclination.
Many persons only extend their thigh-bones so as to stretch
the ilio-femoral ligament quite exceptionally, and are in the
habit of standing with the pelvis more inclined than it is in

THE PELVIS. 145

favourable effect on the gait. If the ligament is
short, the natural inclination of the pelvis, as we have
seen, is strong. If then the stride in walking has to
be made at all considerable, the position of the hinder
leg creates momentarily a still stronger obliquity.
The centre of gravity of the trunk must not be
shifted forwards beyond a definite point, dependent
on the rapidity of the movement, as otherwise the
body would overbalance in a forward direction. The
increased inclination cannot, therefore, be attained
merely by bending the entire trunk forwards ; the
spinal column in the lumbar region must also be
more strongly curved, and this is rendered difficult
since the said curve is usually in itself — that is, in
standing at ease—considerable in cases of strong
pelvic inclination. These conditions are the cause of
excessive inclination being so often associated with a
gait that, while in no way conducing to speed, is in
persons of a quick temperament often hasty and
ungraceful. I remark that the association often occurs,
as the gait cannot be judged without taking the

the strict anatomical sense. Again, in the regulation attitude
of the body required of the German soldier, the ilio-femoral
ligament is not stretched, as has already been observed
by Hans Virchow. We must always bear in mind that there
are two positions in which the trunk may be poised on the
thighs with a minimum of muscular effort : one is that in which
the ilio-femoral ligament is stretched ; the other, that in which
the centre of gravity of the trunk is directly supported, so that
its tendency to fall is both equal and at a minimum on every
side. In the former case the tendency to fall is greatest in a
backward direction, but is restrained by the stretched ligament.

IO

146 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

flexibility of the lumbar region of the spinal cord
into consideration, and also the length of the
legs, which regulates, according to the laws of the
pendulum, the pace of the gait in which forward
movement is made with the least exertion.

The women of the Romagna, especially those
belonging to certain districts in the Sabine moun-
tains, owe the regal bearing which distinguishes
them so remarkably not only to their habit of
carrying light loads on their heads, often without
any support from their hands, but materially also to
the favourable build and proportions of their bodies.
This is shown by the superiority of their gait over
that of women of other races who have the same
habits. I do not dispute the beneficial effect of their
habit, for I have remarked that, where it prevails,
the gait and bearing are better than where burdens,
according as they are light or heavy, are borne
on the arm or back respectively.*

Broad hips are regarded by the general public as

* G. B. Dnchenne, of Boulogne, in his " Physiologic des Mouve-
ments" (Paris, 1867), p. 733 (German edition by C. Wernicke,
Cassel and Berlin, 1885, p. 580) makes the following statement:
" I believe that an inclination of the pelvis of 63 to 64 degrees,
and a corresponding curvature of the lumbo-sacral region of the
spinal column, are the most usual.

" I do not mean to assert that this degree of curvature should
be enjoined on Art as something absolute, as a rule governing
the most beautiful forms, since it has been proved that the
physiological saddle-formation " (which only occurs in cases of
strong pelvic inclination, as the saddle is, as a matter of fact,
formed by the dorsal side of the strongly-inclined pelvis) "is

THE PELVIS. 147

ugly in men and as becoming in women. The latter
judgment, however, is not the outcome of a study of
the nude, but is the result of a fashion in dress,
which at various times has led to pinching in the
waist, and so causing the width of the hips below it
to become as prominent as possible.

Nevertheless, this habit has induced many artists,
both in the present and in past time, to endow their
figures with abnormally broad hips. Bodies, however,
resembling a violin in general outline, such as we
occasionally see, especially towards the close of the
middle ages and in the early renaissance in Germany,
are in truth very ugly. The width of the hips in a
woman must always bear a certain relative proportion
to three other dimensions, viz., to the: height of the
whole figure, to the breadth of the shoulders, and
to the smallest transverse diameter of the trunk,
which is to be found between the iliac crests and
the ribs.

If we imagine the Venus de Medicis standing up-
one of the distinguishing characters of many races, being a
hereditary peculiarity in certain families and in certain places,
and one with which the artist has to reckon, since it is rightly
regarded as a feature contributing in an especial degree to the
beauty of the lines of the body, more particularly in women.
Besides, ancient art would enter a protest against such a rule
being laid down as absolute, for we meet with very beautiful
types of saddle-formation in some statues — indeed, they were
much sought after by the Greeks. It is from this characteristic
feature of beauty that the Venus Callipygos derives her name."

As far as this last statement is concerned, it is difficult to form
any judgment of the pelvic obliquity and degree of curvature of

148 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

right, as Schadow has drawn her in his " Polycletus,"
then, taking 100 as the height of the whole figure, the
three above-mentioned dimensions will, according
to the drawing in that work, have the following
values : the breadth of the shoulders will be equal
to 25, the least transverse diameter of the trunk to
15-4, the breadth of the hips to 20-5.

the spinal column which the Venus would possess in an erect
attitude. The difficulty arises from the unusual position in which
the figure is placed. Moreover, I do not think that the supreme
artistic finish of the work, which is said to have made Canova
decline the task of restoring the statue, justifies us in regarding
it as a representative work of genuine classical Greek art.

I do not willingly enter the lists against one like Duchenne,
who has done so much to promote the good of mankind and of
science; but I ought to call the reader's attention to two
points : —

1. When Duchenne speaks of the inclination of the pelvis, he
refers to the ordinary inclination — that which is present when the
individual is standing upright ; but I refer to the anatomical
inclination, which depends on the amount of play allowed by the
ilio-femoral ligament, and therefore on the length of the latter,
by which the inclination is eventually determined. It is the
minimum of inclination, which is attained when the individual,
standing with the legs straight and close together and the feet
touching one another, holds the lower part of the trunk as far
forward as he can while keeping the knees rigid. The inclination
is not measured by the angle formed by the axis of the pelvis
or by its conjugate diameter with the horizon, but by the angle
made with these lines by the thighs when extended on the
median plane of the body. (Cf. Hermann Meyer, of Zurich,
" Die Beckenneigung," in Reichert and Du Bois-Reymond's
" Archiv fur Anatomie u. Physiologic, 1861, p. 137.)

2. Duchenne brings the curvature of the spinal column into
direct and necessary connection with the pelvic inclination, whereas

THE PELVIS. 149

I have given these measurements from the drawing.
It is possible, however, that a fresh examination of
the original statue might yield a somewhat greater
relative breadth of the hips. Still, the important fact
for us is that the drawing produces a perfectly satis-
factory effect, not by any means that of a figure too
narrow at the hips.

the connection, though it undoubtedly exists, has a relative
character only. The spinal column may be curved when the
pelvis is very slightly inclined, if the head is inclined forwards,
and still more so if it happens at the same time that large heavy
female breasts have to be counterbalanced. To effect this the
shoulders must be held far enough back to restore equilibrium.
On the other hand, a pelvis only slightly inclined anatomically in
the sense above defined by me may, with a sufficient degree
of flexibility in the spinal column, be placed at will in a position
of increased inclination, so as to give an appearance of greater
curvature to the lumbar region of the spinal column in the upright
position.

Duchenne praises highly the flexibility of the spinal column
and the curvature of the lumbar region in its connection with
the sacrum,— the saddle-formation, as he calls it, exhibited by the
Spanish women, and especially by the natives of Andalusia.
He says (loc. cit., p. 728; German edition, p. 575): "I have
seen Spanish ladies in whom the lumbar curvature and its
flexibility were so remarkable that they could bend the body
backwards until they touched the ground with their heads."

This power depends mainly on the flexibility of the spinal
column and on the activity of the extensor muscles, and also on
the form of the thoracic portion of the spinal column. It is
favoured by a thoracic spinal column which is but slightly convex
behind and concave in front. The feat in question appears,
from representations that have come down to us, to have been
performed by female acrobats in ancient times. It is more easily
executed when the pelvic inclination is slight than when it is

ISO THE HUMAN FIGURE.

I will further add that in well-built women the
greatest breadth of the hips is never above the
trochanters, but either on a level with them, or,
even better, below them. I say " better below the
trochanters," because, if in a figure resting on both
feet the outline of the thighs does not bulge at all
below the trochanters, but, on the contrary, the
transverse diameter at once diminishes as soon as the
weight of the figure is thrown on one leg only, an
ugly flattening is observable on the outside of the

pronounced, since the greater the amount of play allowed by
the ilio-femoral ligament for a backward flexion of the body on
the thighs, the less does the spinal column require to be curved
in the lumbar region.

Flexibility of the spinal column is assuredly, under any
circumstances, an advantage to the figure, but it is independent
of the length of the ilio-femoral ligament, depending rather on
the constitution of the vertebrae, of the intervertebral discs, and
of the ligaments ; also on the character of the thorax, the degree
of rigidity of its component parts, and the resistance they offer to
the movements of the spinal column. If a child six months old
be laid on its stomach with its head raised and supported on
its arms, the thoracic portion of its spinal column will become
concave to a degree quite impossible in an adult.

Any one who studies the antique without prejudice will agree
with me that the Greek sculptors did not favour marked pelvic
inclination, either in the male or the female, though a few instances
are to be found. Of the latter there are not so many as occur
among the figures of the full renaissance period. On the other
hand, if we examine the countless beautiful figures represented
in profile on reliefs and vases with the breast and shoulders
sloping backwards, and the head and pelvis inclined forwards,
the lines we here meet with are wholly incompatible with a strong
anatomical inclination of the pelvis.

THE PELVIS. 151

thigh, while the trochanter of the same leg forms an
angular projection. This is a defect to which I shall
refer more in detail further on.

The figure of a woman with broad hips is shown
to considerable disadvantage when represented in a
recumbent position, resting on one trochanter. The
other one then becomes very prominent, and the
outline falls sharply down towards the waist, forming
a disagreeable line, especially if the upper part of
the body is supported on the elbow, and the spinal
column is curved laterally in consequence in the
lumbar region. Unfortunately modern art offers
numerous examples of these unpleasing figures.

Some artists have thought it necessary to furnish
their figures of Eve with unusually broad hips, wish-
ing thereby to indicate the characteristic of maternity
in the mother of the human race. A moderate
breadth of the hips is, however, in the eyes of the
medical man, adequate to any degree of fruitfulness.
The dimension of the pelvis, which most frequently
by its restricted size offers serious obstacles in child-
birth, is not the transverse diameter, the extent of
which is determined by the distance of the two
acetabula from one another, but the diameter
measured from the upper end of the sacrum to the
pubic symphysis. Moreover, the breadth of the hips
is not exclusively dependent on the distance between
the acetabula, but also on the length of the neck of
the femur, and the degree in which its direction
deviates from the horizontal.

152 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

Models who have an excessive breadth of the hips
have a complete closure at the junction of the thighs
with the pubes only when the thighs are thick and
well-rounded ; if they are somewhat thin, and, at the
same time, the inclination of the pelvis is at all pro-
nounced, the closure above indicated is very imperfect,
and this constitutes one of the most disagreeable
defects to which a female model is liable.

VII.

THE LEGS AND FEET.

AS in the hip-joint, so also in the knee-joint, there
is a ligament which prevents over-extension,
and enables us, without any special muscular effort,
to maintain the thigh in an upright position on the
leg. This is the anterior crucial ligament of the knee-
joint (Ligamentum cruciatum anterius].

On the upper articular surface of the tibia may
be seen in the centre an eminence (Eminentia inter-
condyloidea tibicz], and in front of it a fossa. From
. the latter arises a strong ligament, which, as it crosses
another which arises behind the eminence, is called
the anterior crucial ligament. The fibres of this
ligament run obliquely upwards, outwards, and back-
wards, and are attached to the inner surface of the
external condyle of the femur. When the leg is
extended in a line with the thigh, this ligament is
stretched tight, and prevents any further extension.
The longer the ligament is, and the more play it
allows to the bones, the smaller is the angle which
the thigh makes with the leg in standing at ease ;
and the less freedom of movement the ligament
allows, the more nearly does the angle become equal

154 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

to two right angles, or 180°. When we consider the
shape of the leg, we must start from the position in
which the individual stands erect and has his toes
turned straight to the front, both feet being supported
along their entire length, and the anterior crucial
ligament being stretched tight.

It is the same position as that in which the ilio-
femoral ligament is stretched, and which formed our
starting-point in determining the inclination of the
pelvis, because a man, if he bends the knee while
standing upright, may render its inclination to the
horizon less than is natural to it.

The anterior crucial ligament of the knee-joint is.
never too short in models, though frequently too
long. It can never be too short, because, in all
normally-developed human beings, it is stretched,
at an early age, sufficiently to allow of the leg being
completely extended. Whether it is too long may be
determined in the following manner. The model is
placed in the attitude above described, and examined
in profile view ; a point is then found in the centre
of the broadest part of the thigh, below the level
where the posterior outline of the thigh passes into
that of the buttock. From this central point a
straight line is imagined drawn down to the outer
ankle-bone (Mcdleolus externus}. This line may be
rendered visible by stretching a black thread on the
leg between the two points mentioned. The thread
then divides the thigh into an anterior and a
posterior half, and ought to pass through the middle

THE LEGS AND FEET.

155

of the knee. If it lies more in front towards the
patella, the anterior crucial ligament is too long in
proportion, and the knee is consequently arched in
a backward direction.

It may be added, however, that a slight deviation

of this kind from the straight line is not, under all
circumstances, objectionable, especially in powerfully-
formed male legs.

In some individuals and in certain attitudes legs
with the knees curved rather more backwards than
would be allowable under the above rule, may give
satisfactory lines. In order to demonstrate the course

156

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of the test-line above described, I have laid it down in
the annexed woodcuts. Fig. 26 represents the leg
of a man, Fig. 27 that of a woman ; both from
photographs of the living model. An objection may
IDC raised that the two figures are not absolutely in
profile, but, as a matter of fact, the leg is so. The

FIG. 27.

slightly-posterior aspect presented in each case is due
to a rotation of the hip-joint.

In addition to an excessive length of the anterior
crucial ligament, we meet with another defect in the
leg which also becomes visible in profile view. It is
apt to convey an impression that the thigh does not
rest properly on the leg, the thigh being shifted too

THE LEGS AND FEET. 157

far forward, and the leg standing too far back. The
defect is associated with slight inclination of the pelvis
and a strongly-developed muscular system, and thigh-
bones that have their convex surfaces turned towards
the front. The effect of the latter is obvious.; while
the muscles assist through the strong bulging caused
by the extensor of the knee-joint on the one hand and
the muscles of the calf on the other. The slightness
of the pelvic inclination affects the result in so far as it
causes the posterior outline of the thigh to become
less prominent, as compared with that of the calf,
than where the inclination is pronounced. Such legs
do not produce a good effect ; though in men of a
compact and vigorous build they may be character-
istic. Next let us examine the leg in its anterior
aspect.

It is generally accepted that when a man stands
erect with legs and feet close together, the two legs
should be in contact at four points: viz., (i).'at the
upper part of the thigh ; (2) between the knees, or,
more accurately, between the inner condyles of the
two thigh-bones ; (3) at the point where the two calves
bulge furthest inwards ; (4) at the inner ankle-bones.

Schadow, in his " Polycletus," has drawn in this
way all the figures in that attitude. And the rule
may be regarded as correct, especially in the female,
with this addition, that where the lower limbs are
powerful and somewhat inclined to fatness, the thighs
may be in contact along the whole or nearly the
whole of their length without its being regarded as

158 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

a defect. Indeed, it is not unlikely that this would
be the case with the Venus de Medicis if she came
to life. It is true that Schadow, who from careful
measurements has drawn her in an erect position, has
not so represented her ; but the lower part of the
thigh in his drawing looks to me more slender than
in the original. It is certainly to be considered a
defect if, when the ankles are touching, the knees
cannot be completely extended without a pressure or
friction arising between the condyles of the thigh-
bones. The corresponding points of the two legs
should meet without pressure, and the one condyle
should not knock against the other. When this
takes place, it is because the knee is too much curved
inwards, and we have already, though only in a
commencing stage, to deal with the knock-kneed
condition. The very frequent occurrence of this
defect in female models should put the artist on his
guard, nor should he suffer himself to be misled by
the fact that some celebrated female figures have the
knee curved inwards. For example, it occurs in
the Venus de Medicis, but is there due merely to the
position of the free leg, which is somewhat bent at
the knee ; if the supporting leg is examined, it will
be found to be straight. Legs defective in this
respect occur, not only in women, but also in figures
of angels, doubtless in consequence of female models
being used so often by artists for their angels.

The opposite deviation from the norm, if at all
considerable, is very ugly in female figures, and is

THE LEGS AND FEET. 159

the more conspicuous because it rarely occurs in
nature. A very small amount of deviation in this
direction, leaving, however, the whole leg perfectly
straight, may be scarcely noticed. The Three Graces
in the Opera del Duomo at Siena are certainly some
of the noblest among the youthful female figures
bequeathed to us by the ancients ; and yet, if that
•one who in Lombardi's photograph turns her back to
us, and who is headless and almost armless, is care-
fully examined, it may be doubted whether the knees
would touch if the feet were brought close together.

In the male model juxtaposition of the knees is
less of a desideratum than in the female. It is true
there ought to be no large space between them, as in
.a bow-legged individual ; on the other hand, it is not
necessary that there should be actual contact. And
the same holds good with respect to contact between
the calves. We may as well draw attention to a
couple of test-lines which help us to judge, not only
of any leg in the living subject, but likewise of any
leg of a statue which supports the body in an erect
position with the toes turned to the front. They are
two straight lines, which meet at the highest point of
the instep. One starts from the median line of the
body at the level of the pubes, the other from the
point of the external contour of the thigh, where the
•great trochanter lies close under the skin. Now
when the legs are close together, the knees may lie
so far apart as to allow of the patella falling exactly
between these two lines, but no further.

160 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

In the art of the renaissance, even of the early-
renaissance, we meet with some instances of a still
more curved type of leg ; but I do not think they
ought to be regarded as worthy of imitation. The
German renaissance occasionally furnishes examples
of figures that come near to being bow-legged. Quite
recently they have been reproduced in ornamental
figures on objects made in the style of the German
renaissance, in order to be " true to the style."

Legs so made " true to the style " generally err in
two respects : firstly, the knee is bent too far back-
wards, as if the anterior crucial ligament were too
long ; and, in the .second place, the knee is curved
outwards more than it should be.

Sometimes, however, the latter error is avoided,
and yet the leg looks wrong in a front view, which is
due to its being modelled as if the upper part of the
tibia were concave on the inside to a degree which, as
a matter of fact, does occur in nature, though it is
neither beautiful nor normal.

But this type of leg does not produce so disagree-
able an effect in male figures as that in which both
knees are curved inwards and backwards. These are
the worst of all, and any model owning them should
be discarded. It was perhaps scarcely needful to
call attention to their ugliness. Notwithstanding, the
decorative art of the last century includes figures of
Hercules which exhibit them in a way that almost
deserves to be called shameless.

The knock-kneed condition of the legs, so prevalent

THE LEGS AND FEET. l6l

in women, also occasions a disfigurement of the knees
when bent. This defect is due to an inequality in
the height of the two condyles of the femur.

If the femur in a skeleton be placed on the top of
the tibia, so that the surfaces of the joints are in con-
tact, the two bones will not lie in a straight line, but
make an obtuse angle externally, which becomes
more acute in proportion as the individual was
knock-kneed during life. When such a knock-kneed
leg is flexed, the internal condyle of the femur pro-
jects more prominently than in a normal leg, and the
furrow between the two condyles which determines
the position of the patella is directed more outwards
and less to the front than in legs that are straight.
The consequence is, that in the bent knee the patella
faces more outwards, and thus causes a disfigurement,
which increases proportionately if the patella is large
and prominent, while, as mentioned above, a second
ugly prominence appears on the inner side, occasioned
by the internal condyle of the femur.

Many models acquire a peculiarly ungraceful ap-
pearance when, as usual in standing figures, they
are placed in such an attitude that the body is
supported mainly on one leg, leaving the other free,
the latter affording but little support, so that almost
the entire weight of the body is poised on the one leg
only. This causes the external contour of the latter
to lose its curve, and form a nearly straight line from
the outside of the knee-joint up to the great trochanter,
which then makes an ugly angular prominence.

II

162

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

The woodcut (Fig. 28), copied from a photograph
from life, gives an illustration of this disagreeable
line, though by no means in its most offensive form.

When we inquire into the cause of this deformity
and examine the bones, we cannot avoid remarking
that it is favoured by a long and horizontally-directed

neck of the femur, which, if the pelvis is sufficiently
broad between the hip-joints, makes the great
trochanter jut out strongly on either side. If, more-
over, the ilium has a vertical position, its upper border
on the side of the supporting leg will incline inwards,
because the pelvis is slanting, by reason of the sup-
porting leg standing higher than the free leg. The

THE LEGS AND FEET. 163

consequence is, that the outline of the hip above the
trochanter makes a pronounced bend inwards, and
so causes the latter to become still more prominent.

The shape of the shaft of the femur may also be
not without some influence. There are femora of
which the middle portion, when viewed from the
front, reveals a slight inward deflection, which is
almost wholly absent in others.

This type of femur must yield a rather less curved
outline of the thigh, since just at the point where it
should be rounded by the vastus externus muscle, the
bony foundation of the muscle retreats inwards.

In the next place, we have to consider the co-opera-
tion of the muscles. If the body is supported little
or not at all on the side of the free leg, the task of
maintaining the trunk upright falls, in the first place,
on the glutens medius and minimus muscles, as they
•extend from the outer surface of the ilium down to
the great trochanter. They receive valuable assist-
ance, however, from the tensor fascia latce, or tensor
vagina? femoris, as it is also called. Through the
contraction of the latter, the fascia lata is drawn up
•over the thigh, like close-fitting breeches held up by
braces that are fastened too high, and so the outline
•of the thigh is rendered tense and straight.

Lastly, the shape of the thigh may be affected
by an unfavourable distribution, or by the absence
of fat.

The ugliness of this form of thigh, however, has
.not always availed to prevent its being imitated. At

164 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

the annual exhibition of the Kiinstlerhaus at Vienna,
in 1884, a group in plaster over life-size was shown,
in which a female figure, although intended to pro-
duce an impression of beauty, was very obviously
marred by this defect.

Absolute realism would justify its reproduction,
since it very frequently occurs in nature ; and even
in finely formed men contraction of the tensor fascia
latce renders the external outline of the thigh flat
and straight.

The woodcut (Fig. 28) is faithfully copied from the
photograph of an excellent academy model. But the
line is sometimes so bad in its effect that it should
be avoided at any cost. It is seen under its best
aspect in individuals who have the centre of the
femur deflected outwards rather than inwards, and
in whom the trochanter does not project, provided
that the muscles are well developed, and the fat so
distributed on the thigh as to increase the curve of
the external outline.

If this defect is present in a model, and the artist
is disinclined to alter it, he should seek, if the action
allow of it, to give the weight of the body more
support on the side of the free leg, and so attain a
more favourable configuration. In practice artists do
not hesitate, as a rule, in such cases to make such
corrections as their feeling suggests.

A very common defect in models, both male and
female, is thickness of the knees. It is very ugly,
and though often found in individuals otherwise

THE LEGS AND FEET. 165

admirably formed, the artist should not be led away
into reproducing it. The Greek and Roman sculptors
were careful to avoid it. Even the Farnese Hercules,
certainly the heaviest figure that the ancients have
bequeathed to us, has by no means thick knees.

The primary cause of thick knees is a clumsy type
of skeleton, usually associated with a general thickness
of the joints, — in this instance, of the condyles of the
femur. Slenderness of the latter, however, does not
always stand in a definite relation to that of the
whole skeleton. We meet with thick thigh-bones
furnished with condyles of moderate dimensions, and,
on the other hand, slender thigh-bones with thick con-
dyles. The girth of the knee may also be increased
by fatty deposits, which are injurious to its shape,
more particularly when they do not harmonize in
amount with the fat on other parts of the body,
and when they obliterate details of its structure.
Celebrated masters, in working from models of a not
over-lean type, have also reproduced this fat on the
knees, as, for instance, the Caracci in some figures in
the frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese, and Guido Reni
in his soaring figures of Fortune, in which the wrists
are likewise overlaid with superfluous fat, as also in
other female figures of the same master.

Finally, we must not leave unnoticed the fact that
constant kneeling on a hard surface ruins the knees,
either by growths in the skin and subjacent cellular
tissue, or by alterations in the parts belonging to the
joint itself.

1 66 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

The knee-cap should be small and distinctly re-
cognisable, not projecting, however, nor forming a
so-called pointed knee. No protrusion ought to be
visible beneath it, such as often results from much
kneeling ; on the contrary, the great extensor tendon
of the joint (Ligamentum patella) joining the knee-
cap to the tibia should be visible, but only when
the extensor muscles are contracted ; when they are
relaxed, the knee-cap sinks, and the extensor tendon,
being now also relaxed, is no longer perceptible
through the integument.

In the leg we are principally concerned \vith two
points — a pure tibial line, and a well-marked calf.

The tibia should, in general, present an even line,
not a straight one, for it is never straight ; but it
ought not to exhibit any abnormal degree of con-
cavity, nor should its line be broken by local
prominences on the bone.

What we have called the tibial line does not, in any
action or under any aspect, owe its shape exclusively
to the bone itself. It does so most nearly when an
individual lies on his back, and the calves of the legs
face downwards with the muscles relaxed, but even
so not entirely. In the lower portion of the leg, that
nearest the foot, lie two tendons, one belonging to
the anterior muscle of the tibia (M. tibialis anticus],
and the other to the long extensor of the great toe
(M. extensor hallucis longus) ; they lie nearer to the
skin than the tibia itself, and so carry on the outline
in the lower part of its course. In the erect position

THE LEGS AND FEET. l6/

the fleshy belly of the tibialis anticus muscle also
projects beyond the tibia in the leg supporting the
weight of the body, and so alters the aspect of the
skin in profile. This bulging, which is especially
marked in vigorously-developed male legs, cannot
be neglected, but it is none the less difficult to
handle successfully, since, if it projects too much,
the leg easily acquires a thick, club-shaped form,
owing to the muscles of the calf also bulging out
behind.

The prominence of the tibialis anticus muscle is
most pronounced in active dorsal flexion — that is,
when the foot and the points of the toes are directed
upwards and the heel downwards ; it disappears, on
the other hand, when the toes are extended down-
wards, and when the foot and the toes are brought
as nearly as possible into a straight line with the
leg.

In lean individuals a line becomes visible between
the muscle and the bone in the leg bearing the
weight of the body. If it is reproduced in a work
of art, care should be taken, at any rate, not to copy
its slight irregularities, which arise from unevenness
in the anterior edge of the tibia, and by no means
add to the beauty of the line. It is better, therefore,
to soften them down.

The calf of the male leg should be divided exter-
nally, more or less visibly, into three parts, between
the hollow of the knee and the heel ; the first consist-
ing of the fleshy parts of the gastrocnemius muscle, the

168

THE HUMAN FIGURE.

second of its broad tendon and the large subjacent
muscle of the calf (M. soleus\ and the third of the
common tendon of the two muscles, known as the
tendo Achillis, with its insertion into the bone of the
heel. This division becomes distinctly marked when
the muscles are in action, though it may disappear

FIG. 29.

completely when they are relaxed. Where the muscles
of the calf are not very strongly developed, the
division is also incomplete in the ordinary standing
attitude, as is seen in Fig. 29, from a photograph
from life. One of the legs in the figure illustrates
further the bulging of the tibialis anticus muscle.
In statues the division is generally more distinctly
seen in the free leg than in that supporting the

THE LEGS AND FEET. 169

body, because in the latter the muscles of the calf are
more or less stretched, when, as is usually the case,
that leg is resting on the whole surface of the sole
of the foot. If, however, a leg is supported on the
ball of the foot only, the heel being raised, and at
the same time the leg bears any considerable propor-
tion of the weight of the body, or is pressed against
the ground during movement, then the divisions
become conspicuous.

A similar division is also present in the female calf,
though it is less easy to follow in detail than in the
male, owing to the layer of fat, which may be re-
garded as normal in the female body, and in no way
detracting from its beauty. Thus a difference arises
in the profile outline of the leg in the two sexes. If
we imagine the leg of a male figure so placed that
the outline of the tendo Achillis forms a vertical line,
then at the point where the flat tendon of the
gastrocnemius commences it will run a little obliquely
backwards, and ascend in that direction, almost in a
straight line, to. where the tendon passes into the
muscles. Then follows the bulging caused by the
fleshy mass of the gastrocnemius, and constituting
the thickest portion of the calf. If we now figure
to ourselves the calf of a woman's leg in the same
position, the outline continuous with that of the tendo
Achillis will begin its oblique course backwards a
little earlier, and then pass without any break into
the thickest part of the calf; so that, in this instance,
the fleshy portion of the gastrocnemius is only seen

1 70 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

to project as such under violent contraction, as, for
example, in standing on tiptoe.

The greatest antero-posterior diameter of the calf
should be large in proportion to the transverse
diameter. Among calves of a proportionate girth it
is not easy to find examples in which the transverse
diameter is too small in proportion to the antero-
posterior diameter. Broad and flat calves are ugly,
and characteristic of the lower races. In ideal figures,
therefore, they should always be avoided.

The girth of the calf in its largest part should be,
at least, equal to the neck in the same figure, and
may even exceed it without harm. Indeed, the
latter is, in fact, the rule, as has been already stated
above, where the muscles of the leg are well de-
veloped, and, on the other hand, the neck is good
in form and free from defects.

In the feet the instep should face upwards, not
obliquely upwards and inwards, as is the case in
so-called flat feet, that is, feet in which part of the
inside of the sole rests on the ground. In ordinary
life a high instep is considered a beauty. The
ancients did not give any conspicuous expression to
this mark of beauty, and I do not think that any
artist of the present day is likely to find occasion
for taking a lower standard than that of the ancients
in this respect. It is another question whether he
should exceed that standard. The figure of Har-
mony, by the Spanish sculptor, Juste Gandarias,
which was exhibited at the Vienna Exhibition of

THE LEGS AND FEET. I/I

1882, afforded an instance of its being done. It
may well be supposed in this case to have been
due to the model, since the feet of Spanish men
and women are remarkable for their high instep.
It produced rather an impression of genre, but was
not altogether unpleasing. Far worse deviations
from the antique have been reproduced from the
living model.

A frequent defect of the foot, especially when the
instep is low, is an excessive length of the heel. The
foot is prolonged too far backwards, and the profile
of the heel, at the base of the tendo Achillis, becomes
unduly concave. This is a defect to be carefully
avoided, as it is very ugly, and gives a very common
aspect to the foot.

Feet of this kind, with a low instep and long heel,
lack, in addition, the hollow required in the sole of the
foot ; it may, however, be wanting where the instep
and heel are normal, if fat is deposited in excess in
the central portion of the sole.

With regard to the length of the toes, opinions are
at variance. Some authorities insist that the great
toe ought to project furthest, others that it should
not project quite so far as the second toe, while
others again maintain that the two should be of
equal length. It is well known that in antique
statues the second toe is usually the longer of the
two, while the first is longer in living men. Some
persons are of opinion that the latter condition is
a consequence of wearing boots and shoes, while

I?2 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

others hold that the longer second toe in the antique
is an artistic figment. Both are in the wrong.

I once took a mould of the foot of an old man
in whom the second toe was obviously longer than
the first. The foot rested on a plaster ground ; ;ind
having thus procured a deep impression of the foot,
including the very front of the tips of the toes, I ob-
tained a cast of it. The distance from the hindermost
point of the heel to the tip of the second toe was
244 mm. ; the distance from the same point to the
tip of the first toe was slightly over 242 mm. The
distances were very accurately measured with a
sliding measured scale. If a line be imagined as
drawn through the heel and the middle of the second
toe, and then a plane be raised at right angles to this
line from the tip of the second toe, it would lie at
a distance of over 2 mm. from the tip of the great
toe. The proportions of the toes in this foot do not
materially differ from those of antique statues, and
yet the man wore ordinary foot-gear from his earliest
youth.

Clearly we have not to deal with external influences
only, but also with personal and racial characteristics.
I recollect a photograph of a poor Fellah girl, in
whom the great toe was conspicuously longer than
the second, and yet she had certainly never worn
shoes of the European pattern, and probably never
any at all.

Next, there can be no question of an artistic fiction
on the part of the ancient sculptors. An Italian

THE LEGS AND FEET. 173

sculptor has informed me that, though in Italy it is
the exception for the second toe to exceed the first
in length, yet it is not infrequently to be met with.

The only doubt remaining is whether a foot of
this form was actually the prevailing type among the
ancient Greeks and Romans, or whether their sculp-
tors selected it in preference to the ordinary type.
However that may be, an artist is justified in repre-
senting the feet so, for it is not his duty to reproduce
the commonest type, but that which he regards as
the most beautiful among the forms actually observed
by him. A projecting great toe, from which the line
of the tips of the toes runs down obliquely to the
smallest, is decidedly ugly.

One of the defects ordinarily produced by wearing
boots is the twisting of the great toe towards the
median line of the foot, and the consequent knotted-
aspect of the joint uniting the great toe to the
metatarsus ; another is a crushing together of the
toes in general, and distortion of the last toe,
and sometimes also of the last but one. So, too,
the dryness and the relative leanness of the feet
in men, otherwise well nourished, must often be at-
tributed principally to the foot-gear. We enter the
domain of pathology when we find a foot which is
not set correctly and firmly on the lower leg, or when
the entire sole of the foot does not tread the ground
evenly, but chiefly the inner border of it ; the latter
condition, combined with a low instep and obliteration
of the hollow of the sole, may offer the type known

174 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

to the surgeon as the Pes valgus. It is the same as
that known as flat foot. Indeed, it may be affirmed
that for no part of the body is it so difficult to find
good models as for the foot. We have in our country
scarcely any men who walk barefoot from their youth
upwards in summer and winter alike ; and even were
there any such, their feet, owing to the constant
injuries received, would not replace the antique foot,
which was developed in perfect freedom on the sandal
and yet was protected by it. It is, therefore, ad-
visable for artists to study the foot principally from
the antique, and, when they turn to nature for assist-
ance, to avoid anything which differs markedly from
the antique type.

On the question as to what length of leg is the
most desirable in practice, artists are fairly well
agreed. They say of a male statue or of a male
model, " The centre comes in the right place," mean-
ing thereby that the external point of attachment
of the male organ lies exactly halfway up the entire
figure when standing upright. According as they
wish to represent a figure of more lengthy or more
squat proportions, they lengthen or shorten the legs.

Some of the Italian masters suffered themselves to
be misled by their models into shortening the legs,
with very ungraceful results. The most conspicuous
among them is Giulio Romano. The defect is often
observable in works of his later Mantuan period.* I

* Any one who has not the opportunity of convincing himself
on this point in Mantua should visit the Palazzo Michieli dalle

THE LEGS AND FEET. 175

have several times had occasion to insist on the
advantages of Italian over German models ; but here
mention must be made of the fact that the Italians,
like the French, are for the most part short-legged,
more so than the English, Germans, Poles, and
Southern Slavs. They have also shorter arms ; but
while the latter may be regarded as an ornament,
the shortness of their legs detracts much from their
figures. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that
short limbs are more favourably adapted to sculptural
treatment than long ones. The latter not seldom
look as if the muscles lying under the skin had had
to be stretched out in order to fit them to the long
limbs.

If models were placed before us with the proportions
•of the Apollo Belvedere or of the Apoxyomenos, we
should certainly regard them as marvels of beauty,
provided that they also exhibited the contours of the
.statues named. But such models are not to be found.
In dealing with living examples, we may be quite
sure that where the limbs are so long the contours
will have suffered.

Women have shorter legs on the average than men,
and notice is taken of the fact in works of art But
just as exceptions occur in nature, so art, too, has her
exceptions. Examples are not confined to the art

•Colonne on the Grand Canal in Venice. Some very beautiful
tapestries which hang there were worked from designs by Giulio
Romano. Studies for the latter are to be found in the Albertina
.at Vienna.

176 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

of the later renaissance and of the baroque style, but
occur also among antique works. A female figure,
therefore, with the average relative lengths of a man
or even somewhat greater, is neither unnatural nor
wanting in beauty. An instance of an ugly short-
legged female figure is to be seen in the frescoes of
the Palazzo Farnese at Rome. She is seated by
Hercules, who is depicted playing on a tambourine,
and she probably represents Omphale. On the other
hand, the Juno in the same mythological series main-
tains the proportions of a tall woman in accordance
with the stature ascribed to her.

When a figure is given relatively short legs, the
limbs must be of a powerful type. It will then, at
least, correspond to what exists normally — viz., the
compact and somewhat squat build of powerful
figures. Such figures may not only have an excellent
effect as caryatides in certain architectural combina-
tions, but may even be the only ones possible when,
by reason of the style of architecture, a long-legged
figure would be quite out of harmony with the whole.
Short-legged figures, however, supported on weak legs,
always have a very unhappy effect. There is a well-
known comic picture representing two frogs fencing
with the foils. If we imagine toads put in the place of
the frogs, the effect would be both ugly and senseless.
A figure resting on legs that are alike short and weak
reminds one of a toad standing upright.

A common defect of the legs, even when otherwise
well-formed and with thighs of a proper length,

THE LEGS AND FEET. I 77

consists in the lower leg being too short relatively to
the thigh, whereas the opposite scarcely ever occurs in
individuals of normal development. Some celebrated
antiques far exceed the ordinary dimensions in regard
to the relative length of the lower leg : for instance,
the Apollo in the Vatican, and the Venus de Medicis
in her present form. C. Langer (loc. cit., p. 61)
even describes the proportions obtaining in them as
unnatural.

On the other hand, a very disagreeable impression
is produced when the lower legs of a model, which
happen to be relatively too short, are imported into
a work of art, as has occasionally been done by some
Italian masters.

The artist will do well, in judging of a model, to
start from the principle that in the living subject the
lower leg may be too short relatively to the thigh,
but can never be too long, when the thigh is normally
developed and not shortened by any kind of distortion.

CONCLUDING REMARKS.

IF, on glancing back over the foregoing pages,
we ask on what the beauty of the human figure
depends, the answer is, in the first place, on the
skeleton. This must have beautiful proportions ;
the shape of the individual bones must be normal,
and the whole framework free from clumsiness.
Above all, the articular ends of the bones must not
be marred by thickness, and their angles and edges
must not be so conspicuously developed as to interfere
with the rhythm of the living form.

Next in importance come the muscles. It is un-
deniable that no male figure can be beautiful unless
it possess a well-developed muscular system ; but the
muscles cannot be dispensed with in a female figure
either. Only they should not be so conspicuous
under the skin as in the male ; and they should be
covered by a moderate layer of fat.

Fat alone, however, will give no sculptural forms
if the subjacent muscles are poorly developed. This
is observable in the arms of many women, in

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 179

which the muscles are ill developed, either from an
inherited disposition, or because the arms have
not been sufficiently exercised in youth. When in
such cases the arms are filled out by deposit of fat,
they never attain the aesthetic beauty of arms that
have also well-formed muscles. The difference is
even more striking if the whole body is taken into
account.

Consequently it can never be said that a body
has attained the highest point of its beauty, so
long as the muscles are not completely developed.
In a man this may be estimated by the force
which he can exert. But here we must confine
ourselves to tests of strength in which the force
of the muscles alone comes into play, and not the
weight of the body, since the latter may go on
increasing for a long time after the muscles are
fully developed.

If we pay attention to these principles, we may
take the period between the twenty-fourth and the
twenty-eighth years in a man as that in which the
development of the muscles is completed. It is a
matter of subordinate importance that, if the muscles
have not been exercised at an early period, their
capacity may by practice be increased even at a
later period than that above mentioned. It is less
easy to fix a similar period for women, as here our
experience is more limited, and only conjecturally
can we name the period from the twentieth to the
twenty-fourth year as that in which, when the con-

I SO THE HUMAN FIGURE.

ditions of health are unchanged, the mass of the
muscular tissue begins to be stationary.

Again, it is not practicable to extend the period of
highest bodily beauty to a later limit, because the
form of the breasts begins to deteriorate from the
twenty-fourth year onwards, though it frequently
commences much earlier.

In the third place, we have to consider the fat.
Not only the female body, but the male also,
requires a certain amount of fat. I once had an
opportunity of seeing a man of herculean build,
in whom, nevertheless, the subtegumentary fat was
almost wholly wanting. The man was decidedly
ugly to look at. Apart from the fact that the
proportions of his skeleton were not all that could
be desired, and that he was of too sturdy a type, a
very unpleasant effect was produced by the way in
which the thin skin, unsupported by any fat, was
drawn over the huge muscles, while the latter, by
their contraction, raised shapeless lumps and ridges,
and deep furrows were ploughed between them. A
slight covering of fat alone can tone down these
features, and give rise to the harmonious forms with
which we are familiar in the figures of gods, heroes,,
and athletes left to us by the ancients.

The outlines, however, which the fat stamps on the
form of the body change with the different periods
of life. The fatness natural to the infant disappears,
as a rule, during the years of rapid growth, so that on
the completion of puberty the body is usually poor

CONCLUDING REMARKS. l8l

in fat. When any considerable quantities of fat are
present, it is found, for the most part, on the trunk,
abdomen, and buttocks, and partly also on the breast
and thighs. In both sexes fat is wanting on the
arms, though in women especially a considerable
quantity is frequently stored up in them later on in
life. Whether fatness of the upper arm is merely a
consequence of advancing years, or also forms part
of the changes to which pregnancy and childbirth
give rise, I will not venture to say. Certain it is
that it is more often seen in married women than
in maiden ladies who are no longer young. When
the fat disappears with the prime of life, which, as
we all know, by no means invariably happens, it
disappears, as a rule, first from the face, from the
hands and arms, the buttocks and thighs, later from
the legs, and last of all from the trunk. Thin old
men often retain considerable masses of fat on the
abdomen.

The fourth and last element in the beauty of
the figure is the skin. ^The beauty of a delicate skin
is the theme of universal praise ; but the artist
rejoices not so much in a delicate as in an elastic
skin. The extent of the elastic fibres that are
buried in the connective tissue of the skin varies
with the race and with the individual, and on this
it depends whether the skin lies close and fits well,
or not. The skin must not be too large for the body,
as may happen when people once well nourished
fall away.

I 82 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

A very delicate skin, but one easily shifted and
therefore imperfectly knit to the substructures, may
occasionally render details visible in a very elegant
way ; but, as a rule, only a skin that is well knit to
the subjacent tissues, and further offers a sufficient
elastic resistance, shows off the configuration to
advantage. Such a skin has a better effect on the
joints, and especially on the form and maintenance
of the female breast. It is, indeed, quite intelligible
that a somewhat dense and resisting skin must retain
the breast in its position better than one that is too
thin and loose. It will also delay longer the appear-
ance of the fold under the breast, which ruins it from
an artistic point of view. We must, however, also
note that the nature of the tissues is a general
characteristic of the individual, and therefore we
are able, from the nature of the connective tissue
of the skin, to infer with some probability that of
the remaining connective tissue of the same in-
dividual. This, however, is the tissue connecting
the mammary gland with the subjacent muscles.
When, therefore, the skin is only loosely knit, the
mammary gland may also be only loosely attached
to the muscles.

It is well known that Turkish dancers, the so-called
Almeh, can move their breasts, while keeping the
body perfectly still, by contracting in an appropriate
manner the great pectoral muscle lying beneath
them. But it is also known in the East that not
every girl who devotes herself to that profession

CONCLUDING REMARKS. 183

can learn to perform the feat with the same degree
of perfection. Since we might suppose that any one
could learn the appropriate action of the muscles, it
is not unlikely that this difference in the degree of
success attained depends on the firmness with which
the mammary gland and the great pectoral muscle
are connected.

Throughout this book I have founded my argu-
ments on the principle that the most beautiful among
human forms are those that ought to be the subject
of artistic reproduction — those, namely, which, in all
positions and under every aspect, give the best
lines.

This idea also pervaded the art of the classical
period, and became part of the general consciousness,
more especially in the period which is usually known
as that of Praxiteles. Once again, however, in bringing
my remarks to a close, I must acknowledge that even
ideal art may make other demands and set itself other
tasks.

We know — and the fact has been referred to several
times in the text — that a figure, not in itself wholly
free from defects, may be placed in such an attitude
or position that a given defect disappears, either
wholly, or at least in a particular view. Apart
from this, a less beautiful model may produce a
better effect in some particular position and for
a special purpose than one to whom we should feel
compelled to award the palm if we were considering
only which was the more fitted to be reproduced

184 THE HUMAN FIGURE.

generally. So soon as a figure ceases to stand alone,
it becomes part of a composition, and then its lines
depend on the remaining lines of the composition,
and must be made to harmonise with them. This
is true of all representations of figures in art, what-
ever the scale of the work, whether in filling up a
pediment or in beating out an ornament in repousse
work.

INDEX.

Abdomen, the, in the male, 88 ; lines of, 89-91 ; in the female, [95 ;

transverse folds of, 102, 103.
Andrea del SartO, 45.
Antinous, the, in the Vatican, 80.
Apollo Belvedere, the, 126, 175, 177.

„ , the Choiseul-Gouffier, 129.

„ of Tenea, the, 15, 106.
Apoxyomenos, the, 175.
Ariadne, the Sleeping, in the Vatican, 20, 40.
Arm, the, over-extension of, 34 ; antique type of, 45 ; renaissance
type of, 45 ; in youth, 45, 46.

Back, the, elements of beauty of, 105.

Beauty, defined, 3, 4 ; of the human figure, on what dependent,

178 ; how far to be alone considered in art, 183.
Bellini, Giovanni, 96.

Botticelli, Sandro, his Venus, 29, 57, 74, 97, 100.
Breast, female, position of, 71 ; attachment of, 72 ; shape of, 73 ;

antique form of, 74-7, 79 ; in modern art, 79-84.
Bronzino, Angelo, 74.
Buonarroti. See MICHELANGELO.

Calf of the leg, form of, 167 ; size of, 170.

Canova, his Perseus, 67; Nymph, 75.

Caracci, the, 165.

Cellini, Benvenuto, his Perseus, 132.

Cheek-bones, antique form of, 12.

Chin, antique form of, 15.

Correggio, his type of arm, 54 ; his Danae, 72.

Corset, the, effect of, 84, 99, 104, no, in.

1 86 INDEX.

Danaid, the, in the Vatican, 102.

Dati, Vincenzo, 86.

Diana of Gabii, the, 40, 58

Discobolus, the, statue of, 130.

Domenichino, 61.

Duchenne, G. B., quoted, 146.

Ears, the, attachment of, 14.
Elbow, the, form of, 57-60.
Eyebrows, antique form of, 9.
Eyelids, antique form of, 12.
Eyes, obliquity of, 10, n.

Face, the, principles of its treatment by the Greeks, 9-15 ; occur-
rence of the antique type in modern times, 15.

Felici, Cav. Agostino, 48, 125.

Fingers, the, form of, 62.

Flat foot, 170, 174.

Fore-arm, the, oblique attachment of, 35-43; form of, 52-4;
lines on, 54.

Forehead, antique form of, 9.

Gandarias, Juste, 170.

Ganymede, statue of, in the Uffizi, 125.

Giovanni da Bologna, 107.

Giulio Romano, 16, 174.

Graces, the Three, statues at Siena, 97, 100, 101, 143, 144, 159,

Hand, the, form of, 62-4.

Harmodius, statue of, at Naples, 129.

Head, the, comparative size of, in antique and modern art, 16-18.

Hercules, the Farnese, 69, 165.

Hermes, statue of, from Olympia, 130.

Hips, the, breadth of, in women, 147.

Holbein, his Lais Corinthiaca, 23.

Iliac line, the, in the male, 115-17 ; in antique art, 120 ; anatomical
considerations as to, 121-4; cause of, 127; in modern art,
132 ; in the female, 133-9.

Ilio-femoral ligament, the, function of, 1 1 8.

Inguinal line, the, in the male, 116; in the female, 135.

Instep, the, form of, 170.

INDEX. 187

Knee-cap, the, size and position of, 166
Knees, the, thickness of, 164, 165.
Knock-kneed condition, the, 161.

Legs, the, defects of, 154, 156, 161, 176; points where they
should touch, 157 ; renaissance types of, 160 ; length of, 174 ;
in the female, 175.

Lippi, Fra Filippo, 62.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, his treatment of the human figure, 6,
70, 73 ; Dying Adonis by him at Florence, 13 ; Eve in the
Sistine Chapel, 48 ; David, 68 ; Night, 77, 78, 99, 104 ;
Dawn, 77 ; Leda, 77.

Mino da Fiesole, 86.

Morandini, Francesco, 74.

Moretto, II, of Brescia, 103.

Mouth, the, lines of, 13, 14.

Muscle tone, its effect on the form of the arm, 46.

Navel, the, form of, 94; position of, 95, 100, 101.

Neck, the, antique form of, 19 ; in modern art, 20 ; lines of,

leading to the shoulder, 21-6 ; defects of, 19, 20, 26 ; length

of, 28-30; lines on the female neck, 30; pose of, 112.
Nose, the, antique form of, 10; the aquiline nose in art, 15.
Orcagna, frescoes by, in S. Maria Novella, Florence, n, 24.
Palate, the, width of, how it affects the contours, 13.
Palma Giovane, 46.
Pelvis, the, obliquity of, 119, 120, 141; anatomical, defined,

144, 148; giving rise to so-called saddle-formation, 146;

in antique art, 150.
Pergamon, sculptures from, 68.
Perino del Vaga, 48.
Pointed elbow, 51, 57.
Polycletus, the Diadumenos, 117 ; the Farnese Diadumenos, 129 ;

the Doryphoros, 129.
Poussin, Nicholas, 120.
Pronation, 36.
Psyche, statue of, at Naples, 79.

Raffaelle, portraits of the Fornarina, 16 ; Peace, in the Vatican, 48 ;
Judgment of Solomon, in the Vatican, 108 ; Three Graces,
114; iliac line in drawings of, 132; Eve, in the Vatican. 143.

1 88 INDEX.

Rauch, figures of Victory by, 85.

Rembrandt, Christ before Pilate, 132.

Reni, Guido, 132, 165.

Ribera, 63.

Romagna, the, women of, 21, 146.

Rubens, his female type, 5 ; his female arms, 66.

Sacro-iliac triangle, the, 1 14.

Saddle-formation (ensellure) defined, 149.

Sansovino, his Mars, 132.

Shoulder-blades, the, position of, 107.

Shoulders, the, position of, under influence of fear, 30 ; defects

of, 84 ; form of, in renaissance art, 86.
Skin, the, beautiful qualities of, 181.
Spinal column, the, curve of, 105-107 ; flexibility of, on what

dependent, 150.
Supination, 36.

Thorax, the, form of, 67-70; in antique art, 68; defects of 68.
Titian, his type of arm, 54.
Toes, the, length of, 171.
Tuxen, Lauritz, 102.

Van Dyck, his treatment of the hands, 66.
Venus, the Barberini, 78.

„ the, of Botticelli, 29, 57, 74, 97, 100.

,, the Braschi, 75.

„ Callipygos, the, 147.

,, the, of the Capitol, 72, 77, 82, 97, 114, 134, 140.

,, the, of the Esquiline, 1 8, 82, 90, 97, 144.

,, Genetrix, the, 72.

„ de Medicis, the, 23, 76, 82, 100, 134, 144, 147, 158, 177.

„ of Milo, the, 76, 82, 134.

,, statue of, in the Uffizi, 144.

,, statue of, in the Vatican, 100, 101
Verrocchio, Andrea del, 132.

Wrist, the, types of, 60.

Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld.( London and Aylesbury.

H, GREVEL & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS.

Stufcent's jfine Hrt library*

THE CLASSICAL PICTURE GALLERY FOR
1891: Monthly Magazine of Reproductions from
the Art Galleries of Europe. Each Part is., containing
Twelve Plates, 4to. Annual Subscription, 14^., post free.

little valvTe'to'the serious Student of art, wlio wi^be able by its means
re types and expressions, and refresh his memory in various ways." —

THE CLASSICAL PICTURE GALLERY. Annual
Volume for 1890, containing 144 Plates. With Biographical
Notices of the Artists, and a Complete Index, i Vol. 4to, cloth
extra, gilt top. £1 is.

THE HUMAN FIGURE : its Beauties and De-
fects. By ERNST BRUCKE, Emeritus Professor of Physiology in
the University of Vienna, and formerly Teacher of Anatomy in
the Academy of Fine Arts at Berlin. Authorised translation.
Revised by the Author. With 29 Illustrations by Hermann Paar.
Edited by Prof. W. Anderson, Royal Academy of Arts, London.
Crown 8vo, cloth. IQJ. 6d.

THE STUDENT'S ATLAS OF ARTISTIC ANA-
TOMY, for the Use of Sculptors, Painters, Medical
Students, and Amateurs. With THIRTY-FOUR PLATES.
By CHARLES ROTH, Professor of Sculpture at the Munich Academy.
Edited by C. E. FITZGERALD, M.D. i Vol. Fol., in cloth case.
£i &•

DIEGO VELAZQUEZ AND HIS TIMES. By

CARL JUSTI, Professor at the University of Bonn. Translated by
PROFESSOR A. H. KEANE, and Revised by the Author. With
52 Magnificent Woodcuts, an Etching of Velazquez' Own Portrait
by Forberg, and a Plan of the Old Palace at Madrid, i Vol.
Royal 8vo, Roxburgh, £i is.
"No better example could be given of the growth of historical knowledge

' Velazquez,' well translated by Professor A. H. Keane. The amount of
research and of real observation which his book shows is typical of the
modem cholar."-7i»i«.

Gbe Student's tffne Brt library— continued.

MANUAL OF ARCHAEOLOGY : containing an
Introduction to Egyptian and Oriental Art, Greek,
Etruscan, and Roman Art. With 114 Illustrations. By
TALFOURD ELY, Member of the Councils of the Society for the
Promotion of Hellenic Studies, i Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth. 6s.

vet,"— Graphic.

MANUAL OP BIBLIOGRAPHY: being an In-
troduction to the Knowledge of the Book, Library
Management, and the Art of Cataloguing. With a
Glossary of Technical Terms, and a Latin-English and English-
Latin Topographical Index of the Early Printing Centres. With
37 Illustrations. New Edition. By WALTER T. ROGERS, Inner
Temple Library. I Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth. 55.
"Contains much rare and curious information."— Morning Post.

MANUAL OP MYTHOLOGY IN RELATION TO
GREEK ART. By MAXIME COLLIGNON, late Member of the
Ecole Fran9aise, Athens. Translated and Enlarged by JANE E.
HARRISON, Author of "Myths of the Odyssey," "Introductory
Studies in Greek Art," etc. With 140 Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
cloth extra, gilt top. los. 6d.

" This is a good book. It fills a gap in our literature, doing for Greek-
mythology much the same service which Mrs. Jamieson rendered to Christian

MANUAL OP ANCIENT SCULPTURE. By PIERRE

PARIS, formerly Member of the Ecole Francaise, at Athens.
Edited and Augmented by JANE E. HARRISON, Author of '• Myths
of the Odyssey," "Introductory Studies in Greek Art," etc. With
187 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top. los. (>d.

and interesting style, and its illustrations,
7, reprouce n an accurate manner the best of the sculptured
treasures which are referred to in the text."— Scotsman.

MANUAL OF EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY. By

PROFESSOR G. MASPERO, D.C.L. Oxon. English Edition, with
Notes, by AMELIA B. EDWARDS, Ph.D., LL D. With 299
Illustrations. New Edition, revised, with a Complete Index.
Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top. IO.T. (sd.

CONTENTS.— Chapter I. Civil and Military Architecture. — Chapter II.
Religious Architecture.— Chapter III. Tombs.-Chapter IV. Painting and
Sculpture.-Chapter V. The Industrial Arts.

" It is a marvel of erudition and condensation. It sums up the long results
ation in language precise enough to
st, and popular enough to ensure its
n lore of the country for travellers in Egypt."

Gbe Student's ffinc Brt fttbrarg— continued.

MANUAL OP ORIENTAL ANTIQUITIES : in-
cluding the Architecture, Sculpture, and Industrial
Arts of Chaldaea, Assyria, Persia, Syria, Judsea,
Phoenicia, and Carthage. By ERNEST BABELON, Librarian
of the Department of Medals and Antiques in the Bibliotheque
Nationale, Paris. Translated and enlarged by B. T. A. EVETTS,
M.A., of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities.
British Museum. With 241 Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra,
gilt top. IDS. 6d.

" The Manual of Oriental Antiquities, which takes deservedly a high
position both for the general accuracy of its statements and the excellent

MANUAL OP EMBROIDERY AND LACE : their
Manufacture and History from the Remotest Anti-
quity to the Present Day. By ERNEST LEFEBURE, Lace
Manufacturer and Administrator of the Musee d<sArts Decoratifs,
Paris. Translated and Enlarged, with Notes-ana New Designs,
by ALAN S. COLE, of the SolTthTCensington Museum. With 156
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top. IO.T. 6ct.

' A book which is not only a comprehensive, w
history of a delightful art, but a book which is pli

MANUAL OP MUSICAL HISTORY : A Bio-Biblio-
graphical Survey. With 150 Illustrations of Portraits, Musical
Instruments, Facsimiles of Rare and Curious Musical Works. By
JAMES E. MATTHEW, i Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth, los. 6d.

THE STUDENT'S ARCHAEOLOGICAL ATLAS

TO HOMER. Thirty-six Plates with descriptive Text. By
Dr. R. ENGELMANN and Prof. W. C. F. ANDERSON, i Vol.
410. Cloth, los. 6d.

OLYMPOS : Tales of the Gods of Greece and Rome.

By TALFOURD ELY. With 47 Woodcuts and 6 full-page Photo-
graphic Plates. I Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth, los. 6d.

ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS and BUILD-
INGS of GREAT BRITAIN and IRELAND. Edited
by CONSTANTINE UHDE. In 6 Parts, Fol, containing 150
magnificent Photographs of the most remarkable Architectural
Monuments. Each Part £i $s.

THE BOOK : its Printers, Illustrators, and Binders,
from Gutenberg to the Present Time. By HENRI
BOUCHOT, of the National Library, Paris. With a Treatise on
the Art of Collecting and Describing Early Printed Books, and a
Latin-English and English-Latin Topographical Index of the
Earliest Printing Presses. Edited by H. GREVEL. Containing
172 Facsimiles of Early Typography, Book Illustrations, Printers'
Marks, Bindings, numerous Borders, Initials, Head and Tail Pieces,.
and a Frontispiece. I Vol. Royal 8vo, 383 pages, vellum cloth.
£l is. Edition de Luxe, £2 2s.

Beginning with the Block Books, which anticipated by a few decades the-
discoyery of Printing, this work gives an account of the rise and progress of
Printing, the disperMon over Europe of the German printers, the growth of
Book Illustration, of the Binder's Art, and all similar matter down to the present
day, and serves at the same time as a guide for collecting and describing early

RICHARD WAGNER'S LETTERS TO HIS

DRESDEN FRIENDS (Letters to Theodor Uhlig,.
1849-1853 ; Letters to Wilhelm Fischer, 1841-1859 ;
Letters to Ferdinand Heine, 1841-1868). Translated
by J. S. SHEDLOCK. With an ETCHING by C. W. SHERBORN
of WAGNER'S PORTRAIT taken in 1853, and a COMPLETE INDEX.
I Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth extra, gilt top. 121. 6d.

" Admirer's of Wagner's genius will find here a fund of information about
the vie intime of the musician.' '-Graphic.

CORRESPONDENCE OF WAGNER AND LISZT
FROM 1841 TO 1861. Translated into English, and with a
Preface by Dr. FRANCIS HUFFER. 2 Vols. Crown 8vo, cloth,
gilt top. £i 4s.

"Nothing more instructive with regard to the real character and relations,
of Liszt and Wagner has been published. Seldom has the force and fervour of

THE SWORDSMAN : a Manual of Fence for the
Foil, Sabre, and Bayonet. With an Appendix con-
sisting of a Code of Rules for Assaults, Competitions,.
etc. By ALFRED HUTTON, late Capt. King's Dragoon Guards,
Author of "Cold Steel," "Fixed Bayonets." \Vith 42 Illustra-
tions. I Vol. Crown 8vo, cloth. $s. 6d.
Ditto, 50 copies on Whatman paper, bound in vellum. IQS. 6d.

PRACTICAL GRAMMAR OF THE GERMAN
LANGUAGE. With Reading Lessons, and a Ger-
man-English and English-German Vocabulary. By
WILLIAM EVSENBACH. Third Edition, i Vol. 8vo, cloth.
3*. 6d.

difficulty
master.

DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH AND GER-

MAN LANGUAGES. ByDr..F.R.KoEHLER. Two Parts in
One Volume. . I Vol. 8vo, half calf. 7s. 6d.

H. GREVEL & CO., 33, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN. LONDON, W.C.

U.C. BERK*' FY l

RETURN TO the circulation desk of any

University of California Library

or to the

NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY

Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station

University of California

Richmond, CA 94804-4698

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

• 2-month loans may be renewed by calling"
(510)642-6753

• 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing
books to NRLF •

• Renewals and recharges may be made
4 days prior to due date

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW
NOV 1 6 ZOOS

DD20 12M 1-05

U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIE!