The text discusses the artistic study of human facial features, focusing on how the head is composed of an oval shape that aligns with the positions of various facial parts. The illustration described clarifies this concept by showing how the head can be decomposed into symmetrical angles. The instructions aim to prepare artists to portray faces accurately using these geometrical principles.
Artistic Study of Facial Features
How the Human Head is composed of an Oval, and those otherwise in an inclined position or tilted forward can be bent back, having many mixed inclinations. For they can be inclined forward or backward to the left or right, looking down or up, from the side or from the front. As the aforementioned illustration will clearly show, it seems no extensive explanation will be necessary.
To be prepared for the practical exercise of portraying facial features, we first assume, according to the common understanding of painters, that the human head (without protruding the back head, nose, ears, chin; the inward parts of the eye sockets, mouth, temples of the head, to be noted,) in its entirety, generally possesses the shape or form of an oval or egg shape. As this illustration indicates with the first example through the letters A, B, C, D: of which point A is the top point or middle of the crown of the head, and D being the lowest point of the chin that aligns directly with the crown.
We further perceive that this oval is bounded by another outline, whereby it seems to become a symmetrical sphere, which is physically and firmly egg-shaped; through which point A through to D goes through the middle section, as indicated by the marks A, F, D, E, and A, B, C, D. Such is the way the oval, through a central circumference or circle, described as B, C, E, F, is inscribed into eight equal angles like an apple or pear sliced into quarters; as we shall soon explain more clearly.