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 outw r ards, 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. 
 
7 6 
 
 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 easeconsiderable 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. 
 
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