Phiilniiraplilr HeMcurrhtx ami Purtraiture 293 



luiulc ill this piipor, uiid it may l)c rloubted whether it could Jkj inmlt' on 

 portraits of ho hiiihII size and all reduced to the same standard length from 

 intorpupillary line to li|i line. 



The main achievement of the paper lies undoubtedly in its demonstra- 

 tion (i) that mechanicjil difficulties of comijounding large series of portraits 

 had luien overcome, and (ii) that n(» marked association exists between a 

 phthisical tendency and physiognomy. The belief that itdcnw exist prolxibly 

 arises from the more emphatic impression on the observer profluced by 

 emaciation in the nan-ow ovt)id face. 



The second paper to which I have referred is entitled " Photographic 

 Composites'," and is remarkai)le for the two plates of the Jewish type iu 

 profile and full face. While many will criticise, and I think rightly criticise, 

 the analysis Mr Jacobs gives of the 'Jewishness' in these portraits, they 

 must agree with him in appreciating the extraordinary fidelity with which 

 they portray Jewish physiognomy, or rather youthful Jewish physiognomy, 

 for we are nealing with young Jews. Mr Jacobs writes : 



" But words fail one most grievously in trying to split up into its elements that ino«t living 

 of all things, human expi-ession"; and Mr Ualton's composites say in a glance more than the 

 most skilful physiognomist could express in many page«. 'The l)est definition,' said the old 

 logicians, ' is pointing with a finger ' (ilemonstratio optima ilejinitio) ; and the composites here 

 given will doul)tless form for a long time the best available definition of the Jewish expression 

 and the Jewish type." (p. 2G8.) 



There is little doubt that Galton's Jewish type formed a landmark in 

 composite photography, and its success was, I think, almost entirely due to 

 (a) increased facility m the process, and (6) to the fact that his composites 

 were based on physiognomically like constituents. In the case of criminality 

 and phthisis he had based his composites on mentally and pathologically 

 difteientiated components, and had expected to find mental and pathological 

 characters highly correlated with the facial. His negative results were 

 undoubtedly of value, but they cannot appeal to the man in the street like 

 his positive success with the Jewish type. We all know the Jewish boy, 

 and Galton's portraiture brings him before us in a way that only a great 

 work of art could equal — scarcely excel, for the artist would only idealise 

 from one model. 



Plate XXXV (described over page) reproduces Galton's Jewish compo- 

 sites. The original photographs are in the Galton Laboratory. 



' Tlf Photographic Xews, Vol. .\.\i.\, April 17 and 24, 1885. The Jewi.sh profile occurs with 

 the earlier, the full face with the later issue. Galton's paper occupied pp. 243-45 of the earlier 

 issue. In the later issue is a paper by \V. E. Debenham on Galton's "C!omposite Portraits" 

 (pp. 259-60), which does not seem to do more than repeat, pi-obably unconsciously, certain 

 methods already referred to by (!)alton (see our pp. 285, 287), except in the one matter of 

 acquiring the stereoscopic power without any instrument There is also a pa{>er entitled : 

 "Till" Jewish Type, and (Jalton's t'oiupiKsite Photographs," by Joseph JacoUs (pp. 268-9). 



'' Mr Jacobs here uses "expression" not like Darwin in the kinematic sense, but in the 

 statical sense of physiognomy. 



