314 PHYSICAL EXPRESSION. 



quality in the picture as shall excite in the average 

 or particular observer the sensation, feeling, or emo- 

 tion of beauty. Sir Charles Bell * says, " In proceed- 

 ing to define beauty, all that writers on art have 

 been able to affirm is, that it is the reverse of 

 deformity. Albert Diirer so expressed himself. If 

 we intend the representation of beauty, then let 

 us mark deformity, and teach ourselves to avoid 

 it. The more remote from deformity, the nearer 

 the approach to beauty." Bell tells us, on the 

 next page, that Leonardo da Yinci searched for 

 ugliness. 



I would submit the proposition that the posture 

 of every member of the body, in a drawing or 

 sculpture, should be such as would in nature be 

 produced in the subject under the circumstances 

 represented or supposed in the composition. 



Again, it is not allowable to use a posture at 

 haphazard. The nervous hand should not be used 

 except when the subject is weak with some degree 

 of excitement or irritability ; it should not be used 

 as a posture merely to represent beauty, and should 

 seldom be represented in men. It should never 

 appear in a subject coincidently with signs of 

 strength and energy ; a nervous hand at the end of 

 a strong arm would produce a most curious and 

 grotesque appearance. 



A head posture with slight rotation and inclina- 

 tion is appropriate to a subject directing the head 

 towards an object on the side of rotation below the 

 level of the head, or to a female subject with slight 

 * Op. dt., p. 21. 



