LIFE-FORM IN ART. 



319 



common with the muscles of the forehead. AVhen the latter muscles contract the 

 brows are raised, and when the palpebral muscles act, the brows descend and move 

 toward the middle line of the face. This act, the result of the depression and 

 adduction of the brows, gives a severe expression to the countenance, — a noble one 

 when moderately pronounced, and to this end employed in the Jove-like heads of 

 Greek art* (Fig. 105) ; but when exaggerated, leads to the grotesque, an advantage 

 not neglected in many ancient ornaments and the tragic masks (Fig. lOG). 



Fig. 105. Fig. 106. 



Head of Apollo Belvidere. Head from late Roman ornament (f) 



The muscles about the mouth tend chiefly to draw the oral angle from the 

 median line ; hence any change, no matter how small at the angle, materially modifies 

 the expression. " Give me a mouth," says Thackeray,J " with no special expression, 

 and pop a dash of carmine at each extremity, and there are lips smiling." The inner 

 extremity of the brow and the angle of the mouth may be called the centres of ex- 

 pi-ession. The main face variants, in which these centres of motility have been 

 recognized, are seen grouping themselves into the frowning set and the leering set, 

 either with the mouth closed and the angles slightly elevated, forming " the eternal 

 rictus" of the archaic "Greek" head (Fig. 107), or the lips parted and the teeth 

 displayed, or the lower jaw depressed, with the tongue protruded. The so-called 

 grotesques of Leonardo da Vinci (Fig. 108), and Durer (Fig. 109), appear to us to 

 be experiments in facial motility, both in myology and general proportion. They are 

 mere curiosities in construction. It is interesting to observe from the point of view 



* Wincklemann, I. c, II, 80. 

 \ Mus. Borbonico, XI, tab. 38. 

 X Roundabout Papers, 375. 



