I have seen a proportional compass, imported from Germany, giving a relationship similar to this and said to contain the secret of good proportion.  There is certainly something remarkable about it, and in the Appendix, page 289 [Transcribers Note:  APPENDIX], you will find some further interesting facts about this.

The variety of proportions in a building, a picture, or a piece of sculpture should always be under the control of a few simple, dominant quantities that simplify the appearance and give it a unity which is readily grasped except where violence and lack of repose are wanted.  The simpler the proportion is, the more sublime will be the impression, and the more complicated, the livelier and more vivacious the effect.  From a few well-chosen large proportions the eye may be led on to enjoy the smaller varieties.  But in good proportion the lesser parts are not allowed to obtrude, but are kept in subordination to the main dispositions on which the unity of the effect depends.

XVII

PORTRAIT DRAWING

There is something in every individual that is likely for a long time to defy the analysis of science.  When you have summed up the total of atoms or electrons or whatever it is that goes to the making of the tissues and also the innumerable complex functions performed by the different parts, you have not yet got on the track of the individual that governs the whole performance.  The effect of this personality on the outward form, and the influence it has in modifying the aspect of body and features, are the things that concern the portrait draughtsman:  the seizing on and expressing forcefully the individual character of the sitter, as expressed by his outward appearance.

This character expression in form has been thought to be somewhat antagonistic to beauty, and many sitters are shy of the particular characteristics of their own features.  The fashionable photographer, knowing this, carefully stipples out of his negative any #striking# characteristics in the form of his sitter the negative may show.  But judging by the result, it is doubtful whether any beauty has been gained, and certain that interest and vitality have been lost in the process.  Whatever may be the nature of beauty, it is obvious that what makes one object more beautiful than another is something that is characteristic of the appearance of the one and not of the other:  so that some close study of individual characteristics must be the aim of the artist who would seek to express beauty, as well as the artist who seeks the expression of character and professes no interest in beauty.

Catching the likeness, as it is called, is simply seizing on the essential things that belong only to a particular individual and differentiate that individual from others, and expressing them in a forceful manner.  There are certain things that are common to the whole species, likeness to a common type; the individual likeness is not in this direction but at the opposite pole to it.