The Artist's Repository, Or, Encyclopedia of the Fine Arts (Band 1): The Human Figure (London, 1808)

3le ct. v.] proportions op the head. 10$

The Head is considered as containing in height
four measures of the nose ; (I.) from the bottom of
the chin to the bottom of the nose; (II.) from the bot-
tom of the nose to its top ; (III.) from thence to the
upper part of the forehead, where the hair com-
mences; (IV.) from thence to the crown of the head.

to place the parts of a froxt face. '

We have already observed that the general form of
the head is that of an oval. Having therefore formed
an oval, we place the features, by tracing an ima-
ginary perpendicular line in the centre, crossed by
another at right angles in the centre of the first.
This perpendicular line, we said, contained four
parts, or measures of the nose (from the chin up-
wards, the nose, the forehead, the crown of the
head); from the chin to the nose, divided into three
parts, the upper division is the place for the mouth.
The line which we have represented as crossing the
perpendicular, we divide into five parts; and place the
eyes in the second and fourth div lsions. In a front
view of the head, the neck seems to commence about
level with the mouth. Such is the general rule for
construcling a head seen in front ; but these propor-
tions are varied by many circumstances, and in many
subjects, as we shall be convinced in pursuing our
studies. Some masters have devised strictly mathe-
matical rules for composing a head : but I never yet
found in Nature a head composed by such rules, or
such devices.

to