The artists repository and drawing magazine: exhibiting the principles of the polite arts in their various branches (4.1790)

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It is evident, that in thefe excefTes of character
beauty is loft; and as that ought to be our principal
ftudy in treating the human countenance, we fhould
generalize our ideas and principles as much as may be,
left ftrongly marked perfonalities fhould prove offenfive,
and even perhaps allied to brutality,

UNITY.

Fig. i. Reprefents a number of balls which the eye is
fuppofed to look at direct; in which cafe, thofe in the
center, and thofe only, would be diftinc"t, clear, and
forcible, the others becoming weaker as theyj receded
from the center ; the balls on the fides, although they do
not diminifh in form, yet they diminifh in force.

Fig. 2. Is to the fame purpofe, and corroborates the
idea in Lecture I. 2d Series, the center beam, or ray
from the eye, being by far the ftrongeft, and the lateral
beams weakening according to their diftance from the
center.

The utility of this principle is to render the whole of
a compofition united, by introducing that manage-
ment of forms and of force, which may adapt to each
part its proper importance.

end of the dictionary.