DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19955#0031
MINIATURE PAINTING.
29
allowed for accordingly. Were we to attempt to pro-
portion even a little girl of seven years of age to
the size of a piece of ivory four inches square, it
would give some such preposterous appearance as is here
represented. (See Tig. vii.)
Your outline having been thus fairly transferred in red
to the ivory, by means of the chalked paper, the next
process will be to draw each feature with the brush as
correctly as you can, not relying on the red outline beyond
its being an approximate guide; for, trace it as carefully
as you will, the tracing point will more or less falsify the
drawing; so that every line and every distance must be
carefully revised, as on this preliminary caution your ultimate
success will chiefly depend.
Keep in mind distinctly the following axioms of "the
beautiful" :
A short upper hp indicates high breeding.
The ears should be small.
Falling shoulders are graceful.
A nez retrousse indicates pertness, and, if occurring in
nature, must not be exaggerated in the picture.
A Eoman nose is too marked in a woman, and must be
treated in the picture with a view rather to repress than to
amplify it. '
A long neck is graceful; not so a short neck and square
shoulders.
A small head is more elegant than a large one; yet do
not forget that one too small gives the appearance of the
head of an idiot.
29
allowed for accordingly. Were we to attempt to pro-
portion even a little girl of seven years of age to
the size of a piece of ivory four inches square, it
would give some such preposterous appearance as is here
represented. (See Tig. vii.)
Your outline having been thus fairly transferred in red
to the ivory, by means of the chalked paper, the next
process will be to draw each feature with the brush as
correctly as you can, not relying on the red outline beyond
its being an approximate guide; for, trace it as carefully
as you will, the tracing point will more or less falsify the
drawing; so that every line and every distance must be
carefully revised, as on this preliminary caution your ultimate
success will chiefly depend.
Keep in mind distinctly the following axioms of "the
beautiful" :
A short upper hp indicates high breeding.
The ears should be small.
Falling shoulders are graceful.
A nez retrousse indicates pertness, and, if occurring in
nature, must not be exaggerated in the picture.
A Eoman nose is too marked in a woman, and must be
treated in the picture with a view rather to repress than to
amplify it. '
A long neck is graceful; not so a short neck and square
shoulders.
A small head is more elegant than a large one; yet do
not forget that one too small gives the appearance of the
head of an idiot.