PORTRAIT SCULPTURE ' Good portrait sculpture has remained essentially the same throughout the ages. Only its trappings and its ornamentation have undergone changes, just as conventions of dress have changed periodically, characterizing a particular epoch. Thus we may recognize an Egyptian portrait bust by the indication of its wear ing apparel or its mode of arranging the hair, while excessive atten tion to personal adornment indulged in the late 18th and in the 19th centuries leaves its stamp also upon the portraiture of that period.
In essentials, however,—in the fundamental construction of the human head,—the fine portraiture of these remotely associ ated periods remains the same. You see on the city streets to-day types that coincide exactly, except for the non-essentials of dress, with the types richly revealed in the best portraiture of the Egyp tians and of the Romans. This fact leads back to the very founda tions of portrait sculpture and of human construction. Everyone knows, for example, that the nose is in the centre of the face and that, accepted as the centre, it can give the alignment of the other features. Yet many portrait busts neglect this simple first prin ciple, and, in consequence, destroy the normal perfect balance of the head.
The fundamental law of head construction is, in consequence, as much a truism as a law in geometry and must be accepted without reservation by the portraitist. If it were actually reduced to mathematical principles it could be indicated by a line drawn down through the centre of the head from the apex of the skull to a point marking the centre of the mass attaching the neck to the body. This imaginary line might be described as the "flow" of the mass (A–B, fig. I).
In order to complete the geometry of portrait bust construction a straight line may be drawn at right angles to the general line of the "flow" running from the eye to the back of the skull and centring eyes and nose (D–C, fig. I).
mental construction has been produced the matter of obtaining a likeness is comparatively simple, and the features with their individualizing characteristics are at once seen to be ornaments on the general flow of the head construction just as buttons or em broidery are ornaments on the coat or The sculptor who has spent years studying the human head knows well that good portraiture is concerned with the individu ality of the simple head construction as indicated by the "flow" of the mass rather than by the meticulous copying of the features. He knows from studying the work of his fellows that there are two types of portrait sculpture, one type preoccupied with features, and the other with the fundamentals of construction. There is a unity in the bone structure which he perceives is not built brick on brick as is a man-made work of architecture and which if grasped in its entirety lends a semblance of life ; a quality of convincing sureness which cannot otherwise be obtained.
It is quite possible to achieve a likeness without adhering to fundamentals, but as the years pass and the subject dies the por trait bust must rest on its merits as a work of art and not as a likeness. The Romans who posed for some of the finest examples of ancient portraiture have long since passed from the land of the living. No one living to-day has an interest, sentimental or other wise, in the tilt of the ancient's nose or the dear and familiar lift ing of the ancient's eyebrow. The personal element in portraiture is stripped from consideration by the impersonal passage of time, and the work is left to stand or fall on its value as a piece of head construction. It is not at all im probable that some of the ancient portraits preserved to-day as the finest relics of antiquity in the museums of the world won less acclaim in their own era than other works more effective as likenesses than as art.