For so long a time has the oval been utilized as the basis for the construction of the human head and face that the use of the block or cube seems quite revolutionary. However for a number of reasons the cube seems preferable. The oval is too indefinite, and offers no points for comparison, no basis for measurement. The eye doesn’t fix on any point in a curved line. On the ground plan of a sq, however, any form can be built. The block also carries with it from any angle its viewpoint and its foreshortening, and it carries with it the sense of mass.
Especially does it carry with itself the important element of the bilateral symmetry of the head, a symmetry that’s present indeed in all living things. A vertical line in the center divides the head or the trunk into parts equal, opposite, and complemental. The right eye is the counterpart of the left, the two halves of the nose are symmetrical, – the limbs, except for changes of position, are exact though reversed duplicates of every other.
The way to construct such a block? Camper, Professor Bell, and others have studied countless human skulls attempting to discover some constant measurements with which to classify them as ancient or modern or according to race. They finally fixed upon two lines with the angle between them. The first passes from the base of the nose to the roof of the ear canal, the second passes from the upper incisor tooth to the prominent part of the forehead. The angle between these lines is practically constant for a given race or a given age of evolution. By dropping the horizontal line at its posterior end from the roof of the ear canal to the tip of the ear lobe, and by drawing the vertical line from the base of the nose where it joins the upper – lip to the bridge of the nose, where it joins the glabella, we get such a right angle.
If on these straight lines a cage be built, bounding the head and face, it’ll be found that the front and back are oblong and the sides are square. The top of the cage must be level with the top of the head, the bottom with the bottom of the chin, the edge of the cheek should fit the sides. The duration of the oblong front will equal one and 3 quarters times its width. The cheek bones set back from the front of the cage about one 3rd of the distance to the ear. 1 Temporal. 2 Masseter. 3 Buccinator. 4 and 5. Lesser and greater zygomaticus. MASSES – The masses of the head .
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