Facial Musculature

This public domain image is from an 18th century Dutch text and depicts the anatomy of the facial muscles. The author of the book is unknown but believed to have been a medical student, as the work was most likely the student’s dissertation, entitled Treatise on phsyiognomy

Physiognomy was a serious medical field for many centures, originating during Hippocrates’ time. It is the study of an individual’s character by making assumptions from their facial features. The word comes from the Greek physis, or nature, and gnomon, meaning judge.

Because this manuscript was published in the 1790s, it is in the public domain.

286.53 KB JPG. Hosted by the National Institute of Health website.

1. Walden
   03.20.10

   This black and white (or rather sepia) print made from a pencil sketch is undoubtedly a contribution to some nineteenth century medical text or personal medical collection. To the left is handwritten text detailing parts of the figure. The figure itself is a block or dish on which lays a human head sans skin. The attention is focused on the muscles and underlying tissues of the face, as these are labeled with letters. While the intent is surely medical, the feel of the image is grotesque and lacks all the crisp, impersonal detachment if modern medicine’s pinup anatomical posters. The most bothersome detail is that the face of the severed head bears an expression, a kind of sick lolling. The eyes are close to crossing under halfway lowered lids and the moth is open but shaped into a wide, deep frown that reveals the tongue and the edge of the subjects teeth. The viewer wonders if this man died in pain and why his features are frozen into this disturbing unhappiness. The entire idea is made worse if one has a little insight into pre-Victorian medical practice; the subject was likely taken from a grave and dissected without permission, maybe even before and audience, before he was drawn this way.

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2. Staus
   03.27.10

   This image is an old, renaissance-style image that describes the musculature of the human face. It is done on parchment-style paper with black ink. The facial expression is of a dead person, almost sad. The eyelids are half open, and the mouth is still open from the final death rattle. There is stylized text written in Dutch on the left side of the image, corresponding with letter points assigned to areas of the musculature image on the right side of the image. This image is interesting, entertaining, and a bit eerie in a classical, arcane sense; this is the sort of image that I would expect to be in an open book in some old, primitive laboratory in ancient times. The color, as mentioned previously, is parchment and sepia toned. The image composition is interesting; the example of the musculature of the head and face is positioned as though it is sitting inside of another open book, perhaps to suggest the textbook and informative nature of the drawing. It is interesting how intricate the image is; the lines are sketched to follow the same patterns of real musculature, suggesting that someone composed this from an actual head stripped of facial flesh.

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