Sometimes it is said that the child is merely replicating a verbal understanding, using lines only as replacements for words. For example, instead of saying ‘face’ the child may draw a rough circle, even though the child is arguably not thinking about the shape of a real face. Even so, the drawing remains a visual equivalent for a visual experience. This relationship between vision and drawing may be developed as the child extends his or her vocabulary, so that the drawing becomes ever more accurate as a replica of what the child has seen – ever more like a photograph. This is a progression well-described by E. H. Gombrich in Art and Illusion.
Artists who draw the figure are likely to develop their own complete ready-made formulae for figures by responding to what feels right. A natural empathy means that artists tend to imitate their own bodies. Leonardo pointed out how this can lead to amusing results. An artist will find it very hard to pretend to be someone else, even though at the same time they may tend to idealise their formulae.
The ideals of the Greeks are an extension of this process – a sort of cultural agreement to determine the ideal proportions of a human figure. As Reynolds pointed out, what is considered to be ideal is bound to vary from culture to culture. Nigerian sculptors developed a different ideal from that of the Greeks. This ideal derives from feelings and intuitions which differ between groups of people (even though they may have much in common – symmetry, for example, is always considered beautiful). So to this extent the core style is adapted to the local culture.
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In order to demonstrate that an ideal of beauty is one which is intuitive, not artificially imposed, we can turn to one of the many studies that psychologists have made on this subject. ‘In the Eye of the Beholder” Bruce and Young 1998 p138
British versus Japanese ideal. British and Japanese make the same choices given the same selections.
Studies in the psychology of beauty demonstrate how the ideal can be both intuitive and yet have the power of an objective standard. Given a selection of comparable faces, three standards emerge:
1. The average, which is generally considered more beautiful than any single face in the selection.
2. The average of a smaller group, those which had the highest ratings.
3. The difference between 1 and 2 exaggerated in order to produce a super-beautiful face. This is equivalent to the ideal.
No doubt, if we were to be able to gather together samples of the Greek population at the time Phidias
(c. 480 – 430 BC) was making the sculptures of the Parthenon, we would be able to generate his ideal in this manner. Today’s population of Greece is much changed from what it was when the Parthenon was built. The ethnic group which produced Phidias has spread into other areas of Europe and the Near East, though many descendents of that group remained in Athens, blending with other ethnic groups. The ideal modern Greek would probably not be a perfect match for the ideal ancient Greek.
The idea of improving on reality is closely related to the idea of translating reality into ideal forms, or raising reality to higher level of beauty (of one sort or another). This raising or ‘elevation’ was much discussed in past centuries, but is now hardly ever mentioned, perhaps for fear that that to do so might sound discriminatory.
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A PERSONAL NOTE
I remember well during my time as a student at the Royal Academy Schools the enormously fat anatomy lecturer, a medical man who, while presumably an expert in surgical anatomy, knew little about applying that knowledge to the task of drawing the human figure, gave it as his opinion that the most beautiful women he had seen were derived from three white grandparents and one black. This elicited howls of protest from the assembled students, who felt that every woman in the world was beautiful, each in her own way – not to mention that no student was prepared to take lessons in beauty from a medical man. So it has become socially unacceptable in artistic circles to talk of any differentiation, let alone elevation.
In contrast, in other areas, such as fashion modelling and ballet-dancing, for example, it is perfectly acceptable to make the most extreme demands on women in a pursuit of the ideal form (as understood in those disciplines). However it has remained unacceptable to discuss ‘elevation’ in painting – even though, as we have seen, elevation of some sort is an inevitable part of the process of drawing. One woman may be as beautiful as another each in her own way. If so, one might argue that one painter is as good as another, each in his or her own way. If that were true, there would be no need to study and practice, since the idea of improvement would make no sense. No-one believes that, and this demonstrates that the ideal is part of human thinking, whether we like it or not.