. Portrait . Theneck, collar or opening of the bodice, and still more sothe lines of the arms and the hands. The arms of thehuman body are straight in tendency, they readilymake blunt angles but can be arranged in such a waythat they make curves. This latter device is prob-ably the most suitable one to solve the problem in anatural and satisfactory manner. The leading linesremain straight but show a circular tendency. The positions of the arms are of course infinite invariety, and one cannot give any detailed rule con- PORTRAIT cerning them. They should be easy and free, grace-full, and varied
. Portrait . Theneck, collar or opening of the bodice, and still more sothe lines of the arms and the hands. The arms of thehuman body are straight in tendency, they readilymake blunt angles but can be arranged in such a waythat they make curves. This latter device is prob-ably the most suitable one to solve the problem in anatural and satisfactory manner. The leading linesremain straight but show a circular tendency. The positions of the arms are of course infinite invariety, and one cannot give any detailed rule con- PORTRAIT cerning them. They should be easy and free, grace-full, and varied in their bendings. Their expressionshould be suited to their special attitude, as only thenthey can appear alive to the occasion, the special poseand mood in which the sitter happens to be cursory examination of a hundred or more OldMaster portraits showed me that the patterns of dia-gram IV were the most prevalent ones. The dots inthese designs indicate the position of the shoulders •• \ \. and the arrows the direction of the hands. The earlierpainters seemed to have been fond of the pose, dia-gram IV-2, one arm bent at the elbow and the otherhanging down in a rather angular fashion. Only grad-ually they arrived at the conclusion that the arm hang-ing down would look more graceful if it were curvedand the other would make a more favorable appear-ance if the forearm were extended downward. This intime produced a certain parallelism in both position is one of the most effective ones, as ithelps to break the massiveness of the bust notice it in Fig. i, a well known portrait by the PORTRAIT great French draughtsman, Ingres. With the sHghtdifference, however, that both arms are drawn in acurve. This is certainly one of the best devices forthe disposition of the arms in a three-quarter view ofthe body. It gives a rounded appearance to a nat-urally angular form. This desire to represent the
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