MORE FACES

More about faces! This time the subject is how faces age. The Ekman book isn't very helpful so I'll have to take a stab at analyzing the pictures myself. I'm not good at this so don't expect too much.

I think I'll start with the grandmother in the left vertical column above (click to enlarge) (that's her grandaughter in the right hand column but this won't deal with her). Let's see...Hmmmm...well, the first thing I notice is that her eyes turn into slits by middle age. What causes that? Do the cheeks push up and close the eyes or does the top lid droop down and cover the eye? And am I imagining it or does the mouth seem to widen with age?

Holy Cow! Look at the shape of her face! It was "V"-shaped when she was a teenager and boxy later on! In the second picture from the bottom the smooth, evenly distributed fat of the teen face gives way to lumpy, swollen fat. She looks looks like she was stung by bees. In the final picture the puffiness has subsided. Her face is nicely proportioned and she looks happy.

This woman (above) had an interesting progression. The third, fourth and fifth pictures look energetic, optimistic and intelligent. The sixth picture looks like she's become aware of disturbing things like penises, cliques and the horror of homework. The seventh is completely adult. She believes she can cope with disturbing things. In the eighth the disturbing things won but she doesn't seem to mind. She's discovered...what? Maybe what it's like to be a mother. In the last picture she's become a solid citizen.

Once again, in pictures seven and eight we see the V- shaped face morph into a box. In the ninth picture the box has retreated a bit but the bees have done their job again. Her neck is the same in pictures eight and nine but her face is puffier in nine, indicating that the increased facial fat isn't the result of putting on more weight in general. I wonder if she'll lose that fat as the grandmother did in the first set of pictures.

Boy, there's no doubt that somewhere between 10 and 15 you look the best you'll ever look! It's a great combination of vitality, curiosity and optimism. I wonder if that coincides with the best or most formative time of life?

Here's (above) a more youthful me. That's Kali mugging underneath. Anyway my face was V-shaped in those days and my eyes were somewhat wide open. Gee, I had a big nose and ears even then!

Here's me today (above). The face is puffy and bee-stung just like the women above. What the heck causes that anyway? I don't want to be bee-stung! Shouldn't I get to vote about that? The skin above the upper lip seems thinner than it used to be. Does that happen to everybody? You can see the faint blue hairs of a Zorro mustache that wants to born but for the good of mankind I supress it.
One positive thing: my eyes are slits now. I'm delighted! I used to envy Lee Van Cliff and John Wayne for their squints and now I have a squint of my very own! Maybe that's because I never wear sunglasses. Artists should never wear sunglasses! They should also never do yoga but I'll have to save that for a post some other time!

BOOK REVIEW: "EMOTIONS REVEALED"

Paul Ekman is a psychologist who's gotten a lot of attention lately for his studies of facial expressions. It's a hot issue now because of face recognition software which not only spots terrorists but is used increasingly as a kind of lie detector.

According to Ekman the long lasting expressions can be faked a lot easier than the short-lived ones which may only last for half a second. The short ones are almost involuntary and are fairly sure indicators of what the person's really thinking.

See if you agree with Ekman about how to interpret the short-lived expressions below.

Face #1 (above): Neutral mouth and drooping eyes indicate a slight sadness or tiredness. The eyes still have focus so the tiredness is mild.

Face#2 (above): If you guessed anger Ekman says you'd be wrong. This is disgust. You can tell by the wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes.

Face #3 (above): Anger or pointed sadness, but this time expressed with the lowered lips alone. Compare this to #1 where the anger is expressed with the eyes alone.

Face #4 (above): Slight enjoyment expressed with the lips alone. The eyes are neutral.


face#5 (above): Highly controlled anger. The woman's getting mad and may not be aware of it herself yet. If you see this face on a real person it means trouble is brewing.


Face #6 (above): Disgust, this time expressed with a slightly raised upper lip and not the nose and eyes as in #2.

Face #7 (above): Upset, miserable. The lowered brows and tensed lower eyelids signal anger as well.


Face#8 (above): Masked anger. Covering up anger with a happy smile. In some circumstances could be amusement at being perplexed.

I'm not recommending the book, I've only had time to skim it, but I thought you'd like to know about it. There's not really enough pictures. How can you discuss faces in a book that's mostly text?

FACES TOO SPECIFIC

One problem with a lot of modern portrait paintings is that they're too specific. Even a realistic portrait should be somewhat iconic. The picture above isn't a picture of of eternal beauty, it's too specifically a painting of Beulah J. Kratz (or whatever her name is). The same problem holds for the other three Lovis Corinth pictures immediately below.

Actually, this one of the nude holding the hairbrush isn't half bad.

I don't mean to say that all potraits should be sanitized and idealized. Not at all. But the more specific the picture is the more the style should be iconic, cartoony or deliberately mannered. The picture above by Otto Dix is a good example. It's very specific but it's cartoony and it works.

More realistic portraits are better off idealized somewhat like the pictures immediately above and below. They're by Raphael (above) and Rubens (below). You accept them as realistic but they're subtley stylized as well.


Do you agree?

YEARBOOK PHOTOS: A DIP INTO MY PRIVATE RESERVE

Here it is, some of my choicest yearbook pictures. Some were xeroxed from the Spumco library, some from my own collection and some (above, bottom right) from my kid's yearbook. Boy, yearbook photography sure has declined in the last 30 years, but I've posted on that subject already.

I don't know about you but these pictures make me want to draw. I womder, besides yearbooks, what other sources contain good pictures of ordinary people?