The Fashioned Self

Joanne Finkelstein

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780745666266
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Social Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book examines the nature of the self and self-identity in the modern age, and the way in which they have been moulded through the alteration of bodily appearance, exemplified fashions, facelifts and diets. The idea that an individual's character is revealed through physical appearance is, Finkelstein argues, deeply embedded in Western culture. And since fashions and cosmetics are closely linked to sexual difference, the author concentrates on aspects of gender identity, suggesting that the female and male identity are differentiated through opposed experiences of the body.

Part I

The Physiognomic Body

1

Character as Immanent in Appearance

Systematic accounts of a relationship between physical appearance and human character have appeared throughout Western history. Physiognomy was one such account in which the prognostication of human character was made from the study of physical features. Astrology was another system for reading character; it assumed that the planets influenced the individual’s physical and mental capabilities and this was evidenced through body type, colouring, movement and gait. Early accounts of Eastern medicine from the tenth, twelfth and fourteenth centuries included a system of character analysis which combined physiognomy with astrology, and this established, amongst other things, that the forehead corresponded to Mars, ‘the right eye to the Sun, the left to Venus, the right ear to Jupiter, the left to Saturn, the nose to the Moon, the mouth to Mercury’ (Magli 1989:111). Whole communities could be characterized as Lunar or Mercurial or Saturnine. Lunar people were small-bodied and lively, Mercurial individuals were smaller still, imaginative with subtle and serious interests; they were engaged with writing, astrology and white magic. Those influenced by Saturn were patient, those influenced by Jupiter were prudent, Mars individuals were courageous, and the Sun bestowed wisdom and magnificence upon those under its influence (Magli 1989:111).

Although the systems of astrology and physiognomy were thought to be closely intertwined, by the Middle Ages a theory of the temperaments had been absorbed into the formula for reading character largely because individuals were often observed to have physical features which were not consistent with their astrological heritage. The unreliability of the planetary signs as indicators of character meant that more rigour was required in the matter of character analysis, and, eventually, a theory which blended the elements, qualities and humours emerged. This new system could account for a more complex character; thus, ‘the man who is irascible not only has the nature of fire, but also that of the lion; the phlegmatic man has both the nature of water and that of the lamb; the sanguine man has both the nature of air and that of the monkey; the melancholic one has the nature of earth and that of the pig’ (Magli 1989:105).

From this melting pot of ideas about human character, a hierarchical ordering of physical features slowly evolved which eventually gave prominence to the physiognomic over the astrological reading of physical features. In such a schema, the head came to be designated the principal repository of character traits, so the head’s own features, namely, the forehead, hair, eyebrows, eyes, nose, mouth, lips, teeth, chin, ears, face, neck and throat became correspondingly important. Of subsidiary importance were the individual’s hands and body. Although, early treatises on physiognomy linked it with astrology, the longest tradition of the idea appears to have descended through Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen, who, in particular, bequeathed a system of humoural influence that characterized Western medicine for more than a millennium (Pack 1974:113–38).

The most ancient work on physiognomy, the third century BC treatise De Physiognomonica, is attributed to Aristotle; however, its authenticity has not been universally admitted. The pseudo-Aristotelian works Physiognomia and Aristotelis philosophi phisnomia both argued for a relationship between human appearance and temperament by drawing an analogy with animals (Foerster 1893). Thus, the individual’s physical approximation to an animal suggested that the character of the individual could be ascertained by analysing the animal. As animal characteristics were well enough known, then the individual who resembled a bull or an owl or a snake was thought to be in possession of those same traits. Specifically, those resembling a lion would be hot-tempered and strong, those resembling a leopard, would have delicate features but would also be proud, deceitful, scheming as well as daring and fearful. The bear was thought deceitful, fierce, irascible as were those who resembled it. ‘The wild boar is full of senseless rage, while the ox is simple and sincere. The horse likes pomp and craves honors. The fox is deceitful and scheming; the monkey likes joking and imitating. Sheep are self-assured; goats are lecherous; pigs are dirty and greedy (and) if a man appears similar to an animal in any of his features, let him be aware that he shall behave in a similar fashion’ (Magli 1989:101–3). The idea was that physical appearance was suited to a particular manner of behaving, so how people looked spoke eloquently of how they would conduct themselves.

In De Physiognomonica, the entire animal world was divided into two parts, the male and female, and these characteristics were echoed in humans, so, for instance, the female like the panther was thought to be treacherous, and the male like the lion was thought to be bold. As Magli has stated, ‘this gives rise to a long list of character masks: Goat-Man, Lion-Man, Bird-Man, Monkey-Man’ (1989:101). Other influences such as those from Hippocratic teachings designated the build of the body as an important sign of character and claimed that the individual’s physical stature was significant as a sign of the individual’s internal disposition, although not as important as the face.

The use of physiognomy as a system for the analysis of human character has endured as a popular narrative. Over the centuries, there have been numerous examples of ancient Greek and Latin texts expressing these ideas which have been translated and reworked. For example, the Eastern text, Secreta Secretorum, was a tenth- or eleventh-century reworking of the Aristotelian thesis which had further influence on other works such as John Metham’s fifteenth-century physiognomic essay, written in English, where he declared ‘the most trwe werkyng off nature ys in a mannys face’ (Craig 1915). A twelfth-century work on facial colouring and complexions by Rasis, written in Arabic, has been reproduced in modern French by Mourad (1939). The manuscript Physionomia Rationalis is a translation from the Latin by Claud de la Bellière, a counsellor to the French king. It used Galen and Aristotle with some biblical references to prove that the individual’s health goes with his or her appearance. The text, consisting of forty questions, was translated into English in the seventeenth century by Robert Baker. In 1586 Giovanni Battista della Porta (1536–1615) published in Venice a physiognomic work, De Humana Physiognomia, which analysed the individual’s character, appearance and destiny. Another sixteenth-century text by the prolific Girolamo Cardano, entitled Metoposcopia, was probably available in an abbreviated German translation made in the late seventeeth-century; Johann Lavater may have used this to establish the modern school of physiognomy. John Spon published Faces: What They Mean and How to Read Them in 1934, and claimed that it was a reworking of an earlier sixteenth-century script which was, in all likelihood, written by della Porta.

The influences of astrology and physiognomy persisted for centuries alongside humoural theory. Indeed, each of these strands of thought can be seen in a popular seventeenth-century book on palmistry and physiognomy written by a priest, which went to six English editions. This text stated that when the sun is in Pisces, the individual will have a ‘fair forehead, clear skin, large and fair eyes’, and when the sun is in Leo, the individual will have ‘a small, comely body, ruddy coloured, mixed with white rolling eyes … and full of diseases in their feet’ (Indagine 1666). In short, the origins and lineage of the physiognomic perspective are difficult to establish, but it is enough to recognize that it has been an idea of enduring appeal which seems to have answered the persistent desire of members of various societies to explain and make predictions about the nature of human character.

In the long history of physiognomic reasoning, there are many different accounts of the ways in which human character is related to the individual’s observable physical features. Generally, physiognomy has dealt with the uncovering of personality traits through the study of facial features, body structure and overall physical appearance. It has been assumed that there was an immanent and univocal essence in humans which was reflected through identifiable body parts, even though some parts, such as the face, seemed responsive and often changeable in appearance and quality. Nonetheless, the physiognomists claimed that character could be read from specific features of human appearance, especially those which were immobile – the chin and forehead, for example, were regarded as especially revealing of the individual’s potential for aggression. George Turner, writing in 1641 on astronomy and ‘astrologic’ (sic), devoted forty pages to ‘phisiognomy’. He had rules by which character could be interpreted from the nose, lips, ears, chin, pitch of the voice, lines on the forehead, movement of the eyes, number of teeth, the size of the tongue and so on. Turner described his work as a collection for his own personal use but which was taken from many authors; thus, it can be regarded as a useful summary of opinions and perspectives prevalent in the mid-seventeenth century. Turner regarded the shape of the nose as the most telling feature; it revealed the individual’s cruelty, revengefulness, benevolence and overall degree of aggression, quarrelsomeness and courage (1641:114). A person’s ears revealed the degree of intelligence, memory and foolishness (Turner 1641:115); the thickness of the lips indicated how much heat the individual held and, as it was heat which dulled the senses, the thickness of the lips (ibid:116–7, 143) indicated much about the individual. For instance, imbecility was reflected in small, thin lips, courage in an overhanging upper lip, uncleanliness and folly in thick lips with a round mouth. Other signs of character were in the ‘overbrows’ or eyebrows, hair, hands, nails, shoulders, ‘ribbes’, neck, throat, beard and laughter. In the case of too much laughter, stupidity was indicated, and a sufficient amount indicated courtesy (Turner 1641:120).

Certain representations of the physiognomic perspective claimed as a fundamental assertion that the human shape and facial features were signs which both foretold and reflected the moral characteristics of the individual. This meant that some features could be interpreted as prognostications of specific character traits. This was an audacious claim because it suggested a behavioural determinism behind an individual’s appearance, thereby making it seem that certain traits were secreted in physical attributes and that appearance was the major impetus behind character. For example, according to this type of physiognomic reasoning, the individual with small, black eyes, a receding chin and thin hair would probably become a criminal or degenerate. There were other claims as well which depicted certain physical features as reflective of character after those features had been shaped by experience. Thus, one could tell much of an individual’s past from his or her features; certain physical features could act as summaries of the individual’s past experiences and, as such, they could inadvertently disclose personality traits. In this sense, one’s physical appearance could be a betrayal of one’s private self.

It was the eighteenth-century work of Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) which stands out as the most elaborated exposition of physiognomy. His huge, four-volume treatise Physiognomische Fragmente zur Beförderung der Menschenkenntniss und Menschenliebe (1775–8) was a systematic presentation of how physical characteristics corresponded with moral traits. The text was copiously illustrated with silhouettes of the human form. It also contained the writings of other thinkers equally enthusiastic about physiognomy, namely, Herder and Goethe. A further detailed work by Lavater, and not published, was Mélanges de regles Physiognomiques, prepared in 1793, as a gift to his patron, Eric Magnus de Staël, who was himself celebrated for his own extraordinarily handsome appearance (Marwick 1988).

Lavater’s principles of physiognomy enjoyed wide popularity. The novelist Victor Hugo, half a century later, spoke of Lavater as if he were a household name. In Les Misérables, Hugo claimed of one of his fictional characters that ‘Lavater, if he could have studied this face, would have found in it a mixture of vulture and pettifogger; the bird of prey and the man of tricks rendering each other ugly and complete’ (1862:256). The name of Lavater was well known and his system of character analysis widely subscribed to probably because it was so detailed and exact and, thereby, readily understandable. Even though Lavater presented his physiognomic system as a scientific analysis of character, it became a type of parlour game and form of entertainment for the European upper classes of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The laws and tenets of physiognomy were often printed on cards, like playing cards, one of which showed an embossed head sectioned off into physiognomically visible attributes. This format allowed easy reference as well as the wide dissemination of the ideas. Having such a set of cards was itself fashionable. Lavater’s physiognomy even spawned its own satire in 1778–9, a four-volume work known as Physiognomical Travels by a German satirist, Johann Karl August Musäus.

Lavater’s claims for physiognomy were grand. He presented it as a total system of analysis; all three elements of the individual, namely, the physiological, intellectual and moral, were analysed in his system; indeed, they were intimately connected with each other and were ‘expressed in every part of the body’ (1885:10). Physiognomy was, he stated:

the science or knowledge of the correspondence between the external and internal man, the visible superficies (sic) and the invisible contents …

The moral life of man, particularly, reveals itself in the lines, marks, and transitions of the countenance. His moral powers and desires, his irritability, sympathy, and antipathy; his facility of attracting or repelling the objects that surround him; these are all summed up in, and painted upon, his countenance when at rest. (1885:11, 9)

Lavater urged others to see the necessity of physiognomy as a proper mode of social discourse on the basis that everyone was a physiognomist whether they knew it or not. After all, judging others by their outward appearance was a seemingly instinctual law of social life; everyone judged character from ‘those first impressions which are made by (the individual’s) exterior’ (1885:12). One may as well study Lavater’s rules and recommendations in order to do it correctly because, he maintained (1885:47), one could always improve one’s abilities and acquire new interpretive skills. Although, the natural propensity was to judge others by appearance one could, under tutelage, discipline this practice into a more exact science of character analysis – the benefits of which, Lavater predicted, would be immediately apparent.

Lavater’s account of human character was based on the idea that the human body was capable of endless transformations, the face, in particular, showed a panorama of emotions and thoughts, and the body was constantly altering in appearance because of fatigue, excitement, illness and so on. Nonetheless, Lavater regarded the physical appearance of the individual as an accurate summation of moral character. He regarded the face as the most explicit sign of character including the size and shape of the skull, the forehead and the direction of the facial wrinkles. Human beauty proved the inner worth and virtue of the individual and, conversely, ugliness demonstrated vice. Lavater argued further that the moral background of the individual was unequivocally revealed in appearance. Certain characteristics could be inherited, for example, the moral decadence of a family as expressed in their continuous poverty or criminality, were traits that were probably passed on through successive generations and were visible through such outward signs as the texture of the skin and the shape of the jaw. Well-known national and regional characteristics, such as eye and hair colour, body shape, muscular strength and so on, could also be accounted for through physiognomic inheritance. In short, every visible aspect of the individual’s appearance was physiognomical and thus spoke of the submerged universe of personality, character, emotionality and temperament.

Lavater’s systematic analysis of character assumed a male norm. He had the male image in mind as he discoursed on the meaning of the forehead, its wrinkles, the colour of the eyes and the shape of the chin. The differences between men and women were for Lavater oppositional, not unlike many of our contemporary depictions of the sexes. Women were ‘more pure, tender, delicate, irritable, affectionate, flexible and patient’ than men; they were made of a ‘primary matter’ that was more ‘elastic than that of man’. Further, ‘the female thinks not profoundly; profound thought is the power of the man.’ As if to state proleptically our contemporary stereotypes, Lavater declared that ‘women feel more’; they are flexible and bending where men are firm, straight and steadfast. Men were ‘serious’, women were ‘gay’; men were ‘rough and hard’, ‘brown’ and ‘angular’, women were ‘smooth and soft’, ‘fair’ and ‘round’; and when these expectations were violated women ‘are no longer women, but abortions’ (Lavater 1885:400–3).

In Lavater’s views on women there is less assurance; for instance, he regarded the physically plain woman as making an excellent housewife; however, such a woman needed to be treated calmly, with a position of detachment because she was potentially volatile. ‘Women with brown, hairy or bristly warts on the chin, especially the underpart of the chin, or the neck, are commonly industrious, active, good housewives’, but ‘they talk much’ and so ‘must be treated with circumspect, calm friendship, and kept at a distance by a mildly-cold dignity of demeanour’ (Lavater 1885:481, rule seventy-three). Despite such references to women, overall, Lavater had little to say about them because he assumed that the main force and the norm of a society was the male.

Lavater had detractors who argued that the system of physiognomy was fallible. The most common of its weaknesses was thought to be the detection of subtefuge. It could happen that people misjudged one another or were fooled by appearances of beauty and virtue. Lavater acknowledged that it may be possible to imitate certain appearances under some circumstances but, his confident response was that long-term dissimulation was impossible. Certain parts of the body could not lie, for example, the shape of the head, eye colour, thickness or thinness of the lips and one’s general skeletal frame or boniness; these could not be disguised. Furthermore, when the individual attempted to feign a particular appearance, Lavater maintained that it would be unsuccessful. For instance, shaping one’s appearance to effect the signs of goodness and virtue would not result in the individual’s acquiring these valued attributes. The links between moral character and physical appearance were strong and true and they could not be acquired simply from the vanity of imitation. Lavater did not advance a physiognomic view that admitted to the absorption of experiences that would alter both appearance and character. So, to act and look as if one were a particular character would not result in those character traits being absorbed into one’s appearance, even if one should maintain such an act over a lengthy period of time. Indeed, this view protected Lavater from the criticism that appearances could be deceptive. Although, misjudgements and misrepresentations may occur, Lavater was confident that dissimulation could not be effected for any length of time; eventually, the true character of the individual would always be visible to the trained eye of the beholder (1885:45–9, 84).

Lavater’s system of character analysis had one hundred physiognomical rules (1885:461–91). Those parts of the body with the most rules, and which were deemed the most accurately reflective of character were the forehead (rules seven to fourteen), the wrinkles on the forehead (rules fifteen to twenty), the eyes (rules twenty-one to thirty-three), nose (rules thirty-seven to forty-four) and the mouth (rules forty-seven to fifty-six). Although Lavater confessed to knowing little about women he produced six rules about them (rules seventy-one to seventy-six). His reasoning was that if others with less knowledge of physiognomy took on the task of analysing women, they would damage the credibility of physiognomy overall; so he felt obliged to produce some rules about women in order to protect his physiognomic schema from potential misrepresentation. Lavater maintained that the practice of physiognomy was like that of philosophy, ‘a little philosophy leads to Atheism, much to Christianity’ (1885:397). By the same token, if a dilettante applied physiognomy to women, a diluted analysis would appear which could undermine the integrity of the entire system.

A bedrock belief of the physiognomic perspective was the association of similarity. Lavater strenuously advised, as did others after him, that an individual should not enter close relations with another who was physically dissimilar. In rule ninety-five, Lavater stated that ‘if thou hast a long high forehead, contract no friendship with an almost spherical head; if thou has an almost spherical head, contract no friendship with a long high bony forehead – such dissimilarity is especially unsuitable to matrimonial union’ (Lavater 1885:487). Echoing the sentiment was the nineteenth-century resident of Scarborough and ‘practical phrenologist’ Professor Blackburne, who stated in his book, Love, Courtship and Marriage (Phrenologically Considered) Wi...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I The Physiognomic Body
• Part II Signs of the Modern Self
• Part III The Fashioned Self
• Bibliography
• Index