thumb|Lithographic drawing illustrative of the relation between the human physiognomy and that of the brute creation, by [[Charles Le Brun (1619–1690)]]

thumb|Illustration in a 19th-century book about physiognomy

Physiognomy or face reading, sometimes known by the later term anthroposcopy, is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term physiognomy can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant (see plant life-form) or of a plant community (see vegetation).

Physiognomy as a practice meets the contemporary definition of pseudoscience and is regarded as such by academics because of its unsupported claims; popular belief in the practice of physiognomy is nonetheless still widespread and modern advances in artificial intelligence have sparked renewed interest in the field of study. The practice was well-accepted by ancient Greek philosophers, but fell into disrepute in the 16th century while practised by vagabonds and mountebanks. It revived and was popularised by Johann Kaspar Lavater, before falling from favour in the late 19th century. Physiognomy in the 19th century is particularly noted as a basis for scientific racism. Physiognomy as it is understood today is a subject of renewed scientific interest, especially as it relates to machine learning and facial recognition technology. The main interest for scientists today are the risks, including privacy concerns, of physiognomy in the context of facial recognition algorithms.

Ancient

Notions of the relationship between an individual's outward appearance and inner character date back to antiquity, and occasionally appear in early Greek poetry. Siddhars from ancient India defined as identifying personal characteristics with body features. Chinese physiognomy or Chinese face reading () dates back to at least the Spring and Autumn period.

Early indications of a developed physiognomic theory appear in 5th century BC Athens, with the works of Zopyrus (featured in dialogue by Phaedo of Elis), an expert in the art. By the 4th century BC, the philosopher Aristotle frequently referred to theory and literature concerning the relationship of appearance to character. Aristotle was receptive to such an idea, evidenced by a passage in his Prior Analytics:

The first systematic physiognomic treatise is a slim volume, (Physiognomonics), ascribed to Aristotle, but probably of his "school", rather than created by Aristotle himself. The volume is divided into two parts, conjectured as originally two separate works. The first section discusses arguments drawn from nature and describes other races (non-Greek) and concentrates on the concept of human behavior. The second section focuses on animal behavior, dividing the animal kingdom into male and female types. From these are deduced correspondences between human form and character.

After Aristotle, the major extant works in physiognomy are:

  • Polemo of Laodicea, (2nd century AD), in Greek
  • Adamantius the Sophist, (4th century), in Greek
  • An anonymous Latin author, (about 4th century)

Ancient Greek mathematician, astronomer, and scientist Pythagoras—who some believe originated physiognomics—once rejected a prospective follower named Cylon because, to Pythagoras, his appearance indicated bad character.

After inspecting Socrates, a physiognomist announced he was given to intemperance, sensuality, and violent bursts of passion—which was so contrary to Socrates's image, his students accused the physiognomist of lying. Socrates put the issue to rest by saying, originally, he was given to all these vices, but had particularly strong self-discipline.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

thumb|[[Giambattista Della Porta, (Vico Equense [Naples]: Apud Iosephum Cacchium, 1586]]

During the Islamic Golden Age, the 12th-century Persian theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Din al-Razi discussed physiognomy in his work Kitab al-Firasa (Book on Firasa), exploring the link between physical features and moral qualities. His contributions represent an early integration of physiognomic ideas within Arab thought.

The term 'physiognomy' was common in Middle English, often written as or , as in the Tale of Beryn, a spurious addition to The Canterbury Tales: .

Physiognomy's validity was once widely accepted. Michael Scot, a court scholar for Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, wrote in the early 13th century concerning the subject. English universities taught physiognomy until Henry VIII of England outlawed "beggars and vagabonds playing 'subtile, crafty and unlawful games such as physnomye or 'palmestrye'" in 1530 or 1531. Around this time, scholastic leaders settled on the more erudite Greek form 'physiognomy' and began to discourage the entire concept of 'fisnamy'.

Leonardo da Vinci dismissed physiognomy in the early 16th century as "false", a chimera with "no scientific foundation".

Modern

Johann Kaspar Lavater

thumb|upright|[[Johann Kaspar Lavater]]

The principal promoter of physiognomy in modern times was the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801) who was briefly a friend of Goethe. Lavater's essays on physiognomy were first published in German in 1772 and gained great popularity. These influential essays were translated into French and English, and influenced early criminological theory.

Lavater's critics

thumb|A page from Lavater's "Essays on physiognomy; calculated to extend the knowledge and the love of mankind (1797)"

Lavater received mixed reactions from scientists, with some accepting his research and others criticizing it.

Thomas Browne

thumb|left|upright|[[Sir Thomas Browne]]

Lavater found confirmation of his ideas from the English physician-philosopher Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682), and the Italian Giambattista Della Porta (1535–1615). Browne in his Religio Medici (1643) discusses the possibility of the discernment of inner qualities from the outer appearance of the face, and wrote:

Browne reaffirmed his physiognomic beliefs in Christian Morals (circa 1675):

Browne also introduced the word caricature into the English language, whence much of physiognomical belief attempted to entrench itself by illustrative means, in particular through visual political satire.

Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta's works are well represented in the Library of Sir Thomas Browne including Of Celestial Physiognomy, in which della Porta argued that it was not the stars but a person's temperament that influences their facial appearance and character. In De humana physiognomia (1586), della Porta used woodcuts of animals to illustrate human characteristics. Both della Porta and Browne adhered to the 'doctrine of signatures'—that is, the belief that the physical structures of nature such as a plant's roots, stem, and flower, were indicative keys (or 'signatures') to their medicinal potentials.

Period of popularity

thumb|upright|A bizarre physiognomical [[caricature with a figure blowing into the eye of the other. Oil painting by a follower of Louis-Léopold Boilly.]]

The popularity of physiognomy grew throughout the first quarter of the 18th century and into the 19th century. It was discussed seriously by academics, who believed in its potential.

Use in fiction and art

Many European novelists used physiognomy in the descriptions of their characters, and portrait artists, such as Joseph Ducreux. A host of 19th-century English authors were influenced by the idea, notably evident in the detailed physiognomic descriptions of characters in the novels of Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, and Charlotte Brontë. Descriptions over one's appearance in the written form was a way for one to gauge the character's intelligence, ability, morals, and social status. While it did provide some benefits like more accurate and detailed written descriptions of appearance, it also had a negative effect on gender, class, and race due to increased stereotyping and manipulation.

Phrenology

Phrenology, a pseudoscience that measures the bumps on the skull in order to determine mental and personality characteristics, was created around 1800 by German physician Franz Joseph Gall and Johann Spurzheim, and was widely popular in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. In the U.S., physician James W. Redfield published his Comparative Physiognomy in 1852, illustrating with 330 engravings the "Resemblances between Men and Animals". He finds these in appearance and (often metaphorically) character, e.g. Germans to Lions, Negroes to Elephants and Fishes, Chinamen to Hogs, Yankees to Bears, Jews to Goats. While phrenology and physiognomy are separate from each other, they were so closely connected during the early nineteenth century that the terms were often used in place of each other.

A prominent nineteenth century physiognomist, Samuel Wells, published New Physiognomy, or, Signs of Character in 1867 as a way to explain the principles of physiognomy and phrenology, as well as showing the connection between the two concepts. Wells included four principles to introduced readers to the subject:

  1. The brain is the special organ of the mind. The essence and mode of operation of the mind itself are inscrutable; we can only study its manifestations.
  2. The mind, though essentially a unit, is made up of about forty different faculties, each of which is manifested by means of a particular part of the brain, set apart exclusively for it and called its organ [...].
  3. When other conditions are the same, the larger the brain the stronger it is; and the larger portion of the brain occupied for the manifestation of a faculty, the stronger its manifestation.
  4. Those portions of the brain used for faculties related to each other are located together. Thus the brain is divided into regions or groups, as well into organs. The location and boundaries of these organs and regions may be best learned from the Phrenological bust, and the accompanying diagram [..].

In the late 19th century phrenology began to be taken less seriously which lead to physiognomy being regarded as a pseudoscience because of the close connection between the two.

Criminology

During the late 19th century, English psychometrician Sir Francis Galton attempted to define physiognomic characteristics of health, disease, beauty, and criminality, via a method of composite photography. Galton's process involved the photographic superimposition of two or more faces by multiple exposures. After averaging together photographs of violent criminals, he found that the composite image appeared "more respectable" than any of the faces comprising it; this was likely due to the irregularities of the skin across the constituent images being averaged out in the final blend. With the advent of computer technology during the early 1990s, Galton's composite technique has been adopted and greatly improved using computer graphics software.

Physiognomy also became of use in the field of Criminology through efforts made by Italian army doctor and scientist, Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso, during the mid-19th century, championed the notion that "criminality was inherited and that criminals could be identified by physical attributes such as hawk-like noses and bloodshot eyes". Lombroso took inspiration from Charles Darwin's recently released theories of evolution and carried many of the misunderstandings that he had regarding evolution into the propagation of the use of physiognomy in criminology. His logic stemmed from the idea that "criminals were 'throwbacks' in the phylogenetic tree to early phases of evolution".

This interest in the relationship between criminology and physiognomy began upon Lombroso's first interaction with "a notorious Calabrian thief and arsonist" named Giuseppe Villella. Upon Villella's death, Lombroso "conducted a post-mortem and discovered that his subject had an indentation at the back of his skull, which resembled that found in apes". Lombroso used the term "atavism" to describe these primitive, ape-like behaviors that he found in many of those whom he deemed prone to criminality. As he continued analyzing the data he gathered from Villella's autopsy and compared and contrasted those results with previous cases, he inferred that certain physical characteristics allowed for some individuals to have a greater "propensity to offend and were also savage throwbacks to early man". Furthermore, these ideas promoted the concept that when a crime is committed, it is no longer seen as "free will" but instead a result of one's genetic pre-disposition to savagery. These "new and improved" theories led to the notion "that the born criminal had pathological symptoms in common with the moral imbecile and the epileptic, and this led him to expand his typology to include the insane criminal and the epileptic criminal". In addition, "the insane criminal type [was said to] include the alcoholic, the mattoid, and the hysterical criminal".

20th century

In France, the concept was further developed in the 20th century under the name morphopsychology, developed by Louis Corman (1901–1995), a French psychiatrist who argued that the workings of vital forces within the human body resulted in different facial shapes and forms. The term "morphopsychology" is a translation of the French word morphopsychologie, which Louis Corman coined in 1937 when he wrote his first book on the subject, Quinze leçons de morphopsychologie (Fifteen Lessons of Morphopsychology).

Present day

Social media

Since around 2023–2024, a resurgent discourse around physiognomy has been noted on social media among both male and female users, particularly with regards to memes, face filters, and anti-feminist and incel communities. Such content has raised concern about the normalization of pseudoscience and the idea that physical characteristics are inherently associated with one's actions and social status. Examples include the perception of leftists as being unattractive and women's femininity as dependent on their skull shape. An article in Dazed argued that these pseudosciences "[play] into the appetite to categorise ourselves".

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been reported to heavily employ physiognomy, such as the ability to predict homosexuality, criminality, and political affiliation from images of faces or other records of outwards appearance. Critics have said that this is a result of the biased databases that AI systems are trained on, and have noted its use and potential weaponization by governments and corporations.

Scientific investigation

Due to its legacy of racism and junk science masquerading as criminology, scientific study or discussion of the relationship between facial features and character has become taboo. It had previously posited many links. For example, there is evidence that character can influence facial appearance. Also, facial characteristics influence first impressions of others, which influences our expectations and behavior, which in turn influences character. Lastly, there are several biological factors that influence both facial appearance and character traits, such pre- and post-natal hormone levels and gene expression.

The relationship between facial features and character traits such as political or sexual orientation is complex, but involves the fact that facial features can shape social behavior, partially as a result of the self-fulfilling prophecy effect. The self-fulfilling prophesy effect asserts that people perceived to have a certain attribute will be treated accordingly, and over time may engage in behaviors consistent with others' expectations of them. Conversely, social behavior such as addictions to drugs or alcohol, can shape facial features.

A February 2009 article in New Scientist magazine reported that physiognomy is undergoing a small revival, with research papers trying to find links between personality traits and facial traits.

This revival has continued in the 2010s with the rise of machine learning for facial recognition. For instance, researchers have claimed that it is possible to predict upper body strength and some personality traits (propensity to aggression) only by looking at the width of the face. Political orientation can also be reliably predicted. personality, and intelligence.

However, machine learning algorithms can classify faces according to other information than just facial features studied by physiognomy. This includes temporary changes to the face (makeup, facial hair style, glasses) and even circumstances completely unrelated to the face (image quality, background colors, lighting conditions). In 2017, a controversial study claimed that an AI algorithm could detect sexual orientation 'more accurately than humans' (in 81% of the tested cases for men and 71% for women), For more information on this sexual orientation issue in general, see gaydar.

In media

  • In 2011, the South Korean news agency Yonhap published a physiognomical analysis of the current leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.
  • In the TV series Doctor Who, as the Fourth Doctor examines his new face after regenerating in Robot, he comments on his physiognomy saying "As for the physiognomy, well, nothing's perfect."
  • The newspaper Ukrainska Pravda reported, "The fact that Putin uses [body] doubles is suggested by the intelligence data of the Ukrainian secret services and conclusions made by several specialists, in particular physiognomists."

See also

  • Sanpaku

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  • Anthropological criminology
  • Anthropometry
  • Characterology
  • Mien Shiang
  • Metoposcopy
  • Onychomancy
  • Palmistry
  • Pathognomy
  • Phrenology
  • Somatotype and constitutional psychology

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Claudia Schmölders, Hitler's Face: The Biography of an Image. Translated by Adrian Daub. University of Pennsylvania Press: 2006. .
  • Liz Gerstein, About Face. SterlingHouse Publisher, Inc.
  • Rüdiger Campe and Manfred Schndier, Geschichten der Physiognomik. Text-Bild-Wissen, (Freiburg: Rombach, 1996).
  • Johann Kaspar Lavater On The Nature of Man, Which is the Foundation of the Science Which is called Physiognomy 1775
  • Selected images from: Della Porta, Giambattista: De humana physiognomonia libri IIII (Vico Equense, 1586). Historical Anatomies on the Web. National Library of Medicine.
  • Women's traits 'written on face' (BBC News Wednesday, 11 February 2009)
  • "On Physiognomy" – An Essay by Arthur Schopenhauer
  • "Composite Portraits", by Francis Galton, 1878 (as published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, volume 8).
  • "Enquiries into Human Faculty and its Development", book by Francis Galton, 1883.
  • French Society for Morphopsychology

de:Physiognomik