This canon of proportions is applicable to any adult head, masculine or feminine, young or old, with the exception of the child’s head, whose canon will be studied later.

Fig. 4. — Notice first of all that the canon of this head is equal to three and a half times the height of the forehead, this being therefore the module or basic measurement that determines the proportion of the rest. In practice, to construct a face, we note that:

By dividing the height of the head into three and a half units by drawing horizontal lines, we obtain the place and the proportion of the following elements:

Fig. 5. — We then notice that this same module of the forehead, applied to the width of the head, divides this width into two and a half units. Considering this division and the previous one, we can establish the following rule for construction: the height and the width of the human head, seen from the front, give a rectangle or rectangular frame, three and a half units high by two and a half units wide (example: if we take a unit of measurement of 4 cm, we obtain: 4 × 3.5 = 14 cm high; and 4 × 2.5 = 10 cm wide).

I advise you to draw a rectangle that has these measurements.

Fig. 6. — If we now fix the vertical and horizontal centre of this rectangular frame, we obtain on the vertical the place of the nose and the mouth, on the horizontal that of the eyes. From this operation, we can deduce the following rule, very important for the construction of the human head:

Fig. 7. — If we divide parts F and G in two (or, which comes to the same thing, if we divide the total width of the rectangular frame into five parts), we then determine the dimension of the eyes. Notice this very important fact: the distance that separates the two eyes is equal to the length of one eye… as if a third one existed in the middle.

Thanks to this last comparison, we also note that the width of the chin is approximately equal to the fifth part of the width of the face (length H).

Fig. 8. — Finally, the place of the mouth coincides — in the profile of the lower lip — with a line that divides the module or basic unit I in two. Here is determined the canon of the human head seen from the front: it is a very simple formula for placing the proportions.

Let us now observe this same head seen in profile and drawn from this same canon.

Fig. 9. — Using the same canon, we see that the height as well as the width of the head are equal to three and a half times the height of the forehead. We can therefore say that: the dimensions of the human head, viewed in profile, correspond exactly to a square.

Fig. 10. — As for the exact place and proportion of the different parts of the head — eye, nose, mouth, etc. — it is enough to know that:

I. — The horizontal divisions already drawn on the head seen from the front serve equally to place the point where we must draw the eyebrow, the eye, the nose, the ear, the mouth, etc.; it will therefore suffice to transpose these divisions to obtain, in principle, the situation of these elements.

II. — If we subdivide into three parts the module or unit of measurement J, we obtain different reference points that allow us to draw the facial angle and at the same time control the place of the eyebrow, the eye, the nose, etc.

With the help of the other explanations in this book, to draw a head with the same ease with which you already draw a vase or a chair. I also advise you to have a pencil and paper at hand to practise and better remember these data…

Have you made this attempt? Have you managed to draw a head following this canon? Isn’t it easy?

But do not limit yourself to drawing it only once. Repeat these different operations several times, until you can really carry them out from memory, without looking at the previous illustrations. This is the first step to take — necessary and indispensable — to learn to draw a head, a face, to make a portrait.

THE HUMAN HEAD IS SYMMETRICAL

Here is another general principle that you must remember.

We have two eyes, two ears, two cheekbones, etc., which, seen from the front, present an identical form and dimensions; as for the nose, the mouth and the chin, they seem divided into two identical parts; thus, by dividing the drawing of a face seen from the front in the middle, we would obtain on the left side the exact and inverse replica of the right side.

All these preliminaries are explained because they lead us to a conclusion of extreme importance for drawing the human head. Here it is:

For us, this axis of symmetry is an essential factor on which the proportion and construction of the face rest. However, before dealing with it, let us take a quick look at this form called…

THE HUMAN SKULL

We will make abstraction of the traditional list of bones, which begins with the frontal and ends with the lower jaw passing through the malar bone; for — with the permission of certain books or methods that seem written more for doctors than for artists — I allow myself to think that osteology or the science that studies the bones does not concern draughtsmen.

We only have to study the bones of the head in order to know how to draw the head, limiting ourselves to recalling its form and its mechanism in broad lines. We must remember how the human skull is made.

Let us see the decisive influence of its structure on the form of the head, which does not happen with the other parts of the skeleton. Looking for example at the black outline above that surrounds the skull and represents the external limit of the head, we realise that on the jaw, the cheekbones, the forehead and the scalp, the thickness of the muscles and tissues is tiny; it is the form of the skull itself that models the features of the face.

It is therefore logical to think first of all, when drawing a head, of its skeleton, remembering that for us it is the schematic form, or basic form, which must serve us to frame the drawing of the head.

The view of the human skull also reminds us that it is composed of two essential parts: the cranium proper and the face (composed of an upper block and the lower jaw), the latter being the only bony part capable of moving when we open or close the mouth to speak, eat, laugh, cry, etc.

But let us return to the question of framing, for the previous paragraph concerns expression, which we will deal with later. Let us analyse the human skull, without bothering with details, and see only the basic forms for placing.

THE FUNDAMENTAL STRUCTURE OF THE HUMAN HEAD

Seen in profile, the human head can essentially be reduced to the form of a sphere under which we add the schematic line of the jaw; we must not forget that line A presents an inclination of about eighty degrees, which corresponds to the facial angle of the white race. Then, by calculating by eye on this inclined line the divisions that correspond to “three and a half modules” (remember what has just been studied), we can place and proportion without any other problem the nose, the mouth, the eye, etc. (fig. 15).

For the head seen from the front, the basic form of the sphere is slightly modified on the sides, which become a little flattened. Then, the rest of the framing is given by the shape of the jaw… and this line that we have called “axis of symmetry of the face”, on which it will suffice to calculate the three and a half divisions of the modules to place and proportion the different parts of the face. Notice that to place and construct in this case, we determine by eye the place of the eyes, that is to say by an approximate calculation, knowing that they are under the eyebrows, that each has the length of the fifth part of the face and that between them there is the place of another eye (fig. 14).

In view of what follows, it is interesting for us to remember, in this framing or basic structure, the place of the separation line B, which determines the placement of the eyebrows. Notice that this line, on the face seen both in profile and from the front, is located exactly at the centre of the sphere.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE HUMAN HEAD

(I allow myself to warn you that if you have not studied and practised thoroughly what precedes, it is useless to pretend to continue. Forgive me for insisting, but… I believe so much in these rules to help you definitively solve this difficult problem: the drawing of a head or a face!)

As if we were going to start again, but knowing and remembering now what has been previously studied, let us see the procedure to follow to place a head whatever its position.