Drawing Physiognomy: The Complete Zoomorphic Archive

Background The physiognomic heuristics of reading faces has always been regarded as a major form of non-verbal communication, demonstrated today by the 24 billion selfies uploaded to Google in 2018. Since recorded antiquity, and across cultures, the impulse to find meaning behind the external appearance of humans has included comparisons with other animals. The Pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica (c. 300 BC) and Polemon’s Physiognomy in both its Graeco-Roman derivatives and Graeco-Arabic versions in Medieval Islam develop theories of physiognomy based on similarity to animals. Contribution The exhibition features 95 etchings, (average size 45 x 20 cm.) all printed on continuous sheets from rolls of Velin Arches, that ringed the circumference of the Gallery. The majority of the etching/aquatints consisted of human/animal comparisons adapted from in a range of physiognomy and drawing manuals from sixteenth century to today. Significance The exhibition demonstrated that, what Gombrich described as physiognomic perception, is not only of vital importance for portrait artists but is also the foundation of the differentiation between humans and other animals that established the idea of race. More significantly, the exhibition acts as a metaphor for the idea developed particularly in the Islamic physiognomic traditions that each human was a microcosm of the animal world epitomizing infinitely varying degrees of the characteristics found across all living creatures.