The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1886-07-30
A COMPOSITE PORTRAIT.
A COLLECTIVE LIKENESS OF TWEN-
TY YOUNG COLLEGE GIRLS


os N Extrasrdinary Inveatien-sems-
tAiag Fascinating to the ImAsi.ation.
Adorstisa Of Photographer.
Before me stands . cabinet photograph Of .
young girl, with clear ami thoughtful eyes,
dark hair and eyebrows. oval face. straight
nosa, and wellrouni.si chin AL Who ssss it
sre attracted by it, yes the universe would bs
vainly sar'hei for the original in wonlan's
form IL ID one Of thoss wonders II res,ent
at known As ''omlssits Portraits il doss
not repressnt QUE person, hut twenty; IL Is
the collective likeness of twenty young girls
ono whole section ~ the senior class of =
woalAnS college in Massachusetts,
lremembsr that when Mr. Francis Galtoo,
ths originator VI this extraordinary invention,
gave me in London, eight years ago, some ex-
planation VI his protst, it sselsd IA NE a.
astounding rs il he hai promised To photo
graph the unspoken thoughts u the human
mind. II grew, believe, out II his stulss in
written back so interesting Ills iirst aim
Was to take several fass of the same family
presumably possessing something in common,
and, by photograp hing them sac,s~sively upon
prepared plate, to eliminate ami omit what
ever was individual in each, preserving only
what they had in common, the pure tyIe, OF
family Luk. Succesiins in this, the art has
bten carrisi much farther. haing next applied
To men of like pursuits, extracting from a
dozen matlsnlaticians, for instance, the char
acteristic mathematical face, whatever II is
n a "a.
the student of Language AMI so on
PERPEruArioN % YorTu AND BEAUTY,
Many such typical faces have lsen engraved
In scientific journals, hut il is only lately that
the process has lsen applied u the l~rletua-
tion VI youth ami beauty, or to that suisti-
tute for sauty which youth puts into every
woman's face When we have, IN addition,
the type of intellect represented In higher
studies, thu result heronles doubly interesting.
Ever since Tennyson wrote his "princ,ss' the
newspapers have been quoting his pleasing
ALTERATION of the 'sweet girl graduates, but
tho girl graduate herself has never hspn pho
tOgralhnl in collective unity lsdoe, Yet
here she stands.
The prUpss Is not 50 magical as II seems,
and the comp site portrait can tpe made either
from the separate living fs,ys OF from pho
tOgrapls previously taken. The former course
h more direct, AMI gives the better represen-
tation; but the latter has tho advantage VI
excluding all motion In the sitter, and there
fore efYecting surer result A photograph
plate Ia prepared for what Is called the long
process" and Is 10 be exposed perhaps for al
hour. On this plate are tO be ~ photographed
In succession, wo will say, twenty pho
togrnphs Of young girls. For each OF these
twenty can be allOwcd three minutes
making sixty In all; 50 that II " as IL one sat
for three minutes to bc photographed, then
another, then another, all leing thus finally
represented ON the same plate, and each muii.
flying the lincanlcnts previously taken. Tho
result Is that ut the end you obtain the av-
erage or typical face Of the whole twenty. II
h of course necessary to fix each face ut the
san,e centre, this being usually or always
taken ut the point between the eyes, and
hence there il always littlo less sharpness
and precision about the lower part Of the
face For this reason the mouth and chin Of
Q composite portrait are rarely quite 81 salts
factory ~ thu eyes and brow; but In that le-
fore nle even the chin is we'll defined, and Of
4 youthful roumlnss No one who has not
previously heard Of the new discovery doubts
its being the likeness Of an individual person,
though Observers are apt 10 remark little
hazy look about 1t, as IL it might TO taken
from crayon drawing.
FASCINATING THE IMAGINATION.
There Is something very fascinating to the
| uI..,,rk tn,xtta tslrf
Is q link between the real and the ideal, the
photographer elnulating with more precision
the constructive Imagination Of the painter.
Ruskin usei 10 laugh at artists who tried to
put upon their canvas some four-legged crea-
ture that should 10 the generalization between
pony and pig; yet here Is generalization
between Mary and Charlotte, between Kate
and Caroline. II carries US into world of
dreams; into "platos Theory Of Ideas or
that fine conception 50 impressively worked
out BY Milton, in one Of his Latin poems ol
Platos archetypal man, the grand ideal OF
ths human race, coeval with the stars, and
dwelling among them, or pacing the regions
Of the earth yet unexplored by actual men
and women. Or It takes US into POe's worlds
Of phantom; or among the conceptions Of one
OF our most Imaginative younger writer's
Edward Bellamy, who In "Miss Ludington,
Sister fancies an elderly woman as believing
In the immortality VI her past self, and a
finally obtaining through spiritual medium
the materialiud image Of herself at eighteen
"A young creature whom she adopts as d
sister.
10 Is this pretty portrait the more than