Springfield globe-republic. (Springfield, Ohio) 1884-1887, 1886-07-22
A COMPOSITE PORTRAIT.
A COLLECTIVE LIKENESS OF TWeN-
TY YOUNG COLLEGE GIRLS.

Interesting Results Obtained bv Means
of an Extraordinary Invention-sOme-
thing Fascinating to the Imagination.
Alteration of n Photographer.
Before me stands a cabinet photograph Of a
young girl, with clear and thoughtful eyes.
dark hair and eyebrows. oval face. straight
hose, and wcll-rOunded chin. All who see il
aTc attracted 10y it, Vet the universe would br
v;rinly searched for the original i'll a woman's
form IL Is one of those wonders Of recent
art known as composite portraits it does
not represent one person, but twenty; it Is
the collective Likeness of twenty young girls
one whole section of the senior class of a
woman's college i'll Massachusetts
| remember that when Mr.. Francis Galton,
the originator of this extraordinary invention,
gave me III LOrdun, eight years ago, some eX-
planatiOn Of his project, il seemed to me as
astounding if he had promised Ia photo
graph the unspuken thoughts of the human
mind Ii grew, believe, out Of his studies in
that "HcrNiitarv Descent" ON which he has
written a book Interesting. His first aim
was to take several faces Of the same family,
presumably IssS~~Ssing something in common,
and. by phutographng them Succe>Sively upon
a prepared plate Ia eliminate and omit what
ever was individual in each, preserving only
what they had i'll common the pure type, or
family look Succeeding in this the art has
been carried much farther. being next applied
To men of like pursuits, extracting from a
dozen mathCmaticians, for instance, the char
aCteriStic mathematical face, whatever it is
from dozen pbilologists the face that marks
the student of language-and 50 on.
PERPETUATIoN OF YOUTH AND BEAUTY.
Many such typical faces have been engraved
in scientific journals, but it is only lately that
the proceSS has been applied to the peTIetua-
ton of youth and beauty, or to that suhsti-
tute for beauty which youth puts into every
woman's face When we have, i'll addition,
the type of intellect represented in higher
studies, the result becomes duubly interesting.
Ever since TennySon wrote his "l'rinG,ass' the
newspapers have been quoting his pleasing
ALTERATION Of the sweet glrl graduates, but
the girl graduate herself has never been pho
tographed in collective unity before. Yet
here she stands.
The process Is not so magical as it seems,
and the composite portrait can be made either
from the separate living faces or from pho
tOgraphS previously taken. The former course
is more direct, and gives the better represen-
tation: but the latter has the advantage of
excluding all motion i'll the sitter, and there
fore effecting Surer result. \ photograph
plate is prepared for what is called the long
process" and is to be exposed perhaps for an
hour On this plate are to he ere-phOtOgraphed
in succession, we will say, twenty pho
tographs of young girls For each of these
twenty can he allowed thpe minutes
making sixty in all; that it is if one sat
for three minutes to lie photographed, then
another. then another, all being thus finally
Represented on the same plate, and each modi-
flying the lineaments previously taken. The
result is that at the end you Obtain the av-
erage or typical face of the whole twenty. 1T
is of course necessary to fix each face at the
same centre, this being usually or always
taken at the point between the eyes; and
hence there is always little less sharpness
and precision about the lower part of the
face. For this reason the mouth and chin of
a composite portrait are rarely quite 50 salts
factory as the eyes and brow; but in that he
fore me even the chin is well defined, and of
a youthful roundness No one who has not
previously heard of the new discovery doubts
its being the likeness of an individual person,
though Observers are apt to remark little
ilslL hbbh aAN'ht ~ SS II ~ 'iArib ~ behNNiA
from n craynn drawing.
FASCINATING THE IMAGINATION.
There is something very fascinating to the
imagination about "a composite portrait 1t
Is a link between the real and the ideal, the
photographer emulating with more precision
the constructive imagination of the painter.
RuSkin used to laugh at artists who tried 10
put upon their canvas some four-legged crea-
ture that should lie the generalization between
a pony and pig; Yet here is IA generalization
between Mary and Charlotte, between Kate
and Caroline. 1t carries US into a world Of
dreams: into "PlatO's Theory of Ideas" or
that fine conception SO impreSSively worked
out by Milton. in one Of his Latin poems, of
PlatO'S arChetypal man, the grand ideal Of
the human race, coeval with the stars, and
dwelling among them. or pacing the regions
Of the earth vet uneXplored by actual men
and women. Or il takes us into Poe's worlds
of phantom; or among the conceptions of one
of our most imaginative younger writers,
Edward Bellamy, who in Miss Ludingtons
Sister" fanCies an elderly woman as believing
in the Immortality of her past self, and as
finally obtaining through a spiritual medium
the materialized anage of herself at eighteen
IA Young crea ture whom she adopts a
sister.
So is this pretty portrait the more than
twin sister of each of these twenty young
girls; for each of them it is herself and Yet
not herself; it is herself modified in face, as
she really is more Cr less in character, by the
companionship of all the rest; it represents
their common life, and will ever remain with
them as the image OF their collective youth.
But how hopeless the Position of some modern
Pygmalion, turned photographer, and falling
in love with the goddess of his own creation
There would no longer, to De sure, be any
difficulty i'll warming her into life; the trouble
is that when made alive she would not lie one
woman, but twenty, and the alteration of the
enamored artist would have to be 50 sub
divided as TO be scarcely worth receiving
It. W. IL" in Harpers Bazaar.