Fig. 27.
This change is sometimes made without any other, so that we get what has been called the mixed scheme, in which the eyes and mouth retain their front-view aspect. This I find very common among children of five. It may be found—even in the trunkless figure—along with a linear mouth (see above, pp. 340-344, Figs. 5 [(c)] and following, also 11 [(a)]). The nasal line is, needless to say, treated with great freedom. There is commonly a good deal of exaggeration of size. In certain cases the nose is added in the form of a spindle to the completed circle (Fig. [27]; cf. above, p. 340, Fig. 5 [(c)]).
It may well seem a puzzle to us how a normal child of five or six can complacently set down this irrational and inconsistent scheme of a human head. We must see what can be said by way of explanation later on. It is to be noticed, further, that in certain cases the self-contradiction goes to the point of doubling the nose. That is to say, although the interesting new feature, the profile nose, is introduced, earlier habit asserts itself so that the vertical nasal line appears between the two eyes (see above, p. 349, Fig. 18 [(c)]).
The further process of differentiation of the profile from the primitive full-face scheme is effected in part by adding other features than the nose to the contour. Thus a notch for the mouth appears in some cases below the nasal projection (Fig. 28 [(a)]), though the grinning front view is apt to hold its own pertinaciously. A beard, especially the short ‘imperial,’ as it used to be called, shooting out like the nose from the side, also helps to mark profile.[[259]] Less frequently an ear, and in a very few cases, hair, are added on the hinder side of the head, and assist the impression of profile. Adjuncts, especially the pipe, and sometimes the peak of the cap, contribute to the effect, as in the accompanying drawing by a boy of six (Fig. 28 [(b)]; cf. above, Figs. 6 [(a)], 18 ([c)], and 24 [(b)], pp. 341, 349, 354).[[260]]
Fig. 28 (a).
Fig. 28 (b).
At the same time the front features themselves undergo modification. The big grinning mouth is dropped and one of the eyes omitted. The exact way in which this occurs appears to vary with different children. In certain cases it is clear that the front view of the mouth cavity disappears, giving place to a rough attempt to render a side view, before the second eye is expunged; and in one case I have detected a survival of the two eyes in what otherwise would be a consistent profile drawing of head and figure (Fig. 29 [(a)]; cf. above, p. 349, Fig. 18 [(b)]). This late survival of the two eyes agrees with the results of observation on the drawings of the uncultured adult. One of General Pitt-Rivers’ African boys inserted the two eyes in a profile drawing. Von den Steinen’s Brazilians drew by preference the full face, so that we cannot well judge as to how they would have treated the profile. Yet it is curious to note that in what is clearly a drawing of a side view of a fish one of these Brazilians introduces both eyes (Fig. 29 [(b)]). The insertion of two eyes is said by some never to occur in the drawings of savages on stone, hide, etc.[[261]] But I have come across what seems to me a clear example of it, and this in a fairly good sketch of a profile view of the human figure on an Indian vase (Fig. 29 [(c)]).[[262]] Yet this late retention of the two eyes in profile, though the general rule in children’s drawings, is liable to exceptions. Thus I have found a child retaining the big front view of the mouth along with a single eye.
