SOURCE: Shookman, Ellis. “Pseudo-Science, Social Fad, Literary Wonder: Johann Caspar Lavater and the Art of Physiognomy.” In The Faces of Physiognomy: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Johann Caspar Lavater, edited by Ellis Shookman, pp. 1-24. Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1993.

In the following essay, Shookman critiques the pseudo-science of physiognomy professed by Lavater, while examining its popularity, logical flaws, influence on German literature, and relationship to the visual arts.

There is nothing more likely than the conformity and relation of the body to the spirit.

Montaigne, “Of Physiognomy” (1585/88)

The face expresses a thought of nature itself: so that everyone is worth attentive observation, even though everyone may not be worth talking to.

Schopenhauer, “Physiognomy” (1851)

I

Johann Caspar Lavater once cited a portrait of Goethe to prove the point of his own Physiognomische Fragmente—that facial features signify underlying character. The portrait revealed taste, love, and productivity, Lavater wrote, traits that...