Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 46 (3) 2018   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2018.46.3.146-152

Annotation:  The Discovery of a Bifacial Industry in Vietnam Technological Development of the Neolithic Pottery at Göytepe (West Azerbaijan) Reconstruction of Extreme Paleoclimatic Events in Northwestern Siberia Using Ancient Wood from Fort On the Construction Features of Wheeled Vehicles in Iran and Mesopotamia (Third to First Millennia B The Adaptation of the Seima-Turbino Tradition to the Bronze Age Cultures in the South of the West Si A Half of a Metal Bipartite Mold of the Seima-Turbino Period from the Upper Irtysh Region Zotino III: An Early Iron Age Metallurgical Center in the Trans-Urals Middle and Late Bronze Age House-Building in the Steppe and Forest-Steppe Altai Artistic Metalwork Found Near the Tomskaya Pisanitsa Cultural Ties Across Taiga and Steppe: Material Culture from the Medieval Lower Angara River and Pro Bronze Plaques from Northern Kyrgyzstan with Representations of Horsemen Kimak and Chu-mu-kun 處木昆: Notes on an Identification Traditional Buryat Burials: Changes and Stereotypes Substitute Offering: An Ob Ugrian Ritual Tradition Surviving in the 20th and Early 21st Century Seventeenth Century Siberia as a Land of Opportunity: Social Mobility Among the Russian Pioneers Deciduous Human Teeth from the Upper Paleolithic Site of Yudinovo, Western Russia Realism of Face Depiction in Portraiture   

Realism of Face Depiction in Portraiture

M.O. Vergeles

Anuchin Research Institute and Museum of Anthropology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Mokhovaya 11, Moscow, 125009, Russia

This study presents an analysis of the realism of portraiture in the context of physical anthropology. Standard descriptive traits, such as the development of the upper eyelid fold, nasal profile, etc., were scored on 120 portraits. To examine the accuracy of painters’ renditions, these traits were assessed on 30 pairs of portraits of the same people painted by different painters, and on 30 pairs of portraits with photographs of the same people. For each trait, the mean difference of scores was calculated. The mean differences are within the scoring error, indicating the painters’ high accuracy in rendering facial features. Next, four composite portraits were generated, two relating to 15th–16th century French aristocrats, and two to the 15th–17th century Dutch population, mainly that of Amsterdam. Composite portraits for every geographic region are virtually identical, suggesting that they represent a specific population rather than just a total of individual data. Also, even though painters might have been somewhat imprecise in depicting individual faces, these inaccuracies are averaged out in composite representations. In sum, portraiture is a very informative source of anthropometric information.

Keywords: Composite portraits, portraiture, descriptive facial features, French aristocrats, Holland.