Kugler’s description of these Byzantine heads is so good that I cannot refrain from giving it. He says:

“The large ill-shaped eyes stare straight forward; a deep unhappy line, in which ill-humor seems to have taken up its permanent abode, extends from brow to brow beneath the bald and heavily-wrinkled forehead. The nose has the broad ridge of the antique still left above, but is narrow and pinched below, the anxious nostrils corresponding with the deep lines on each side of them.{49}

“The mouth is small, but the somewhat protruding lower lip is in character with the melancholy of the whole picture. As long as such representations are confined to gray-headed saints and ecclesiastics they may be tolerated, but when the introduction of a kind of smirk is intended to convey the idea of a youthful countenance this type becomes intolerable. Even the Madonna. . . Read More