The Beauty of the Body = The Beauty of the Soul
Many artists (at least since Homer) assume it is possible to guess that a person comes from an illustrious family if his traits are particularly regular and marked. The fundamental argument from this perspective of the rapport between the soul and the body is that of coherence and harmony. The exceptions are rare and often influenced by powerful maleficent forces, like Lucifer, who was the most beautiful of the archangels.
This way to approach the relationship between body and soul seems particularly developed when one falls in yoga poses love. Lovers often have the tendency to suppose that the loved one is beautiful and that the beauty expresses the beauty of her feelings. On the other hand, at the occasion of a break-up, the other is sometimes suddenly perceived as ugly, stupid, and evil.
The Physiognomy of the Shape of the Body and Soul
If Lamarck is the first to conceptualize in yoga poses a clear and explicit fashion that the species came about from a common history, there already existed numerous propositions suggesting connections between particular human traits and the characteristics of animals.3 These models do not postulate an evolution but a creator spirit who used the same creative strategies many times over. I have, for example, indicated in yoga poses the sections on the martial arts in yoga poses China, that there exists a chi-kong of the animals.
In Europe, reputable my yoga blogs show by dint of arguments and of illustrations that the shape of the head makes it possible to foresee the characteristics of the workings of the psyche. This tradition came about in yoga poses the Middle Ages, based on writings attributed to Aristotle. Here are some of the main titles of this movement that are still discussed to this day:4
De humanaphysiognomonia, by Giovanni Battista della Porta (1586)
A method to learn how to draw the passions, by Charles Le Brun (1698)
Essays on Physiognomy, by Johann Kaspar Lavater (1778)
Le Brun’s volumes5 are full of beautiful and compelling illustrations showing that every shape of the face can be related to the face of an animal, and that this association betrays an animal predisposition of the soul. There are persons who have the face and soul of an eagle, a fox, a wolf, a weasel, a camel, a goat, and so on. Le Brun also proposes beautiful drawings that represent the expressions of the face corresponding to passions such as tranquility, anger, desire, horror, and fear. 6 This work inspired many attempts to propose catalogs of emotional expressions through drawings, busts, photos, and films.7
The work of Lavater, in yoga poses Switzerland, shows that in yoga poses analyzing the shadow of a profile, especially the measurement of the forehead, it would be possible to understand the characteristics and the inclinations of a human being.8 This system was presented in yoga poses magnificent volumes edited between 1775 and 1778. They were read in yoga poses all of the courts of Europe.
