Physiognomy

1775

Johann Kaspar Lavater (1741–1801)

Physiognomy is part of the long history of human beings “reading” the physical body as a way to understand themselves and others. In the Western world, as the power of exact sciences grew to explain more and more natural phenomena, the reliance on such earlier systems declined but did not disappear. Especially for those without access to education and formal learning, the body remained a resource for interpreting the world. This was the case during the Industrial Revolution as modes of life changed from rural and small town to urban, and from farm labor or small shop employment to factory life.

Physiognomy was an ancient system of understanding human character that was revived and popularized in the late eighteenth century by the Swiss pastor Johann Kaspar Lavater. He created a systematic effort to link the outward appearance to inner character and ability. Lavater published his physiognomic system in four well-illustrated volumes (1775–1778), which remained in print for over a century. The illustrations could be used by anyone to discover their dispositions and abilities, which were later called personality and intelligence.

Lavater proposed that his system could help people understand their own nature and feelings, as well as those of others, thus making self- and social management easier. Because its target was the inner life of the person, physiognomy played the role of everyday or practical psychology and prepared societies for the emergence of scientific psychology.

Physiognomy appealed to people in all stations of life, from elites like the philosopher Immanuel Kant to novelists like Jane Austen to uneducated nonelites. For novelists, the use of physiognomic language served as a shorthand for explaining their characters. Although physiognomy and its younger offshoot, Phrenology, would inevitably be used by some to justify the superiority of certain ethnic groups, it also created a psychological language with which to understand themselves and their neighbors’ feelings, similarities, and differences.

SEE ALSO Palmistry (c. 5000 BCE), Phrenology Comes to America (1832), Somatotypes (1925)

An engraving of Johann Kaspar Lavater.

“Method of Silhouetting” from Lavater’s Essays on Physiognomy, 1789. The silhouette was one way of clearly examining the facial features that were so important for determining the physiognomic character of a person.