Delicacy and Expressiveness. Part 1: Theory.

Greetings, dear fellow travelers!

I'm almost certain that anyone interested in personal style has at least once noticed various inconsistencies, oddities, and paradoxes in the interaction between the appearance of others and their surroundings. In technical terms.

I think this most often happened with color: scarlet/white/black/any other color doesn't fit into a color type and shouldn't flatter you, but it does. Or maybe the color type is bright, but only the calmest part of the palette suits you. Or maybe blue specifically doesn't suit any shade, despite being present in the palette for each color type. Because "it doesn't suit" means it doesn't harmonize with the overall look.

In terms of linearity, detail, vertical proportions, textures, scale, structure, and form, similar "riddles" are encountered. I mark them with quotation marks because I sincerely believe there is an explanation for everything—one simply needs to understand and formulate it. Whether this is necessary is a personal decision, as each artist's vision certainly has its own value. When analyzing works, I try to find a basis for each intuitive thought. Often, it is rooted in a Image type, but these are themselves the product of observation, artistic psychology, and collective perception, and are not always capable of bolstering confidence in one's guesses regarding a particular paradox.

Today I'd like to share some observations unrelated to OT or anything else (only tangentially related to the topic of linearity), which might perhaps help someone complete the puzzle. I'll be helped by photography theory, descriptions of impressions, some technical aspects, and the stars.

We will talk about the parameter that I have designated as “delicacy/expressiveness”.

I often use these terms when discussing the linearity and composition of the face, and I think they deserve a more thorough explanation.

First of all, let's talk about distortion, or as photographers simply call it, "barrel"/"pincushion".

The term "distortion" usually refers to geometric curvatures of objects and distortions of lines that appear during the process of image formation.

This is discussed in my instructions for preparing reliable typical photographs, but in this case the point is not in the lenses and their focal lengths, but in the compositional specifics of the face.

Looking at the same man, photographed at different focal lengths, and at two different Emmas, photographed from a sufficiently large distance to eliminate distortion, do you notice a similar effect? ​​Distortion without distortion. Moving away/advancing, narrowing/widening, "bulging"/"convexing," shrinking/enlarging.

Another example of geometric distortion at work, but I think it’s not difficult to imagine a woman at 200 mm and at 24 mm as two different people with different compositional balance in their faces:

Incidentally, this effect can also serve as a tool for a kind of typography: people with expressive faces often dislike their own selfies, especially frontal ones—the overlapping of "natural" and artificial distortions can exaggerate their features. For those with delicate features, the situation is usually the opposite—the selfie camera makes their features more "vivid," making them appear larger. It's a matter of taste, of course, but such an analysis can still provide some insight.

This feature can be noticed not only in the presence of a large nose – the size, especially the width, of any features can indicate a bias toward one extreme or another. Visual widening = barrel-shaped distortion. Narrowing = pincushion-shaped.

Contraction vs. expansion

Of course, this characteristic isn't so noticeable in all faces. Sometimes it's biased in one direction or another, sometimes it's almost balanced. As with the radicals in the table of characteristics, it's auxiliary and most useful for those with extreme personalities. Although, in general, any characteristic can have varying degrees of priority in constructing an image, but that's a topic for a separate article.

Let's return to delicacy and expressiveness

As mentioned above, in addition to narrowing and widening, i.e., the visual width/narrowness of facial features (mouth, eyes, nose, chin, eyebrows), distortion also indicates distance and proximity. Physically, this is expressed in the "indentation" and "convexity" of features, their retreat from the viewer and their encroachment on them.

Voluminous, prominent, often well-shaped, dense, "fleshy," visually full, weighty, and rich features are expressive. The effect of such features can be compared to that of fillers. Incidentally, they don't detract from expressive faces, but on delicate ones, they look heavy and coarse. This fact applies both to the typing process and to the creation of recommendations, but I'm afraid that will be discussed in a separate article.

Compact, deep-set, flat, thin, visually light, graceful features - delicate.

Another indicator of the dominance of one or another radical in facial composition is the visual size/smallness of the features and the face itself on the head as a whole. Hair volume, for example, can help us in this assessment. A massive head of hair can balance expressive features and completely dominate delicate ones. The example of another Roberts compared to Nicole Kidman, I think, is indicative, especially given their similar looks:

Julia Roberts vs. Nicole Kidman

The hairstyle that became one of the signature looks of the extremely expressive Julia Roberts, in Kidman's case, highlights only her sweet youthful cheeks, but overall, it seriously simplifies the look, effectively "losing face." Her features, despite a certain predatory quality, are delicate and require a different frame to emphasize their lightness and compactness. A different picture emerges when comparing photos with a more modest amount of hair in the portrait area:

Julia Roberts vs. Nicole Kidman

I hope it's noticeable that, without a mane, the balance that appeared in Kidman's look has been abandoned in Roberts. An open face paired with sleek hair, with a high degree of expressiveness, creates the appearance of imbalance and a face too large for the head, but harmonizes the composition with the delicacy of the features. The examples given, of course, also refer to suitable colors, but even these, spoiler alert, are somewhat dependent on the delicacy-expressiveness parameter.

Finally, for greater clarity, I'll give a few random examples of expressive and delicate faces. I hope this will make identifying this characteristic more accessible and, moreover, practical. But more on practice, in the second part of the article.

Peace between the outer and inner to each and everyone!

Thank you for your trust, and until next time!