Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use ItAtkinson, William Walker
Science
Memory: How to Develop, Train, and Use It
Atkinson, William Walker
Memory
Of all classes, perhaps artists are more apt to form a clear cut image
of the features of persons whom they meet--particularly if they are
portrait painters. There are instances of celebrated portrait painters
who were able to execute a good portrait after having once carefully
studied the face of the sitter, their memory enabling them to visualize
the features at will. Some celebrated teachers of drawing have
instructed their scholars to take a sharp hasty glance at a nose, an
eye, an ear, or chin, and then to so clearly visualize it that they
could draw it perfectly. It is all a matter of interest, attention, _and
practice_. Sir Francis Galton cites the instance of a French teacher who
trained his pupils so thoroughly in this direction that after a few
months' practice they had no difficulty in summoning images at will; in
holding them steady; and in drawing them correctly. He says of the
faculty of visualization thus used: "A faculty that is of importance in
all technical and artistic occupations, that gives accuracy to our
perceptions, and justice to our generalizations, is starved by lazy
disuse, instead of being cultivated judiciously in such a way as will,
on the whole, bring the best return. I believe that a serious study of
the best means of developing and utilizing this faculty, without
prejudice to the practice of abstract thought in symbols, is one of the
many pressing desiderata in the yet unformed science of education."
Fuller relates the method of a celebrated painter, which method has been
since taught by many teachers of both drawing and memory. He relates it
as follows: "The celebrated painter Leonardo da Vinci invented a most
ingenious method for identifying faces, and by it is said to have been
able to reproduce from memory any face that he had once carefully
scrutinized. He drew all the possible forms of the nose, mouth, chin,
eyes, ears and forehead, numbered them 1, 2, 3, 4, etc., and committed
them thoroughly to memory; then, whenever he saw a face that he wished
to draw or paint from memory, he noted in his mind that it was chin 4,
eyes 2, nose 5, ears 6,--or whatever the combinations might be--and by
retaining the analysis in his memory he could reconstruct the face at
any time." We could scarcely ask the student to attempt so complicated a
system, and yet a modification of it would prove useful. That is, if you
would begin to form a classification of several kind of noses, say about
seven, the well-known Roman, Jewish, Grecian, giving you the general
classes, in connection with straight, crooked, pug and all the other
varieties, you would soon recognize noses when you saw them. And the
same with mouths, a few classes being found to cover the majority of
cases. But of all the features, the eye is the most expressive, and the
one most easily remembered, when clearly noticed. Detectives rely much
upon _the expression of the eye_. If you ever fully catch the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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