Thus I gained possession of an aesthetic fact of the first rank, and I
was as amazed at my discovery as I was surprised that I had not observed
sooner a self-evident movement, whose powerful and expressive character
seems fundamentally connected with the actions of the head. "How stupid
I am," I thought, "not to have remarked so evident an action of an agent
which leads the head itself. How could I let this movement of the
shoulder escape me!" And I revelled in the pleasurable triumph of
reproducing and contemplating expressions which I could not have
rendered previously without dishonoring them. Thenceforth I understood
without a doubt all the importance of this latest discovery. But this
importance, clearly proven as it was, was not yet fully explained to me.
Thus, I knew henceforth the necessity for movements of the shoulder, but
I was still ignorant of their motive cause; and I was reluctant to be
longer ignorant. I foresaw a concomitance of relations between this
movement of the shoulder and the expression of the head.
The shoulder, then, became, in its turn, the chief object of my
studies, and I gained therefrom clear and indisputable principles.
In this way I managed to form the bases of my discovery. The mothers
whom I had seen bending their heads over the children on whom they
gazed, thus revealed something unreserved and touching; and in my
ignorance the important part which the shoulder played in the attitude
had escaped me.
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