Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/697

 from the lower lip as the palate is removed from the tongue by the levator muscles of the lip and of the wings of the nose drawing it up. Each of these two muscles rises near the inner corner of the eye, and ends in two points—one of which is attached to the wing of the nose, and the other to the middle lateral half of the upper lip. When these muscles come into play, the expression of the face is modified in a striking manner. The red edge of the upper lip is drawn up in the middle of its upper half, and this part of the lip is turned over, so as to give the line of its profile a broken appearance. The wings of the nose are raised, and the naso-lateral grooves, which, beginning at these wings, continue in an oblique direction to the commissure of the lips, appear near their beginning strongly pronounced and unusually straight. A still further effect of the movement is an even folding of the skin of the back of the nose (Fig. 1). The expression thus depicted, appearing primarily with bitter tastes, is also associated with other disagreeable feelings, which have become characterized by the term bitter.

While in ordinary disagreeable representations and dispositions the skin of the forehead alone is wrinkled vertically, the bitter trait of the mouth also appears in such as are very disagreeable (Fig. 2). The significance and importance of this expression



vary essentially according to the nature of the look. If it is dull, the face bears the impress of bitter suffering, and it is a sign that the person is suffering from bitter feelings and trials; but if it is firm and energetic, the face then wears the marks of lively reaction and violent irritation. When the eyes are directed upward in ecstasy, the vertical wrinkles are of course absent, and then, while the upper lip is contracting bitterly, the face expresses a painful concentration. Such is the expression which painters have sought or should have sought to represent in the penitent