The Oval and Cross

Abstract

Just as apprentice musicians were taught a repertory of music schemas, so apprentice artists had to learn a repertory of visual schemas. One of the most common of these was the “oval and cross,” used to sketch the human head. The oval gave the outline of the skull while the cross (with religious symbolism) merged a vertical line for the nose with a horizontal line for the eyes. There was often a second horizontal line for the mouth. Apprentice artists had to learn to sketch the oval and cross in relation to any position of the head. Similar schemas were learned for eyes, ears, noses, hair, torsos, hands, feet, clothing, and so forth. Drawing manuals from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries provided examples to be copied.