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Anatomical and geometric sketches of eight skulls with various facial angles.
Anatomical sketches of various facial angles.

Anatomist and artist Pieter Camper introduces the "facial angle" as a way to racially differentiate skulls.

1770

HISR
BEAU
RAC
EUR
SRA
Anatomical sketches of various facial angles.

Camper creates this angle by drawing a line coming from the forehead, to the tip of the jaw, to a line coming from the ear to the bottom of the nose. He uses this angle to demonstrate a higher "European" forehead with a less pronounced jaw as closest to his (anatomically-impossible) Greco-Roman ideal of beauty. He then names the African facial structure as the furthest from his ideal.