A profile of tenderness

On a certain occasion I was riding in a mortician’s vehicle as we led a procession of cars to a cemetery. “You know,” commented the mortician, “I can tell a great deal about a person I have never met by the lines in the face of each person I work on.” Why could he have said that?

Life has a way of writing the story of your life, no matter what it is, in the lines of your face – lines that cosmetics cannot camouflage and plastic surgeons cannot entirely remove. The faces of some reflect harshness – the tightness of a smile, the lines that crease the forehead and the way eyes often reflect a kind of deadness. Others, well up in years, have eyes that sparkle and smiles that warm your heart. Some are old at 30; others are young at 80.

Questioned by some but embraced by others is the story told of the great artist Leonardo da Vinci, who sought models whose visages inspired him as he painted the famous “The Last Supper” on the wall of the monastery in Milan. But as time went on, the painting was unfinished, and no suitable person could be found to portray the face of Judas.

In desperation da Vinci approached the governor, who opened the prison for him to select an appropriate model. Da Vinci chose a criminal whose face was hardened by sin, and he was brought to the studio. As da Vinci worked, to his great surprise, the man revealed that in his youth he had been in the same studio; da Vinci had painted his boyish face as that of the Christ. The journey from gentleness to harshness was written in his face. Your face reveals the real you.