"Half-length" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beginning she dragged Wilhelm to a photographer's studio and disclosed to him, when it was too late to beat a retreat, that he was to be photographed. What for? A fancy of hers—she wanted to have his likeness. Half-length, full-length, full-face, profile. Only when the pictures were sent home did he discover, that she did not want them for herself, but to send to her mother. It was high time she should see what the man was ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... A half-length,—the face and physique superb. Of what color were the hair and eyes the neutral tints of the picture gave no hint; the brow princely, breaking the perfect oval of the face; eyes piercing and full; the ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson
... sufficiently interested in my narrative to care that I should tell them something of what she was like. Plainly as I see her, I can not do more for them than that. I can not give a portrait of her; I can but cast her shadow on my page. It was a dainty half-length, neither tall nor short, in a plain, well-fitting dress of black silk, with linen collar and cuffs, that rose above the counter, standing, in spite of displeasure, calm and motionless. Her hair was dark, and dressed ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... threshold of the dining-room, where a butler and two footmen waited. The husband and wife took their places opposite each other in the stately panelled room, which contained six famous pictures. Over the mantelpiece was a half-length Gainsborough, one of the loveliest portraits in the world, a miracle of shining colour and languid grace, the almond eyes with their intensely black pupils and black eyebrows looking down, as it seemed, contemptuously upon this after generation, so incurably lacking in its own supreme refinement. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... portrait of Colleoni in a round above the great door, executed with spirit, though in a bravura style that curiously anticipates the decline of Italian sculpture. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with prominent cheek bones and strong jaws, this animated, half-length statue of the hero bears the stamp of a good likeness; but when or by whom it was made, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... by the rich banker and patron of the arts, Agostino Chigi, where he met Raphael, and with astonishing versatility succeeded as well in emulating the excellences of that master as he had those of Bellini and Giorgione. The half-length Daughter of Herodias bequeathed to the National Gallery by George Salting is dated 1510, and in 1512 he painted the famous Fornarina in the Uffizi, which until the middle of the last century was supposed to be a chef d'oeuvre of Raphael. To this period also belongs the S. John ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... has six pictures, the majority portraits. No. 80, 'Portrait of a Lady,' half-length, is a pleasing picture; warm in color and carefully painted, and gives evidence of rising talent. The head is perhaps slightly deficient in careful drawing; but few artists are competent to paint a lady's portrait; and this gentleman should not feel discouraged, though his work be found slightly ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... that of my host, but not him of the mansion. Over the mantelpiece, the features staringly like, but so ridiculously exaggerated that they scarcely resembled those of a human being, daubed evidently by the hand of the commonest sign-artist, hung a half-length portrait of him of round of beef celebrity—my sturdy host ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... to his words, he checked himself in an involuntary imitation of two half-length stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were represented as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a fragment of a song. It was a Bacchanalian song, something about a Sparkling Bowl. ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... pictures by Holbein (that is, the Father of Hans Holbein) of the Fugger family—containing nine figures, portraits, of the size of life: dated 1517 and deserving of notice. An old woman veiled, half-length, by J. Levens: very good. Here are two Lucas Cranachs, which I should like to purchase; but am fearful of dipping too deeply into Madame Francs's supplemental supply. One is a supposed portrait (it is a mere supposition) of Erasmus and his mistress; the other is an old man ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Three • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... not conceive that I do, in declaring abhorrence and contempt of such perversions of 'sentiment,' however 'holy' you may call them. Hideous as they are, however, they are less hideous than the half-length apologies for them on the part of cultivated and civilized human beings, like our 'spiritual' infidels. Your tenderness is ludicrously misplaced. I wonder whether the same apology would extend to those exercises of simple-minded 'faith' in which it ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... introduce both their portraits into one picture and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. This plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room which it was intended to decorate. Two half-length portraits were therefore fixed upon. After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influence over their fates the painter was ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the surviving arches on the northern and eastern sides of the space beneath the tower. Here there is an aggregation of columns, with moulded bases and capitals, and banded in the centre, varied by the introduction of half-length shafts resting on sculptured corbels. The central area is nearly square, but has been formed into an octagon by an arcading, on a series of clustered columns, from each of which spring the moulded ribs of the ceiling. These ribs are of Bath stone, and after an elaborate ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield • George Worley
... bronze was much admired both in London and Paris, where it was seen in the Exposition of 1900. In 1901 she executed a fountain with a figure of a nymph for a garden in Paris; a year later, a second fountain for W. Palmer, Esq., Ascot. She has made a half-length figure of Kubelik. Her sculptured portraits include those of Sir Henry Ponsonby, Mme. Calve, Mrs. Walter Palmer, and a bust of the late Queen, in ivory, which she ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the impression of the second of the oval seals. The centre was divided into two portions. Above was the half-length figure of a saint holding a closed book in his hand, and below was a youth with long hands in the act of adoration. Between them was a scroll upon which was written: "Sc. Martine O.P.N.," while around the seal were the words ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... origin noticeable in the head of St. John on the charger, as it appears in each of these works. All of them again show a family resemblance in this particular respect to the interesting full-length Judith at the Hermitage, now ascribed to Giorgione, to the over-painted half-length Judith in the Querini-Stampalia Collection at Venice, and to Hollar's print after a picture supposed by the engraver to give the portrait of Giorgione himself in the character of David, the slayer of Goliath.[26] The sumptuous but much-injured Vanitas, which is No. ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... a lunch room and four parlors for the social life of the students and the use of the Alumnae Association. The possession of this building and Catherine Strong Hall, the two connected by a cloistered walk, has added greatly to the enjoyment and convenience of the women students. Miss Eddy's half-length portrait of Miss Anthony hangs over the chimney-piece in the largest parlor and these rooms furnish a homelike place for their smaller social gatherings: larger affairs, such as the alumnae dinner, are held ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... enchanted beyond my hopes, on coming to Naples on a day of grand festival in honor of Santa Agatha. Cranch sends soon to America a picture of the Campagna, such as I saw it on my first entrance into Rome, all light and calmness; Hicks, a charming half-length of an Italian girl, holding a mandolin: it will be sure to please. His pictures are full of life, and give the promise of some ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... of Christian antiquaries, author of the fragrant Vulgate version of the [106] Scriptures. Alessandro and Jerome support the Mother and the Child in the central place. But the loveliest subjects of this fine group of compositions are in the corners above, half-length, life-sized figures—Gaudioso, Bishop of Brescia, above Saint Jerome; above Alessandro, Saint Filippo Benizzi, meek founder of the Order of Servites to which that church at Brescia belonged, with ...
— Miscellaneous Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... here described is characteristic; it is the type familiar to all in "Pandora," "Proserpine," "La Ghirlandata," "The Day Dream," "Our Lady of Pity," and the other life-size, half-length figure paintings in oil which were the masterpieces of his maturer style. The languid pose, the tragic eyes with their mystic, brooding intensity in contrast with the full curves of the lips and throat, give that union of sensuousness and spirituality which is a constant trait of Rossetti's poetry. ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... to the ceiling in an inextricable knot of arms, legs, wings, faces, and flowing drapery; two circles of saints, bishops, and others, who might be fitly placed in Paradise, rising one above the other high up the walls of the chapel—the lower circle full-length figures, and the other half-length; and above this a higher and richly coloured crown of musical saints and angels in good preservation. In passing I may say that this is the place where the Vecchietto ought to have come from, though it is not likely ...
— Ex Voto • Samuel Butler
... only left, bearing three half-length statues of kings; this is the first capital which bears any inscription. In front, a king with a sword in his right hand points to a handkerchief embroidered and fringed, with a head on it, carved on the cavetto of the abacus. His name is written above, "TITUS ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... It was the half-length portrait of a young lady in the costume of the reign of Louis XVI. One hand rested on a stone urn; the other was raised to her bosom, holding a thin blue scarf that seemed to flutter in the wind. Her dress ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... the Inspector's bungalow. Fortunately there was a vacant iron shanty close at hand, with a convenient loophole in it for firing from; and outside this I placed three full-grown goats as bait, tying them to a half-length of rail, weighing about 250 lbs. The night passed uneventfully until just before daybreak, when at last the lion turned up, pounced on one of the goats and made off with it, at the same time dragging away the others, rail and all. I fired several shots in his ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... perpetuate him with a hundred transitory and borrowed graces,—if the talented young litterateur, Mr. Simeah, has been found by his limner to resemble Lord Byron amazingly, and has in consequence consented to sit for a half-length, to be done a la Corsair, etc., etc.; but for our men of thought, for those whose works will stand to all time as the signals pointing out the road a nation followed, whose presence and acts shall be our intellectual history,—it is of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... field below the captain had just come, the wife noticed that the presence of ladies would keep the captain standing, and the three, remarking that such a scene was too brilliant to confront, moved aft. As they went, Watson, up at the wheel, and Ned, his partner, lingering by him, had a half-length view of them, their lower half being hid by the cabin roof, close under whose edge their feet passed, where its shadow kept the deck cool. The wife still had her embroidery, the husband his De Bow. By certain changes about Ramsey's throat and shoulders ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... in the big jar—the tops of their branches reaching the water-stained roof; a canvas for a half-length tacked on a stretcher and placed on an improvised easel, Adam began prying into the dark corners for a seat for his model, Olivia following his every movement, her eyes twice their usual size in her ever-increasing ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Colleoni in a round above the great door, executed with spirit, though in a bravura style that curiously anticipates the decline of Italian sculpture. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with prominent cheekbones and strong jaws, this animated half-length statue of the hero bears the stamp of a good likeness, but when or by whom it was made I do ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... Pietro made a particular profession of this. In another scene below the first he began a Nativity of Christ, with certain angels and shepherds, wrought with the freshest colouring. And in an arch over the door of the aforesaid oratory he made three half-length figures—Our Lady, S. Jerome, and the Blessed Giovanni—with so beautiful a manner, that this was held to be one of the best mural paintings that Pietro ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... carver, modestly, yet as one conscious of eminence in his art. "But, for the sake of the good brig, I stand ready to do my best. And which of these designs do you prefer? Here,"—pointing to a staring, half-length figure, in a white wig and scarlet coat,—"here is an excellent model, the likeness of our gracious king. Here is the valiant Admiral Vernon. Or, if you prefer a female figure, what say you to ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... had presented his faithful servant, Sir John Kirkland, with a half-length replica of one of his Vandyke portraits, a beautiful head, with a strange inward look—that look of isolation and aloofness which we who know his story take for a prophecy of doom—which the sculptor Bernini had remarked, when he modelled the royal head for marble. ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... could have peeped into the pretty boudoir, I think the picture would have been photographed upon his brain to be reproduced by-and-by upon a bishop's half-length for the glorification of the pre-Raphaelite brotherhood. My lady in that half-recumbent attitude, with her elbow resting on one knee, and her perfect chin supported by her hand, the rich folds of drapery falling away in long undulating lines from the exquisite outline of her ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... attempts seem to have been made at a reconciliation. Jervas, Pope's teacher in painting—a bad artist, but a kindly man—tells Pope on August 20, 1714, of a conversation with Addison. It would have been worth while, he says, for Pope to have been hidden behind a wainscot or a half-length picture to have heard it. Addison expressed a wish for friendly relations, was glad that Pope had not been "carried too far among the enemy" by Swift, and hoped to be of use to him at Court—for Queen Anne ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... did those of the boom times of silver mining, she seemed prettier than ever to Robert Fairchild, more girlish, more entrancing. The big eyes appeared bigger now, peeping from the confines of a poke bonnet; the little hands seemed smaller with their half-length gloves and shielded by the enormous peacock feather fan they carried. Only a moment Fairchild hesitated. Maurice Rodaine, attired in a mauve frock suit and the inevitable accompanying beaver, had stopped ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... of the mountain behind the ruins. The figures of the kings are carved over them. One stands before an altar on which a fire is burning. A ball representing the sun is above the altar. Over the effigy of the king hangs in the air a winged half-length figure in fainter lines, and resembling him. In other places he is seen contending with a winged animal like ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... a young woman, something more than twenty years old, perhaps. There were few pictures of any merit painted in New England before the time of Smibert, and I am at a loss to know what artist—could have taken this half-length, which was evidently from life. It was somewhat stiff and flat, but the grace of the figure and the sweetness of the expression reminded me of the angels of the early Florentine painters. She must have been of some consideration, for she was dressed in paduasoy and lace with hanging sleeves, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... series of concussions upon the face and head which put me in supreme doubt of my surroundings, for I seemed to have plunged, eyes foremost, into the Milky Way. But I had my left arm around his neck, which probably saved me from a coup de grace, as he was forced to pommel me at half-length. Pommel it was; to use so gentle a word for what to me was crash, bang, smash, battle, murder, earthquake and tornado. I was conscious of some one screaming, and it seemed a consoling part of my delirium that the cheek of Miss Anne Elliott should be jammed ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... Virgin, contains forty-six angels, twenty-six cherubs, fifty-six saints, the Holy Trinity, the Madonna herself, and twenty-four innocents, making 156 statues in all. Of these I am afraid there is not one of more than ordinary merit; the most interesting is a half-length nude life-study of Disma—the good thief. After what had been promised him it was impossible to exclude him, but it was felt that a half-length nude figure would be as much ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... painted frequently half-length figures of the Virgin and Child, an example of which is in the National Gallery. He excelled in the 'figure painting' of familiar subjects, then just beginning to be established, affording a token of ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... picture in this window there is a small compartment containing a half-length figure of a man ...
— A Short Account of King's College Chapel • Walter Poole Littlechild
... a half-length figure appearing at a window,—the blackness of the background, and the light upon the face, cause it to appear like ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... covered with the neatest and brightest oil-cloth; the wooden sidewalk was very clean, like the steep, roughly paved street itself; and at the foot of the hill down which it sloped was a breadth of the city wall, pierced for musketry, and, past the corner of one of the houses, the half-length of cannon showing. It had the charm of those ancient streets, dear to Old-World travel, in which the past and the present, decay and repair, peace and war, have made friends in an effect that not only wins the eye, but, however illogically, touches the heart; ...
— A Chance Acquaintance • W. D. Howells
... and a painting—have some claim to be considered as genuine portraits of Shakespeare. The first of these is the coloured half-length bust on the chancel wall in Stratford Church. This was made by one Gerard Janssen, a stonemason of some repute. It was placed in the church within seven years of the poet's death. It is a crude work of art; but it shows plainly that the artist had before him ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... Half-length portraits of the Duke and Duchess of Kent are in the place usually occupied by the likenesses of the master and mistress of the house. Among the other pictures are full-length portraits of the Queen and Prince Albert in their youth, taken soon after their marriage— ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... caricatured himself as well as others in them. They are not bitter satires, but, on the contrary, very charming; and still more charming are the family portraits frescoed round the principal room. Under one curve of the vaulted ceiling the whole family of a given time is shown, half-length but life-size, looking down pleasantly on the unexpected American guests who try to pretend they were invited, or at least came by mistaking the house for another. Better even than this most amiable circle, or half-circle, of father, mother, and daughter are the figures ...
— Roman Holidays and Others • W. D. Howells
... Champlain which we have seen, we may mention first that in Laverdiere's edition of his works. This is a half-length, with long, curling hair, moustache and imperial. The sleeves of the close-fitting coat are slashed, and around the neck is the broad linen collar of the period, fastened in front with cord and tassels. On the left, ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain |
