Physiognomy, the reading of character from the features of the face, the forehead, brows, nose, mouth and the proportions between them, is read here through the Chinese mian xiang tradition. This report item draws on mian xiang, which maps regions of the face to the Five Elements and to the ages of life, and reads each feature against the power the tradition assigns it.

History

Reading character from facial features is documented in more than one independent ancient line. A treatise on physiognomy survives within the Aristotelian corpus in the Greek tradition, though its authorship by Aristotle himself is disputed by modern scholars and it is more often treated as a work of the wider Peripatetic school. Separately, and at considerably greater length, the Chinese mian xiang tradition, literally "face reading", developed its own distinct textual history within Chinese physiognomic and fortune-telling practice, mapping regions of the face to the Five Elements (Wu Xing, the same cosmology this atlas's own Chinese Astrology and Feng Shui pages describe) and to different ages of a person's life. This report item follows the mian xiang line specifically, keeping it distinct from the separate Greek physiognomic tradition rather than merging the two.

How A Reading Is Constructed

A reading works from the regions mian xiang maps across the face, several of which the tradition also reads as "palaces" governing a specific life department, and pairs each region with its Five Element association and the age of life it is traditionally held to govern, reading a chart against those correspondences rather than casting a birth chart in the astrological sense.

Where To Read More

• Upper CourtCourtUpper Court, one of the three broad courts mian xiang divides the face into.
• Middle CourtCourtMiddle Court.
• Lower CourtCourtLower Court.
• Life PalacePalaceLife Palace, one of the specific governing regions mian xiang reads within the broader courts.