Laughing versus Weeping in the Human Face
How the eyebrows alone distinguish laughter from tears, and how weeping changes with its cause.
This page of the Treatise on Painting analyses the difference between a laughing and a weeping face. Leonardo observes that eyes, mouth, and cheeks scarcely change; only the rigidity of the eyebrows differs, drawn together in weeping and raised in laughter, while the weeper adds tearing of garments and scratching of the face. He warns the painter that the two expressions often resemble one another and must be varied according to the cause of the weeping, whether anger, fear, tenderness, pity, or grief. A short heading on the postures of infants and old men begins at the foot of the page.
On this page
The difference between laughing and weeping
From one who laughs to one who weeps neither the eyes, nor mouth, nor cheeks change, but only the rigidity of the eyebrows, drawn together in the weeper and raised in the laugher. To weeping is added the tearing of garments and hair with the hands and the scratching of the face with the nails, which does not happen in laughter.
Varying the weeping face by its cause
The painter must not give the weeping face the same movements as the laughing one, since they often look alike. Weeping varies with its cause, whether anger, fear, tenderness and joy, suspicion, torment, or grief for lost kin; the weeper raises the brows at their junctures, presses them together, wrinkles above, and lowers the corners of the mouth, whereas the laugher holds the brows high, open, and wide.