ART & ARTISTS: Franz Messerschmidt

Monday 22 July 2024

Franz Messerschmidt - part 1

Self Portrait
Bode-Museum, Berlin, Germany

Franz Messerschmidt, the leading sculptor at the court in Vienna in the 1760s, was forced, for personal and professional reasons, to leave for the provinces and by 1777 had settled in Pressburg (today Bratislava). There he concentrated on a private series of heads, completing more than sixty in his preferred medium of tin alloy or in alabaster.

While acknowledging the artistic tradition of exploring facial expressions and emotions, these Kopfstücke, or head pieces, as he called them, were highly original for their combination of realism and abstraction. Visitors to his studio observed the artist studying himself in a mirror. Some of the heads are straightforward self-portraits, smiling or frowning; others are satirical or comic, the sitter reacting to a strong odour or yawning widely. A few, called “refusers” by an early critic for the way they deny contact with their surroundings, are deeply introspective.

The meaning of the series has been long debated. The titles were conferred after the sculptor’s death, when forty-nine works were exhibited in 1793. Messerschmidt was aware of contemporary medical theories, such as Johann Caspar Lavater’s 1775

study of physiognomy’s relation to human character, and he certainly knew his Viennese neighbour the physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who believed that outward senses connect to inner emotions and developed related therapies to treat his patients. However one assesses it, the series of is exceptional in eighteenth-century sculpture, stylistically advancing beyond Neoclassicism to a reductive

simplicity, forecasting modern minimalism, and psychologically rendering serial states of mind in a project that was novel for the pre-Freudian world.

This is part 1 of 3-part series on the works of Franz Messerschmidt:

1765-66 Emperor Francis I Stephen of Lorraine
© Belvedere, Vienna

1766 Maria Immaculata
tin-lead alloy: 300 cm high
Palais Liechtenstein, Vienna, Austria

1767 Emperor Joseph II
tin and copper 79 (with stone base) x 63 cm
Vienna Art History Museum, Kunstkamme

1769-70 Elijah Increases the oil of the widow
pewter lead alloy 173cm high (without plinth)
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna, Austria

1769-70 Elijah Increases the oil of the widow
detail

after 1770 “Simplicity of the Highest Degree” or “Democritus”
details not found

after 1770 A Strong Man
tin-lead alloy 44.5 x 26.7 x 22.9 cm
Private Collection

"A Strong Man" belongs to a group of Character Heads that feature a bald man with a tall, broad forehead and occasionally incised patterning to suggest a shaved head. They apparently depict the same man, thought by some to be Messerschmidt himself. Each head in this group served as a blank slate on which Messerschmidt could rework the model to create new and varying expressions.

Here the exaggeratedly arched eyebrows, blank pupils, and jocular expression mimic the mask-like artificiality of a clown's face, an association that contributed to the general popularity of these heads during the 19th century.

after 1770 Just Rescued from Drowning
alabaster 40 x 20 x 25.5 cm
Private collection, Belgium

With The Vexed Man, this head belongs to a group of alabaster Character Heads probably depicting the same man but with his hair arranged in a variety of ways.

The title of this sculpture suggests that he just has been submerged in water; his lank hair (or a wig) hangs down on his forehead. But the distinctive hairstyle may relate to those featured on Gothic sculptures of southern Germany, which would have been familiar to Messerschmidt. In both this sculpture and The Vexed Man, the deep ear cavities are gouged out with the sculptor's drill.

1770 The Beaked
alabaster 43 cm high

1770 The Beaked

1770-72 Gerard van Swieten
marble 47 cm (with base) 31 cm wide 24 cm deep
Vienna Art History Museum, Kunstkammer

1770-72 Gerard van Swieten

1770-72 Gerard van Swieten

1770-80 The Satirist
lead-tin alloy (size not given)
Germanisces National Museum, Nuremberg