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

c1770-81 The Strong Smell
metal alloy 48.9 cm high (without base) 23 cm wide 32 cm deep
V&A Museum, London

c1770-81 The Strong Smell

1770-83 A gloomy dark man
lead-tin alloy 43.5 x 23 x 24 cm
Belvedere Museum Vienna, Baroque Museum, Austria

1770-83 Character Head
lead 
Germanic National Museum, Nuremberg, Germany

1770-83 ill Humoured Man
lead 39 cm high
Private Collection

1770-83 Incapable Bassoonist
 tin-alloy 42 cm high
Private Collection

1770-83 Old Age
yellow alabaster

1770-83 The Arch ­Evil
lead 38.5 cm high
Sterreichische Galerie, Vienna, Austria

1770-83 The Gentle, Quiet Sleep
cast metal 44 cm high
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, Hungary

1770-83 The Gentle, Quiet Sleep

1770-83 The Hanged Man
alabaster 45 cm high
Sterreichische Galerie, Vienna, Austria

1770-83 The Hanged Man

1770-83 The Lecher
marble 45 cm high
Sterreichische Galerie, Vienna, Austria

c1770-83 A Hypocrite and a Slanderer
tin alloy 37 x 24.4 x 29.5 cm
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

c1770-83 A Hypocrite and a Slanderer

Luigi Bompard - part 3

Born in Bologna in 1879, from a French father, Luigi Bompard was not an artist who could be called revolutionary, he always worked in the wake of the Italian tradition influenced by the Jugendstil and, for the early days, the debt to Dudovich is very high, so much so that the two worked together. In any case, I was very struck by a series of lithographs that Bompard dedicated to photography, personalising the various phases from development to printing through women's faces. Perhaps this is the most original work he did.

He frequented Paris a lot, where he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in 1909. He met the Italians Cappiello and Boldini by whom he was clearly influenced in the revival of themes of the beau monde for painting. When the war broke out he was still in the French capital where he followed the Caillaux trial for L ' Illustration italiana and l' Illustration française . He later moved to Milan and finally to Rome where he continues to work for newspapers and specialized magazines such as "Il Travaso delle idee", "Noi e il Mondo", "Il Giornale della Domenica", "La Tribuna", "La Voce d'Italia”, “Il Corriere dei piccoli”, “Marc'Aurelio”, “Guerin Meschino” and novels for which he also creates the covers. 

From this last period are a series of portraits of famous people such as  Mascagni at the piano , Puccini at his desk and also a small portrait of d'Annunzio which has only recently re-emerged in the collections of the Caproni Museum and which was exhibited for the first time at the exhibition “Gabriele d'Annunzio aviator” at the Gianni Caproni Air Force Museum in Trento. Once in Rome he undertook to paint large oil portraits such as the one of Luciano Zuccoli, Emma Gramatica and Lyda Borelli of which, however, I have not found images online. Among his latest works are the pastels of the Femininity series and above all the Dancers series. He died in Rome on February 24th. 1953.

This is part 3 of a 3-part series on the works of Luigi Bompard.

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Studi e Studenti (Studies and Students) postcard series 

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA:

La Fotografia sei Cartoline di L. Bombard
(Cover)

Allori Sicuri! (Safe laurels!)
 postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Bocciato! (Failed!)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Gli Esami Son Vicini (Exams are near)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Gli Studi a Carnevale (Studies at Carnival)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Gli Studi a Carnevale (Studies at Carnival)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Materia d'Amore (A Matter of love)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm 

Materia d'Amore (A Matter of love)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Sciopero! (Strike!)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Sciopero! (Strike!)
postcard, colour lithograph on card 8.9 x 14 cm

Romantic Couple
postcard

Romantic Couple
postcard

Romantic Couple
postcard

Un uomo e tre donne in abiti eleganti
(A man and three women in elegant clothes)
watercolour and China ink 49 x 35 cm

Untitled (Woman and Puppy)

Untitled (Young Woman)

Young Couple
postcard

Young Woman
 postcard