Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
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Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (February 6, 1736 – August 19, 1783) was a German-Austrian
sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
most famous for his "character heads", a collection of busts with faces contorted in extreme
facial expression A facial expression is one or more motions or positions of the muscles beneath the skin of the face. According to one set of controversial theories, these movements convey the emotional state of an individual to observers. Facial expressions are ...
s.


Early years

Born February 6, 1736, in the southwestern town of Wiesensteig, located in the region of the Baden-Württemberg in Germany. Messerschmidt grew up in the
Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
home of his uncle, the sculptor
Johann Baptist Straub Johann Baptist Straub (1 June 1704 (baptism) – 15 July 1784) was a German Rococo sculptor. Biography Straub was born in Wiesensteig, into a family of sculptors. His father Johann George Straub and his brothers Philipp Jakob, Joseph, and ...
, who became his first master. He spent two years in Graz, in the workshop of his other maternal uncle, the sculptor Philipp Jakob Straub. At the end of 1755 he matriculated at the
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...
, and became a pupil of Jacob Schletterer. Graduated, he got work at the imperial arms collection. Here, in the building's salon in 1760-63 he made his first known works of art, the bronze busts of the imperial couple and reliefs representing the heir of the crown and his wife. With these works he joined the Late Baroque art of courtly representation, which was under the determining influence of Balthasar Ferdinand Moll. To this trend belong two other, larger than lifesize tin statues representing the imperial couple, commissioned by
Maria Theresa of Austria Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina (german: Maria Theresia; 13 May 1717 – 29 November 1780) was ruler of the Habsburg dominions from 1740 until her death in 1780, and the only woman to hold the position '' suo jure'' (in her own right) ...
and executed between 1764 and 1766. Besides some other portraits he also made works with a religious subject. A number of statues commissioned by the Princess of Savoy have survived as well.


Maturity

The Baroque period of his oeuvre ended in 1769 with a bust of the court physician
Gerard van Swieten Gerard van Swieten (7 May 1700 – 18 June 1772) was a Dutch physician who from 1745 was the personal physician of the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and transformed the Austrian health service and medical university education. He was the fat ...
, commissioned by the Empress. At the same time his first early Neo-Classic works appeared, made—characteristically—for the academy. To these and later works he applied many experiences gained in 1765 during a study trip to Rome. One of these early, severe heads from the years 1769–70, influenced by Roman republican portraits, represents the well-known doctor
Franz Anton Mesmer Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called "anim ...
. At about the same time, in 1770-72 Messerschmidt began to work on his so-called character heads, which it has been argued (notably by
Ernst Kris Ernst Kris (April 26, 1900 – February 27, 1957) was an Austrian psychoanalyst and art historian. Life Kris was born in 1900 to Leopold Kris, a lawyer, and Rosa Schick in Vienna, Austria-Hungary. Kris not only practiced as a psychoanalyst, he ...
) were connected with certain
paranoid Paranoia is an instinct or thought process that is believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of delusion and irrationality. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy c ...
ideas and
hallucination A hallucination is a perception in the absence of an external stimulus that has the qualities of a real perception. Hallucinations are vivid, substantial, and are perceived to be located in external objective space. Hallucination is a combinati ...
s from which, at the beginning of the seventies, the master began to suffer. Messerschmidt found himself increasingly at odds with his milieu. His situation worsened to such an extent, that in 1774, when he applied for the newly-vacant office of a leading professor at the academy, where he had been teaching since 1769, instead of getting it he was expelled from teaching. In a letter to the Empress, Count Kaunitz praised Messerschmidt's abilities, but suggested that the nature of his illness (referred to as a "confusion in the head") would make such an appointment detrimental to the institution.


Later years

Bitter, he left
Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...
, moved to his native village, Wiesensteig, and from there in the same year, following an invitation, to Munich. Here he waited two years for a promised commission and for a permanent employment at the Court. In 1777 he went to Pressburg (now Bratislava) where his brother, Johann Adam worked as a sculptor. Here he spent the last six years of his life almost in retirement, on the outskirts of the town. He dedicated himself primarily to his character heads.


Character heads (''Charakterköpfe'' )

In 1781, German author
Friedrich Nicolai Christoph Friedrich Nicolai (18 March 1733 – 11 January 1811) was a German writer and bookseller. Life Nicolai was born in Berlin, where his father, Christoph Gottlieb Nicolai (d. 1752), was the founder of the bookseller ''Nicolaisch ...
visited Messerschmidt at his studio in Pressburg and subsequently published a transcript of their conversation. Nicolai's account of the meeting is a valuable resource, as it is the only contemporary document that details Messerschmidt's reasoning behind the execution of his character heads. Messerschmidt devised a series of pinches he administered to his right lower rib. Observing the resulting facial expressions in a mirror, Messerschmidt then set about recording them in marble and bronze. His intention, he told Nicolai, was to represent the 64 "canonical grimaces" of the human face using himself as a template. During the course of the discussion, Messerschmidt went on to explain his interest in
necromancy Necromancy () is the practice of magic or black magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions, or by resurrection for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future even ...
and the
arcane Arcane may refer to: Books and comics * Anton Arcane, a DC Comics character * Arcane Jill Watson, a character in ''The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'' * Arcane literature, such as in Cthulhu Mythos Gaming * Arcane magic (''Dungeons & Drago ...
, and how this also inspired his character heads. Messerschmidt was a keen disciple of
Hermes Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus (from grc, Ἑρμῆς ὁ Τρισμέγιστος, "Hermes the Thrice-Greatest"; Classical Latin: la, label=none, Mercurius ter Maximus) is a legendary Hellenistic figure that originated as a syncretic combination of t ...
(Nicolai noted that among the few possessions that littered Messerschmidt's workshop was a copy of an illustration featuring Trismegistus) and abided by his teachings regarding the pursuit of "universal balance": a forerunner to the principles of the
Golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...
. As a result, Messerschmidt claimed that his character heads had aroused the anger of "the Spirit of Proportion", an ancient being who safe-guarded this knowledge. The spirit visited him at night, and forced him to endure humiliating tortures. One of Messerschmidt's most famous heads (''The Beaked

was apparently inspired by one of these encounters. File:Emotions X.jpg, ''The Laughter Kept Back'' File:Emotions III.jpg, ''A Grievously Wounded Man'' File:Franz xaver messerschmidt, il satirico, testa caricaturata n. 26, 1770-80 ca..JPG, ''The Satirist'' File:Messerschmidt, Yawning.jpg, ''The Yawner'' File:Franz Xaver Messerschmidt 003.JPG, ''A Hypocrite and Slanderer'' File:Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Charakterkopf.jpg, ''The Ultimate Simpleton'' File:Franz xaver messerschmidt, il costipato, testa caricaturata n. 30, 1770-80 ca..JPG, ''Afflicted with Constipation'' File:Franz Xaver Messerschmidt - Charakterkopf 02.jpg, ''An Intentional Wag''


Sources

* * Michael Krapf, Almut Krapf-Weiler, ''Franz Xaver Messerschmidt'', Hatje Cantz Publishers, , 2003. * * Maria Pötzl-Malíková.
Messerschmidt, Franz Xaver.
In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, (accessed January 10, 2012; subscription required). * Maria Pötzl Malikova, ''Franz Xaver Messerschmidt'', Jugend and Volk Publishing Company, 1982. . Translation into English: Herb Ranharter, 2006 * Theodor Schmid, ''49 Köpfe'', Theodor Schmid Verlag, , 2004. * ''Franz Xaver Messerschmidt 1736-1783. From Neoclassicism to Expressionism'', edited by Maria Pötzl Malikova and Guilhem Scherf, Officina Libraria/Neue Galerie/Musée du Louvre, , 2010. * Eric R. Kandel,''The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present'', Random House Publishing Group, , 2012. * Michael Yonan, ''Messerschmidt's Character Heads: Maddening Sculpture and the Writing of Art History'', Routledge, , 2018


External links


Entry for Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
on the
Union List of Artist Names The Union List of Artist Names (ULAN) is a free online database of the Getty Research Institute using a controlled vocabulary Control may refer to: Basic meanings Economics and business * Control (management), an element of management * Cont ...

Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, A Documentary Film by Hakan Topal

Collection of busts held in Slovak national gallery


from the
Web Gallery of Art The Web Gallery of Art (WGA) is a virtual art gallery website. It displays historic European visual art, mainly from the Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance periods, available for educational and personal use. Overview The website contains reprodu ...

Website concerning Messerschmidt
with extended bibliography
Forbes article on Messerschmidt at the Getty Museum

Information on the 2010-11 exhibition of Messerschmidt's work at the Neue Galerie and the Louvre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Messerschmidt, Franz Xaver 1736 births 1783 deaths 18th-century German sculptors 18th-century German male artists German male sculptors 18th-century Austrian people 18th-century Hungarian people Austrian sculptors Austrian male sculptors Austrian people of German descent Hungarian people of German descent People from Göppingen (district) Artists from Bratislava People with schizophrenia Academy of Fine Arts Vienna alumni