Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
Encyclopedia
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
most famous for his "character heads", a collection of busts with faces contorted in extreme facial expression
Facial expression
A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...
s.
Early years
Born in southwestern Germany, in the region of the SwabiaSwabia
Swabia is a cultural, historic and linguistic region in southwestern Germany.-Geography:Like many cultural regions of Europe, Swabia's borders are not clearly defined...
n alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
, Messerschmidt grew up in the Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
home of his uncle, the sculptor Johann Baptist Straub
Johann Baptist Straub
Johann Baptist Straub 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 Johann Georg Straub were also sculptors, as was his nephew Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. J. B...
, who became his first master. He spent two years in Graz
Graz
The more recent population figures do not give the whole picture as only people with principal residence status are counted and people with secondary residence status are not. Most of the people with secondary residence status in Graz are students...
, in the workshop of his other maternal uncle, the sculptor Philipp Jakob Straub
Philipp Jakob Straub
Philipp Jakob Straub was an Austrian sculptor from a well-known family of German Baroque sculptors. His father Johann George Straub and his brothers Johann Baptist, Joseph, and Johann Georg Straub were also sculptors, as was his nephew Franz Xaver Messerschmidt...
. At the end of 1755 he matriculated at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is an institution of higher education in Vienna, Austria.- History :The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy by the court-painter Peter Strudl, who became the Praefectus Academiae Nostrae. In 1701 he was ennobled as Baron of the Empire...
, 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
Baroque
The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...
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 of Austria
Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma...
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 SwietenGerard van Swieten
Gerard van Swieten was a Dutch-Austrian physician.Van Swieten was born in Leiden. He was a pupil of Hermann Boerhaave and became in 1745 the personal physician of the Austrian Empress Maria Theresa. In this position he implemented a transformation of the Austrian health service and medical...
, commissioned by the Empress. At the same time his first early Neo-Classic
Neoclassicism
Neoclassicism is the name given to Western movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw inspiration from the "classical" art and culture of Ancient Greece or Ancient Rome...
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. 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) were connected with certain paranoid
Paranoia
Paranoia [] is a thought process believed to be heavily influenced by anxiety or fear, often to the point of irrationality and delusion. Paranoid thinking typically includes persecutory beliefs, or beliefs of conspiracy concerning a perceived threat towards oneself...
ideas and hallucination
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
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
Embittered he left ViennaVienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, 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
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.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.
The heads
In 1781, German author Friedrich NicolaiChristoph Friedrich Nicolai
Christoph Friedrich Nicolai was a German writer and bookseller.Nicolai was born in Berlin, where his father, Christoph Gottlieb Nicolai , was the founder of the famous Nicolaische Buchhandlung...
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.
It appears that for many years Messerschmidt had been suffering from an undiagnosed digestive complaint, now believed to be Crohn's disease
Crohn's disease
Crohn's disease, also known as regional enteritis, is a type of inflammatory bowel disease that may affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract from mouth to anus, causing a wide variety of symptoms...
, which caused him considerable discomfort. In order to focus his thoughts away from his condition, Messerschmidt devised a series of pinches he administered to his right lower rib
Floating rib
Floating ribs are four atypical ribs in the human ribcage. They are called so because they are attached to the vertebrae only, and not to the sternum or cartilage coming off of the sternum. Some people are missing one of the two pairs. Others have a third pair. Most, however, possess only two...
. 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"
Physiognomy
Physiognomy is the assessment of a person's character or personality from their outer appearance, especially the face...
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
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
and the arcane, and how this also inspired his character heads. Messerschmidt was a keen disciple of Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus
Hermes Trismegistus is the eponymous author of the Hermetic Corpus, a sacred text belonging to the genre of divine revelation.-Origin and identity:...
(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
Golden ratio
In mathematics and the arts, two quantities are in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.61803398874989...
. 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 Beakedhttp://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/messersc/c_head5.html) was apparently inspired by one of these encounters.
In popular culture
Messerschmidt's character heads were featured in Clive Barker's A-Z of HorrorClive Barker's A-Z of Horror
Clive Barker's A-Z of Horror was a documentary series first broadcast on BBC2 in 1997. It was written and hosted by Clive Barker and explored the history of horror, from the cinema to art. A tie-in book was released featuring art work by Barker and film reviews by Stephen Jones.Subjects...
(1996), a BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
documentary series examining the history of the genre in cinema and art. The role of FX Messerschmidt was created and performed by the artist and writer Andrew Tansey. In 2011 he premiered a new film about the life and work of Franz X. Messerchmidt. This film created by Slovak director Peter Dimitrov.
Also, one of the Messerscmidt busts appears recurrently as a motif
Motif
Motif may refer to the following:In creative work:* Motif , a perceivable or salient recurring fragment or succession of notes* Motif , any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance...
in the 2006 movie Klimt, directed by the Franco-Chilean filmmaker Raoul Ruiz
Raoul Ruiz
Raúl Ernesto Ruiz Pino was a Chilean filmmaker.Ruiz spent some years at the Catholic University of Santa Fe, Argentina's cinema school. Back in Chile, he directed his first feature film Tres tristes tigres in the late 1960s, winning the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival...
.
Sources
- Maria Pötzl Malikova, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Jugend and Volk Publishing Company, ISBN 3-7141-6794-3 1982. Translation into English: Herb Ranharter, 2006
- Michael Krapf, Almut Krapf-Weiler, Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Hatje Cantz Publishers, ISBN 3-7757-1246-1, 2003.
- Theodor Schmid, 49 Köpfe, Theodor Schmid Verlag, ISBN 3-906566-61-7, 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, ISBN 978-88-89854-54-9, 2010.
External links
- Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, A Documentary Film by Hakan Topal
- A collection of photographs of many of the heads see the Belvedere Baroque Museum in Vienna
- Collection of busts held in Slovak national gallery
- http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/bio/m/messersc/biograph.html (from http://www.wga.hu/Web Gallery of ArtThe Web Gallery of Art is a virtual art gallery website. It displays historic European visual art, mainly from the Baroque, Gothic and Renaissance periods....
) - http://www.theodor-schmid.ch/fxm/
- http://www.neuegalerie.org/exhibitions/messerschmidt Information on the exhibition at the Neue Galerie, New York (2010) and the Louvre (2011)
- http://www.arinafilm.sk/casgrimas.sk/ web about new documentary film about F. X. Messerschmidt