Franz Xaver Messerschmidt Book

Smirking, dim-witted, grimacing, or disgusted--that is how the character studies that Franz Xaver Messerschmidt cast in lead or cut into alabaster appear to viewers. They are sculptures that do not adhere to any classical ideal of beauty, instead confronting the viewer with a typology of the ugly. The fascinating character busts by the baroque sculptor Messerschmidt may be indebted to his contemporary Johann Kaspar Lavater, yet they never cease to amaze with their untimely artistic aggressiveness--their modernism even--exposing the flip sides of human expression.Messerschmidt, who created conventional portraits of dignitaries such as Empress Maria Theresia and Joseph II while working at the Imperial Academy in Vienna, began his turn toward an exclusive production of character busts around 1770, a predilection that quickly gained him the reputation of a maverick. Having taken early retirement due to a psychological disorder that was never clearly defined, he spent the rest of his life as a recluse living in Pressburg. This extensive monograph about an exceptional artist attempts an interpretation of the deeper meaning in an oeuvre that is as unusual as it is uncompromising. He's got a face like a busted sofa / She's got more chins than a Chinese telephone directory / He's got a face as long as an undertaker's tape measure / She's got a face like a road accident / He's got a face squeezed like a tea bag / She's got a face like a fried cod / He's got a face like a bulldog licking piss off a stinging nettle / She's got a face like a window cleaner's sponge / He's got a face that looks like it's been set on fire and put out with a mallet / She's got a face like a picture and it needs hanging / He's got a face like a franked stamp Edited by Michael Krapf.Essays by Maraike Bückling, Renate Fanta, Wolfgang Häusler, Magda Keleti and Almut Krapf-Weiler. Hardcover, 9.5 x 11.75 in., 240 pages, 70 color, 130 b/w illustrationsRead More