31.10.2025 – 06.04.2026
From around 1769 onwards, the portraits by sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt reveal a new image of humanity, imbued with the ideas of the Enlightenment: the endeavour to portray people as individuals increasingly replaced Baroque representation. The cultural, political and scientific climate of the 18th century is also explained on the basis of the personalities portrayed and other clients, such as Maria Theresa Felicitas of Savoy-Carignan, the physicians Gerard van Swieten and Franz Anton Mesmer, and the art writer Franz von Scheyb. Despite their fame, Messerschmidt’s so-called ‘character heads’ remain enigmatic to this day. However, the psychopathological interpretation that has been extremely popular since the 20th century severely limits the perspective on these objects. It obscures the fact that the sculptor’s work was a response to the social and scientific upheavals of the 18th century. The aim of the exhibition is to contextualise the series of works against the backdrop of the preoccupation with facial expressions at the time, and to interpret them as a phenomenon of their era. Comparisons with works by artists such as Joseph Ducreux, William Hogarth and Jakob Matthias Schmutzer underscore the fact that interest in the face (and its aberrations) was not an exception.
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt – More than Character Heads
31.10.2025 – 06.04.2026
Unteres Belvedere
Rennweg 6
1030 Vienna
www.belvedere.at
