{"id":53912,"date":"2025-10-14T10:32:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/?p=53912"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:40:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:40:12","slug":"franz-xaver-messerschmidt-more-than-character-heads-unteres-belvedere-vienna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/en\/2025\/10\/14\/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-more-than-character-heads-unteres-belvedere-vienna\/","title":{"rendered":"Franz Xaver Messerschmidt \u2013 More than Character Heads \/ Unteres Belvedere, Vienna"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>31.10.2025 \u2013 06.04.2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>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&#8217;s so-called \u2018character heads\u2019 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&#8217;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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Franz Xaver Messerschmidt \u2013 More than Character Heads<\/strong><br>31.10.2025 \u2013 06.04.2026<br>Unteres Belvedere<br>Rennweg 6<br>1030 Vienna<br><a href=\"http:\/\/www.belvedere.at\/\">www.belvedere.at<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>31.10.2025 \u2013 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[301,305,80,226,285,342,79,25,345],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-53912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-art-6","8":"category-art-5","9":"category-art-7","10":"category-events-7-en","11":"category-events-6-en","12":"category-events-5-en","13":"category-kreative-orte-en","14":"category-uncategorized","15":"category-vienna"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Franz Xaver Messerschmidt \u2013 More than Character Heads \/ Unteres Belvedere, Vienna &#187; CREATIVE AUSTRIA \u2013 Contemporary Culture<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/2025\/10\/14\/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-mehr-als-charakterkoepfe-unteres-belvedere-wien\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Franz Xaver Messerschmidt \u2013 More than Character Heads \/ Unteres Belvedere, Vienna &#187; CREATIVE AUSTRIA \u2013 Contemporary Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"31.10.2025 \u2013 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 [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/2025\/10\/14\/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-mehr-als-charakterkoepfe-unteres-belvedere-wien\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"CREATIVE AUSTRIA \u2013 Contemporary Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/creativeaustria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-14T10:32:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-13T10:40:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Franz-Xaver-Messerschmidt_Sogenanntes-Selbstbildnis-lachend_um-1777\u201383.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1772\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"2206\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"CREATIVE AUSTRIA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"CREATIVE AUSTRIA\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/2025\/10\/14\/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-mehr-als-charakterkoepfe-unteres-belvedere-wien\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.creativeaustria.at\/2025\/10\/14\/franz-xaver-messerschmidt-mehr-als-charakterkoepfe-unteres-belvedere-wien\/\",\"name\":\"Franz Xaver Messerschmidt \u2013 More than Character Heads \/ Unteres Belvedere, Vienna &#187; 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