Chapter 3 | WORKS OF ART.

The first striking example of facial expression in art is the marble statue of the biblical figure David, made by the Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in 1624. He commissioned the sculpture for the church. Most art from that time was commissioned by the church, a monarch or a wealthy entrepreneur. The statue, with a total height of 1.70 meters, is located in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, a palace named after the patron of the statue, Cardinal Scipione Borghese.
The image depicts the moment when the young man David is about to hurl a deadly stone at the giant Goliath. You can see the enormous concentration and tension in his face. He must hit his target in one shot otherwise he is lost. His lips are pressed together and his eyes are fully focused on the giant in the distance. It is almost unimaginable that something like this can be depicted in stone.

The second masterpiece comes from the same period. It is a drawing by Charles Le Brun. The drawing measures approximately 20 x 25 centimeters. Charles Le Brun wanted to investigate how the face changes in response to intense emotions, in this case horror, a combination of fear, fright and anger . Scary isn’t it?

The third masterpiece is a cartoon from a newspaper, drawn around 1830 by Honoré Daumier. The cartoon starts at the top left with a caricature of a French king Louis-Philippe I, after which his head slowly changes into a pear. The king was clearly not liked by everyone and the pear was even painted on walls as graffiti. In a caricature, striking features of a face are greatly exaggerated: here plump drooping cheeks and an enormous double chin, a frugal mouth, furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes. The facial expression is sullen and suspicious/distrustful.

Facial expressions

Chapter 3 | WORKS OF ART.

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