Resting Bust Face

Download the PDF

Announcer: This is a Getty podcast.

[Theme music begins]

Host: Have you ever felt misunderstood? Well, imagine feeling that way for 240 years.

Welcome to If Objects Could Talk, the podcast where art and artifacts come alive to share their side of the story. Today, we hear from a sculpture with a lot on his mind, and on his face. That’s partially because the sculpture is mostly face. This guest is a bust, meaning a sculpture of the head and neck, sometimes with a bit of chest and shoulders, too. And this particular bust has an extreme expression. Furrowed brow, squinting eyes, scrunched nose, and a jaw so strained [voice groans] it looks like he’s trying to crack a walnut with those teeth. [nut cracks] Ugh, he makes me feel tense just looking at him.

He was made by German sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt in the 1770s and ’80s. Messerschmidt never gave him an official name. Now, everyone just calls him “The Vexed Man.”

[clears throat] I said “The Vexed Man.” That’s your cue.

The Vexed Man: [growly voice with New York accent speaks] Yes, all right, I heard you. I was thinking. That is what I do. Let me get something out of the way first, since apparently no one can look at me for five seconds without making assumptions.

[Light classical music plays]

This face, this face, is not one of anger. No, no, no, I am not angry. I have not smelled a skunk [child says “Ew!”] or tasted a lemon [voice says “Ugh”], nor do I look like I am, uh, what do the children say, “going number two”. [toilet flushes] Those children in Vienna thought that one was particularly funny. So many children! I mean, not as many as I see now in the gallery, but still, a lot of children. [children chatter]

Even now, children are always trying to recreate my face. [child laughs and blows raspberry] And assuming something other than the reality. The reality is just that I am thinking, deeply, and I would appreciate it if people could figure that out before jumping to conclusions. No, I do not need more fiber in my diet. [bite from apple] I am a sculpture after all. [clay crumbling]

And what does my definitely not-angry, definitely not-pooping face look like? The stone skin between the eyebrows is pushed together because my brow is furrowed, like when you are stuck on a very hard homework problem and your brain is not cooperating. [Child says “Hmm.”]

[Mysterious music plays]

My eyes squint. My nose scrunches. My jaw is set. My neck and cheek muscles are tense. My hairline is, uh, receding, yes. Oh, why did I say that part? This is a podcast! You would’ve never known. Well, unless you looked up my photograph. Well, never mind. There are also natural cracks running through the alabaster that I am carved from. [cracking stoneware] The stone itself has aged and settled over the centuries and turned a touch more yellow. The lines in the material enhance the lines on my face. Two and a half centuries. I think it suits me. [laughs]

[Classical music plays]

I was made during a great time of intellectual curiosity called the Enlightenment Era. Should you need to picture it further, think powdered white wigs on men, corsets and billowing skirts on women, heeled shoes on everyone, and horse-drawn carriages for travel. [crowd chatter and horses pulling carriages]

The Enlightenment was when people got very serious about understanding things: science, reason, asking questions and pursuing the answers. [crowd chatter] Coffee houses, newspapers, and literary salons, places where people could mingle, debate, and share new ideas flourished during this time.

It was also a time of social and political revolution. [Star Spangled Banner plays] In what is now called the United States, Thomas Jefferson and his friends wrote the Declaration of Independence based on the bold new idea that people should, uh, have rights just for being people.

[Classical music resumes]

My creator was Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, a German sculptor working in Austria, a country right next to Germany. Messerschmidt was interested in the idea of looking at a person’s expression to understand something true about their inner life. [voice says “Hmm.”] Their feelings, their character. He would stand in front of a mirror and pull his face into the most extreme expressions he could manage: [voice grunting] grimacing, straining, even howling [warewolf howl].

And you, what can your face do? Can you scrunch your nose, cross your eyes, and puff out your cheeks? Go ahead. Try to make the most extreme face you can think of, and do not worry! While I might be permanently stuck this way, your grandparents are incorrect. If you are not made of stone, your face won’t get stuck like that. Yeah. Faces are so interesting. That is probably why Messerschmidt, my sculptor, made at least 49 of us, dozens and dozens of character heads, as they called us, all different expressions, all feeling something.

I am, objectively speaking, very well made, out of alabaster, no less. Alabaster is a smooth, almost creamy white stone. It is soft enough that a skilled sculptor can work it with wooden hand tools like chisels and files. To make a head like mine, first you start with a ball of alabaster, then you refine it. A flat chisel for the broad planes of the forehead and cheeks, smaller tools for the detail. Each pass of the tool removes a little more material. You cannot put it back. Every cut is a decision, as soft alabaster hardens over time. Then comes the finishing. Alabaster can be polished almost to a glow [harp music] with increasingly fine abrasives: sand, then pumice, then cloth. The result is that soft, warm quality you can see in me.

[Classical violin music plays]

Oh, Messerschmidt would’ve worked on a face like mine for weeks, months perhaps, given how much is happening, you know, on my face. Every wrinkle, every tensed muscle, every squint and crease around the eye had to be carved deliberately by hand in stone that does not forgive mistakes. Oh, he was extraordinarily skilled. While he also worked with marble and bronze, I personally think the alabasters were his best.

[Music ends]

Many have admired the craftsmanship that went into making my face. For a number of years, I was displayed in Vienna’s amusement park, the Prater, [crowd chatter and carnival music] as kind of a sideshow attraction. The Prater was a place to see and be seen. Viennese society strolled and promenaded. They rode carousels and went bowling. They experienced the new, the curious, and the strange. And at this time, I was considered very strange. Huh.

[Spooky, mysterious music plays]

I was in a room with other character heads, including the Yawner, Childish Weeping, the Incapable Bassoonist, and, uh, um, Afflicted With Constipation. [people laugh] Now, I’ll never understand how people could mistake my expression for his. Ah, at any rate, visitors could even buy painted replicas of the heads in plaster or wax as a type of souvenir. [child says “Cool!”] Adults and children passed through the booth where I sat, and without fail, someone always acknowledged my presence by making an exaggerated face of their own. [children yelling in hallway] There were the children who would stop, look at me, study me, and then scrunch the whole face in one go: brow down, nose up, eyes squinting. My face on their face! [children laughing] Oh. Younger children would wobble over, look at me, and do their own version: cheeks puffed out, mouth twisted. Rather committed to it, actually. [baby laughs] Then the silliest children, they would stick out their tongues and cross their eyes in the exact same way. [child blows raspberry] Now, I cannot raise an eyebrow. I cannot smile; I am alabaster. But if I could have laughed, I would have laughed every single day. Those children sticking their tongue out, I nearly cracked. [laughs] Uh, figuratively speaking. [rocks crumble]

Funny thing, isn’t it? You can look at a face and be completely, thoroughly wrong about what’s going on inside it. Have you ever felt fine or even happy, but your face didn’t show it? Have you ever been so wrapped up in something that someone asked if you were all right and you were, uh, surprised? That is what I am talking about. Alas, a sculpture is frozen in one moment, one expression. That is all I get. But you, you are not a sculpture, so why don’t you loosen up? [mallet hits a bell]

But first, let’s get tense. Well, like me. Scrunch those shoulders up to your ears, close those eyes good and tight, furrow those brows, and make a face as if you need a bathroom right away and more fiber in your diet. Notice your face. Yeah, right now. Is your brow pushed down? Are your teeth pressed together, your jaw clenched? Yes, I can tell. Now, let it go.

[Calm piano music begins]

Smooth it out. How completely and totally can you relax? All right, let’s see if you can relax even further. Try using your breath. Breathe in through your nose slowly. Count with me. One, two, three, four. Hold your breath. One, two, three, four. And breathe out, through your mouth, all the way out. One, two, three, four, five, six. Let your shoulders drop. Let your hands open. Let your face just rest. Now try one yourself.

[Music plays]

There, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? You can do that whenever you need to, you know. Whenever you notice your face or even your whole body tensing up more than you’d like it to, feeling anxious, frustration bubbling up. Has someone annoyed you by bringing up your ever-receding hairline again? Feel that emotion, then take a breath. Tighten up, and then relax. It works, right?

[Theme music begins]

Host: I hope you enjoyed learning about alabaster and relaxation. [voice sighs] Join us next time when an observant griffin shares her perspective. [wings flying]

To see photographs of The Vexed Man, visit our website at getty dot edu slash IOCT. We’ve also got a listening guide with discussion questions and related activities there.

This episode was written by Tocarra Elise and produced by Zoe Goldman. Andy Lipshultz voiced the sculpture. Theme music, mixing, and sound design by Alexandra Kalinowski. Christopher Sprinkle is executive producer. Special thanks to curators Anne-Lise Desmas and Miriam Schefzyk, as well as Rebekkah Hart.

These stories are historical fiction. They’re based on historical facts and deep research, but we’ve filled in the gaps to make a good story. If you have questions about what you’ve heard, write to us at podteam at getty dot edu. Catch you next time!