The Simpleton (Messerschmidt)

The Simpleton (German: Der Schaafkopf) is a sculpture bust by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, one of the Character Heads.

The Simpleton
German: Der Schaafkopf
ArtistFranz Xaver Messerschmidt
Year1777 - 1783
Mediumalabaster
Dimensions43 cm × 23 cm × 32 cm (17 in × 9.1 in × 13 in)
LocationÖsterreichische Galerie Belvedere, Vienna

Description

The sculptures dimensions are 43 × 23 × 32 centimeters.[1] It is in the collection of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, in Vienna.[2]

Analysis

The bust is one 64 "canonical grimaces" of the human face using himself as a model.

In 1781, German author Friedrich Nicolai visited Messerschmidt at his studio in Pressburg and subsequently published a transcript of their conversation. It appears that for many years Messerschmidt had been suffering from an undiagnosed digestive complaint, now believed to be Crohn's disease, which caused him considerable discomfort. In order to focus his thoughts away from his condition, Messerschmidt devised a series of pinches he administered to his right lower rib. Observing the resulting facial expressions in a mirror, Messerschmidt then set about recording them in marble and bronze.

gollark: No, that seems to just *naturally* have no users
gollark: Initial CUDA support (it is apparently maybe 10% faster on nvidia stuff, but generally the same) and nobody ever bothered to change it because all the researchers just bought from nvidia? That seems kind of implausible.
gollark: Which does make me wonder why machine learning tools aren't written against it.
gollark: Yes. This is vendor lockin. OpenCL works basically fine.
gollark: The new iGPUs are several times more powerful than my ~4 year old one apparently.

References
  1. "Der Schaafkopf | Franz Xaver Messerschmidt - Europeana". Europeana.eu. Retrieved 2016-09-27.
  2. "Der Schaafkopf – Werke – Digitales Belvedere". Digital.belvedere.at. 2016-07-14. Retrieved 2016-09-27.


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