A fascination with grotesque heads goes back to Leonardo da Vinci. Grotesques offered a counterbalance to the ideals of beauty and harmony prevalent at the time, and their juxtaposition underscored the authority of the latter. There was sometimes a scientific interest in various medical conditions that motivated the artists who made these prints and drawings. Jusepe di Ribera made his own version, entitled Small Grotesque Head, in 1622...In 1668, the French painter and then-director of the Royal Academy of France, Charles Le Brun, delivered a lecture in which he codified the depiction of human emotions in a series of têtes d’expression (expressive heads), creating a visual vocabulary for the passions that formed the basis for most narrative art of the period. Artists looked for antique models, and they easily found them in the ancient monuments of Rome, such as the multitude of carved figures circling Trajan’s Column.

from Calendar of Events, Winter 2021