Choose your facial expression!

LAUGH FOR THE BEST (2021) Painting by Val Escoubet.

Intimistic reflections...

When I think of myself, I imagine myself with a troubled and pensive face, an expression intended to give voice to my inner world inexorably marked by the constant search for truth and the best form, as well as the perpetual attempt to defeat torment, my thousand doubts, insecurities and fears. Fortunately, I am also capable of expressing a thousand other heartfelt motions of body and soul, although, perhaps just like you, I believe I have a predominant facial expression, which, summarizing my being, is capable of immediately laying me bare before others. While I am waiting for you to reflect on the face with which you leave the house most of the time, I will introduce the topic in a general and clarifying way, defining at arm's length the meaning of facial expression, that is, of that series of movements or positions of the muscles under the skin of the face, capable of conveying the emotional state of the individual we are observing, by means of a clear, but silent, nonverbal communication. It is important to point out how human beings, adept at expressing emotions voluntarily or involuntarily, are capable of externalizing the truth of their feeling, but, at the same time, concealing it, since the evolution of the species has led humans to have voluntary control over their faces, which allows them to inhibit authentic facial expressions in order to assume, instead, an expression that is not really felt. At this point, as I camouflage the pout with a smile, I think of something interesting to me: humans can fake their moods, but works of art have no reason to do so, as artists have chosen their subjects as free lenders of their feelings. At this point, seven facial expressions, such as that of smiling, laughing, screaming, crying and reflecting, deserve to be explored through the honest account of art history.

SMILE (2022) Sculpture by Segutoart.

The art of smiling and laughing

On the subject of the Smile, going beyond the star of the Mona Lisa, it is imperative to dwell on the fact that, while it is true that a masterpiece intent on showing a serene expression was designed to convey it, it will never be revealed to us what feelings actually animated the models portrayed. Such ambiguity, which vanishes only in the psychological type of portrait, leaves us in doubt regarding many works of art that, like Antonello da Messina's Portrait of a Man (1465-1476) and Parmigianino's Turkish Slave (1532), show more or less authentic smiles. As for the first painting, the portrait's protagonist is caught facing to the right, while his face is slightly turned toward the front of the painting, a position that allows us to contemplate a confident, winking smile placed on a mature physiognomy, in which a thin veil of beard is visible. Regarding the identity of the effigy, because of his dress decorated with a white collar, many have thought that he was a sailor, although recently historians have recognized in it the features of Francesco Vitale da Noia, a powerful tutor and secretary of Ferdinand the Catholic and bishop of Cefalù (Sicily), who, given his position, had all the qualifications to be caught in a "mocking" laugh in the face of those who wished him ill. Speaking instead of Parmigianino's masterpiece, the title of the work is linked to the presence of a particular headdress interpreted by most as a turban, while, in reality, the elegance of the effigy was simply enhanced by a typical hairstyle of 16th-century Italian noblewomen. Even in this second case, the effigy takes on a mischievous laugh, probably fostered by the awareness of her sensuality, which, certainly given by the attribute of two large green eyes, was enriched by a precious blue silk robe with puffed sleeves, topped by a gold and orange striped veil. Finally, the slightly biased pose probably captured the features of Giulia Gonzaga of Mantua or the poetess Veronica Gambara. 

GENERATION ANDROGYNOUS (2016) Drawing by Lucian Szekely-Rafan.

HAPPILY EVER SMILE (2022) Painting by Vitalina Desbocada.

Turning to the year 2016, let us enrich the narrative of the past with that of contemporary art history, in which the smile of the Generation androgynous drawing by Artmajeur artist Lucian Szekely-Rafan is due, not to the physical prowess or economic ease of the character portrayed, but to his deeper awareness, which, the legitimate child of emancipation our century, is capable of being able to distance itself from the labels associated with people's gender or background, in order to accept the richness of the many nuances of human beings, enhancing their ability to accept, experience and understand them in their fullness. In order to move from the shy, closed-mouthed smile to the more brazen laughter, it is necessary to mention a work, aimed at manifesting a concept somewhere between the two happy outward expressions, concretized through an expression of contentment, which, silently conceived to add the "showy" display of the more or less thirty-two human teeth, was made explicit in the Cupid of Caravaggio's Amor vincit omnia (1602-1603). The latter painting, one of the Italian master's most famous works, depicts love winning by capturing the likeness of the model Francesco Boneri, a pupil and probably lover of the artist. It is precisely the latter hypothetical relationship that would justify the eroticism and mischievous smile of Cupid, a figure that seems to invite the viewer to join him in the canvas in order to offer him a concrete demonstration of the full power of love. Such sensual charge has even been interpreted as a sort of declaration of Merisi's homosexuality, aimed at demonstrating, in fact, the freedom of expression of the time, to be found, in this particular case, in the personality of the commissioner of the work, namely Marquis Vincenzo Giustiniani, an Italian banker, art collector and intellectual, known precisely for his important collection of Caravaggio paintings. Coming to the actual laughter, it is impossible not to think of Rembrandt laughing (1628), a work conceived to give voice to the interests of the Dutch master of the same name, who was extremely fascinated by rich human expressiveness, so much so that he used, on multiple occasions, himself as an object of emotional investigation. Still regarding the 1628 painting, it depicts the painter in the guise of a relaxed soldier, who, bursting out laughing, engages the viewer, who cannot tell whether the artist is snickering with him or at him. Putting aside Rembrandt's "ambiguous mockery," we can imagine the painter in the early 2000s, who, struggling with a fledgling Facebook decides, instead of consuming his beloved hues, to make a post with a laughing emoji, updating his mood with the term felicissimo, felice, pieno di gioia, etc., in order to analyze human expressions also from a social point of view, that is, eagerly counting the likes under his carefree posting. While most likely a great talent would have been flattened by the mediocrity of the language of social media, other contemporary artists find the latter's modes of expression a great source of inspiration, just as evidenced by the emoji made by Artmajeur artist Vitalina Desbocada, whose work celebrated such pictographic symbols in multiple, accurate and "hyper-realistic" variants.

SCREAM 15/22 (2022) Painting by Ilgvars Zalans. 

The screams of art

Art history teaches us one of its many valuable lessons when we try to search within it for works intended to immortalize screaming subjects. Indeed, before the end of the nineteenth century, that is, Munch's iconic Scream (1893-1910), it seems rather laborious to find examples of the culmination of dramatic expression caused by an internal event, that is, of an introspective and psychological nature, rather than related to a clear historical, mythological, religious, etc. manifestation. Archetypal of what has just been stated are Niccolò dell'Arca's Il compianto sul Cristo morto (1463-1490), Leonardo da Vinci's Studio di volti per la Battaglia di Anghiari (1504 - 1505) and Michelangelo's L'Anima dannata (1525), all works whose misfortune originated externally in the body and mind of the effigies. Speaking of the first Italian masterpiece, that sculptural group composed of seven terracotta figures, preserved at the church of Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna, depicts, in the center, the dead Christ, whose figure, lying with his head reclining on a pillow, is surrounded by other figures, among whom Mary Magdalene's screaming heartbreak stands out, a sentiment that also seems to be echoed in the furious force of the wind that nervously stirs her own garments. If in this case it was the death of Jesus that stirred the souls, in the aforementioned Munch's Scream the cause of the effigy's emotional outburst was simply his strong feeling, that is, the sensibility that led him to the perception of the cries of a nature, surrounded by a reddish atmosphere sprinkled with blood-laden clouds. This latter intimistic approach to art, as well as to the art of screaming, is reproposed in the painting titled Scream 15/22 by Artmajeur artist Ilgvars Zalans, who has created a "contemporary version" of the Norwegian master's work, in which the perspective framing focuses exclusively on the screaming subject, which, deprived of its background, resonates in our imagination with greater force and repetition time.

THE CALL (2022) Painting by Jamie Lee.

Doubt, reflection and weeping...

Often, before we burst into dramatic weeping, whether silent and solitary or blatant and loud, we have sometimes taken a moment of pure and mute reflection, during which we have calculated, within the machinery of our brain, what dramas and consequences are actually attributable to a given situation or event, whether real, fantastic or visionary, that seemed to us to be near, imminent, dangerous and threatening. Thinking of reflective characters in art, in addition to Rodin's well-known Thinker, I am reminded of the absorbed, more or less dramatic expressions of the protagonist in The Bar of the Folies Bergere and of the more unfortunate alcoholic portraits in Picasso's The Absinthe Drinker (1901), Manet's The Absinthe Drinker (1858-1859), Jean-François Raffaelli's Drinking Absinthe (1881), etc. After this brief review, in which multiple works have linked the latter beverage to the most reflective, and perhaps even somewhat depressed state of mind, it is possible to imagine looking at a bottle of absinthe as if we had the eyes of the aforementioned "drunkards," that is, through the contemplation of the distorted Absinthe please by Artmajeur artist Serhii Voichenko, whose intent is perhaps to make us reflect on how, very often, the most tragic states of our minds are inexorably accompanied by the nefarious excesses of alcohol. The narrative continues, this time in total sobriety, showing one of the most extreme consequences of the state of reflection: tears. The latter, within the narrative of art history, were initially linked to predominantly historical events, religious, mythological, etc., and, later, to rather personal events. With regard to the latter, it is impossible not to think of the outburst immortalized by Lichtenstein in Cryng Girl (1963), a lithograph that, made in the style of comic strips, was intended to narrate, along with others by the same master, the drama of women entangled in toxic love relationships, in which an authoritarian male figure dominated, causing their unhappiness. If, however, the reason for the girl's tears is not made explicit in Cryng girl, it is clearly visible in the related work by Artmajeur artist Jamie Lee, which, titled The call, shows how the cause of the suffering is attributable to the person speaking on the other end of the receiver.