The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Figure 7: Étude du méchanisme et de l'expression du muscle frontal chez un vieillard: à droit, attention; à gauche, repos

Figure 7: Étude du méchanisme et de l'expression du muscle frontal chez un vieillard: à droit, attention; à gauche, repos

c. 1856, printed 1862
(French, 1825–1903)
Image: 16.2 x 11.9 cm (6 3/8 x 4 11/16 in.); Paper: 23.5 x 17.9 cm (9 1/4 x 7 1/16 in.); Mounted: 41.2 x 27.4 cm (16 1/4 x 10 13/16 in.)
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Duchenne, a neurologist at a hospital for the poor in Paris, turned to photography to record the grammar of human expression.

Description

Duchenne embarked on the first scientific, systematic exploration of the physiology of human facial expression and hoped, through photographs of his experiments, to teach artists how to portray those emotions. The experiments were performed by applying electrical stimulation to a single muscle on one side of the face, so that the viewer could clearly see the impact of the muscular contraction.
  • ?-2017
    (Serge Kakou, Paris, France)
    2017–18
    (Robert Hershkowitz, Ltd., Sussex, United Kingdom)
    February 26, 2018-
    sold to The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Liberatore, Virginia, and G.-B. Duchenne. Performing the Passions between Classical and Modern Epistemes: Text and Photography in Duchenne De Boulogne's "Mécanisme De La Physionomie Humaine". 2002.
    Duchenne, G.-B., and R. Andrew Cuthbertson. The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression. 2006.
    Prodger, Phillip. Darwin's Camera: Art and Photography in the Theory of Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
    Sobieszek, Robert A. Ghost in the Shell: Photography and the Human Soul, 1850-2000 : Essays on Camera Portraiture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1999.
  • {{cite web|title=Figure 7: Étude du méchanisme et de l'expression du muscle frontal chez un vieillard: à droit, attention; à gauche, repos|url=false|author=Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne (de Boulogne), Adrien Tournachon|year=c. 1856, printed 1862|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2018.8