The human face has always been a source of great interest for artists and its study has gone through every era of art, from classical to modern and contemporary, following an evolutionary line that also crosses science. Throughout history painters, sculptors, designers have faced the representation of the face – male, female or androgynous – in very different ways: there are those who have chosen more philosophical or scientific methods and those who have decided to rely on an approach more intuitive and sensory. And this is why within the history of art the representation of the face shows an alternation of phases that range essentially from realism to idealization, from the stylization of the features to their expressionistic deformation.
The reasons why art has shown such interest in interpreting this theme go beyond the simple physical form and lie in what is hidden behind the features and expressions of our face, must be sought in that invisible something, in the imperceptible that our gaze reveals.
It is no coincidence that many artists, starting from the 1500s, became interested in physiognomy, a parascientific discipline which, based on an illusory correspondence between an internal and an external dimension, aimed to deduce the psychological characteristics of individuals from their physical appearance, especially from the features and expressions of the face.
It is the desire to bring an invisible and unknown reality back to known and reassuring patterns that pushes the artists towards a non-ordinary path, to investigate the human psyche through physical appearances, to reveal in facial mimics a great existential and philosophical reason and discover in this way something more about themselves and their inner world.
Visual art creates a solid relationship between man’s armor and his deepest being and this has remained almost unchanged from the past to the present.

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