A mímica do rosto na arte : a sua importância na representação e interpretação artística

Art is the exploration of an artist’s imagination; it is a means of communication between a mind, flooded with ideas and thoughts, and the world. Throughout the History of Mankind, figurative art has always been one of the most commonly used means of communication - ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ – and given that people could not always read and write, the image was always one of the means most explored in order to convey messages, stories or ideas. Artistically, the human body was the object that was most often used to communicate with the viewer. This, I believe, as an artist, produces a more immediate effect in communication, due to the fact that it is an image that the observer identifies with, naturally. Therefore it is also my belief that facial expression, just as bodily expression (emotions, actions and character) has quite an important role in communicating with the observer. This study is focused mainly on the important influence that facial expressions had and have on figurative works of art. As such, it consists of a detailed analysis of the face’s anatomy (osteology and miology), of the mimicry of emotions and of the way facial expression has been represented throughout the History of Art. It also comprises a brief analysis of the history of anatomy and of the evolution of didactic materials used in artistic studies. One of the chapters is dedicated to explaining the understanding of facial expressions through the mirror neurons and how they influence artistic interpretation. At the end of this piece of research a brief case-study was also carried out, where Portuguese public works of art (in this case in Lisbon) were contrasted with public works in other countrie