Two faces of genius: How forensic experts took a fresh look at Bach

Published on Friday 29 February 2008 21:45

FOR more than two centuries he has been known to us simply through his music, while his physical appearance has remained a mystery.

Only one confirmed painting of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach existed beyond his death in 1750.

It portrays him as a haughty, jowly, middle-aged man with an intense gaze and 18th-century dress and wig.

But for the first time, forensic facial reconstruction experts in Scotland have recreated his face.

The image reveals the master of Baroque as a thick-set man with a friendly, broad face, wide, puffy eyes and a fleshy mouth.

It rediscovers him as the foot-stamping, dancing music-lover he was, rather than as the creator of refined and complex music.

Experts at Dundee University's centre for forensic and medical art were given a bronze cast of Bach's skull when they were commissioned to create the image by the Bachhaus Museum in Germany.

The striking facial reconstruction will go on display next month in the museum in the eastern German town of Eisenach, Bach's birthplace.

Jrg Hansen, managing director of the Bach museum, said: "For most people, Bach is an old man in a wig. It is a stylised image; we have no realistic portrait of him.

"We know he was a physical man, that he danced, that he stamped his feet when he played, that he sang. He was a very dynamic man; with this reconstruction you can see it."

Ken Walton, The Scotsman's music critic, said: "With any composer or artist who lived before the age of photography we can never be absolutely sure what they really looked like.

"So it is always exciting to put a face to the music, although it is not going to alter the value of the music."

Revered for creating music of great depth and beauty, the father of fugue is not the only icon whose appearance is surrounded by mystery.

William Shakespeare's looks are widely contested. His family would not have commissioned expensive portraits, and there is little evidence that any which later emerged were created in his lifetime.

Often, those aristocratic enough to warrant a painting were too vain to demand an accurate representation.

Monarchs often requested flattering renderings or poses. Charles I, for instance, is represented standing with his seated family or on horseback, to disguise his small stature.

Oliver Cromwell, who wrested power from Charles I and ruled England as Lord Protector, famously rejected the tradition, insisting on being painted, literally, warts and all.

Richard III has been much maligned as a grotesque and weak king who had a hump on his back and a withered arm.

However, experts centuries later discovered these features had been added by Richard's successors, who wanted to portray him in an ill light to strengthen their claim to the throne.

RECREATING THE IMAGE

THE new image of German Baroque composer Johan Sebastian Bach was created by using a bust sculpted in 1908 after Bach's bones were excavated in 1894.

A laser scan of the skull allowed experts at Dundee University, who are more used to criminal and archaeological investigations, to recreate the muscles and skin of his face on computer.

Assessing the bone structure allowed them to determine how the creator of the famous Brandenburg Concertos would have appeared.

The only known authentic painting of the composer was used to help the scientists flesh out and texture the face.

Written contemporary documents, which described Bach's eye problems and swollen eyelids, were also taken into account.

The image will be displayed at the Bachhaus in eastern Germany, which is the oldest museum dedicated to Bach.

It is housed in what the curators believe to have been the home in which the composer was born in 1685.

Bach, whose father was employed as leader of the town's musicians, lived in Eisenach until he was 11 years old.