“The body learns through exaggeration and contrast”
– Wendy Palmer
Winckelmann condemns in contrast the figures of Renaissance and Baroque masters such as Michelangelo and Bernini for lacking adequate grace because of their uncomfortably unnatural somatic postures, exaggerated for dramatic emphasis, such as having a standing figure place one foot far forward while turning his upper body and head sharply to one side or “reclining … in such unusual positions that [would require] a great effort to maintain”.
Like grace, expressiveness is subordinate to beauty (“its primary purpose”) but too often overshadows and ruins beauty by being excessive, distorting a figure’s somatic harmony to create a dramatically expressive effect. If expression shows the changes in “the active and suffering states of our minds and our bodies,” through which “the features of the face and posture of the body change,” then “the greater this change is, the more disadvantageous it is to beauty”. Winckelmann on Taste: A Somaesthetic Perspective (Read More Here )