IS THIS THE FACE OF ANTINOUS AS HE TRULY LOOKED IN LIFE?

IS this the face of Antinous? Art historian Peter C. Marinescu has created this reconstruction of his face in life based on the dimensions of his features ... from a famous marble head of Antinous found at Hadrian's Villa.

He writes:

FaceGen Modeller, a program that recreates realistic animatable 3D portraits, allowed me to investigate a series of renowned Antinous busts, including one portrait found in Villa Adriana at Tivoli, as photographed by Marie-Lan Nguyen in 2006. 

Now hosted in Palazzo Massimo alle Terme as MC1192, this is a particular work considering the emotion expressed in the mimics and the coming of mature age. 

These vivid features suggest that it might have been an experiment of a distinguished late contemporary work intimately directed near the date of the young lad’s death.

The results noticed following the auto-correction of facial bones structure has proved an extremely styilized eyebrow shaping. 

The living model must have been bearing a spiritual stance of depth, gazing a subtle sensual attitude, while the artist decided to confront this appearance with a more tense but less provoking figure.

Physical anthropology suggests furthermore that hair was dark, maybe with brown reflections (in the 19th Century, he was erroneously seen by scholars as blonde). The fact he was perceived as having huge eyes is because he might have had light brown eyes.

This project’s aim was underlining to what extent giving skin tones to a realistic work of art that has been adjusted to meet real life physiognomy, can recreate the ideal of a past beauty image. 

Did wealth and caress received at the imperial court contribute to Antinous' state of arête (the great potential attributed to heroes), leading the way to deification of the soul?

READ THE FULL REPORT HERE: POSSIBLE FACE OF ANTINOUS

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