# Why are all the best composers 'heavy boned' with large heads?



## The Aesthete (Apr 27, 2014)

Look at pictures of Bach for example. He is very 'big boned' with a large cranial size. So is Beethoven and most of the other composers have this 'heavy' look about them -. I look at people and they appear very derivative and not unique in any sense. These people 'fill out' the populous and are average people. The pictures of the master composers tell me that they didn't appear like an ordinary person. They had a kind 'complete' and distinguishable look - a look someone of authority and command would have. Maybe this is the artists impression of them rather than an accurate portrait. So I wonder if creativity correlates with cranial size? And did these composers really look like?

What do you think?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Rameau? Many others as well...


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Large heads? To accommodate their brains I suppose.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

The Aesthete said:


> Look at pictures of Bach for example. He is very 'big boned' with a large cranial size. So is Beethoven and most of the other composers have this 'heavy' look about them -. I look at people and they appear very derivative and not unique in any sense. These people 'fill out' the populous and are average people. The pictures of the master composers tell me that they didn't appear like an ordinary person. They had a kind 'complete' and distinguishable look - a look someone of authority and command would have. Maybe this is the artists impression of them rather than an accurate portrait. So I wonder if creativity correlates with cranial size? And did these composers really look like?
> 
> What do you think?


With most of the old masters, it is difficult to tell how accurate artists' depictions of them are, because no photographs of them exist, and often there is only a single painting available, or the paintings were done by artists who were not necessarily the best of their time.

In some cases, we can test the pictures: some years ago, Bach's skull was used to reconstruct what he looked like in life, and it turned out that the portrait by Haussmann is likely quite accurate. In other cases, where many different portraits are available, one can get an idea of the composer's appearance, e.g. most portraits of Beethoven show the same basic features.

Artists did perhaps sometimes romanticize their subject matter. E.g. Delacroix was a huge fan of Chopin, and his portrait shows the composer as perhaps a more heroic figure than the impression one gets from the few old photos of him. The same thing is likely true of Joseph Stieler's portrait of Beethoven.

As for the supposed large heads, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

In short, phrenology is a pseudoscience.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I have a rather large head so intelligence has nothing to do with it.


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## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Obviously you haven't seen the photos of Prokofiev.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

shangoyal said:


> Obviously you haven't seen the photos of Prokofiev.


Or Ravel. Or Mozart. Or... :lol:


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

hpowders said:


> I have a rather large head so intelligence has nothing to do with it.


With me, the same sad truth applies. My large head just makes it even more difficult for researchers to find my brain than would already have been the case even if I were microcephalic.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

They need a lot of room up there to imagine creativity so those lovely notes can flow.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

A lot of famous composers are German/Austrian, and there is a large portion of Germans and Austrians that genetically tend of have big heads (specifically, large foreheads).

Just look at the forehead resemblance between Mahler and Arnold Schwarzenegger.


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