The Muscles of Weeping and Whimpering

Facial expressions and their corresponding emotions have been studied by artists for centuries. In the 1850s, Dr. Guillaume-Benjamin- Amand Duchenne de Boulogne used photography to document the facial expressions produced by localized electric shock. Working in partnership with photographer Adrien Alban Tournachon, Duchenne felt these photographs truthfully recorded his experiments and that “none shall doubt the facts presented here.” Praising photography for its accurate rendering of the subject’s deep wrinkles, he wrote, “the distribution of light is in perfect harmony with the passions represented by these expressive lines. Thus, the face depicting the dark, concentric passions—aggression, wickedness, suffering, pain, dread, torture mixed with fear—gain an uncommon amount of energy.”