Progressive Muscle Relaxation Exercise with The Vexed Man

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Explore how deeply you can relax—by tensing each muscle in your body. This unusual exercise builds on Franz Xaver Messerschmidt’s The Vexed Man (1771–83), a sculpture of a man with an exaggerated facial expression. From the protruding veins in the neck to the deeply furrowed brow, this alabaster sculpture captures the vexed expression of a middle-aged man. Part of a series of 49 sculptures created by Messerschmidt during the last 13 years of his life, each bust depicts a different, often extreme, emotion. During the Enlightenment, when this sculpture was made, there was a growing fascination with the human condition and many sought to understand it. Studying the face, as Messerschmidt did…