TT: Who cares what Mozart looked like?

A “new” portrait of Mozart painted from life in 1783 was recently authenticated by a British musicologist, and the media took respectful note. So did I. But then I asked myself: what difference does it make whether we know what the composer of The Marriage of Figaro looked like? Why do we care–and why does it matter? The result of my speculations was this week’s “Sightings” column, which appears in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal.
Part of my inspiration for the column was this posting by the ever-provocative Mr. Anecdotal Evidence, which reminded me of an exceedingly relevant Samuel Johnson quote recorded in Boswell’s Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides: “I esteem biography, as giving us what comes near to ourselves, what we can turn to use.” But how can we turn the presumed physiognomy of a classical composer to use? And what do we do in the case of a great artist like Shakespeare about whose personal life we know almost nothing?
For the answer, pick up a copy of tomorrow morning’s Journal and turn to the “Weekend Journal” section.
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Read the whole thing here.