This project investigates the emotional charge of Michelangelo’s Crouching Boy through its 19th-century replica plaster cast in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It examines the severity of the spinal curve as the driving force behind the emotional response to the sculpture. The research reveals that the affective power of the statue survives the replication process, but is lost as the pose itself is altered.

The crouching posture functions as a universal bodily cue for inward focus, inviting viewers to experience a shared moment of contemplation. Viewers are drawn to the sculpture’s crouched pose and unfinished surface, which communicate a sense of human struggle and introspection. The Burden of the Spine analyses how these formal and tactile features that create Michelangelo’s intended affective response survive the initial casting process but are lost as the pose itself is modified. As a result, the project asserts that the viewer’s affective response is not contingent on viewing the original, but simply on the pose being maintained through the casting process.