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Will Kohli Aluminum 2000 CE
Will KohliAluminum 2000 CE
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MASKS of all types : Ethnic, Folk, Cultural, Ornamental, Asian, Oriental, Decorative, Wood, Ceramic, Plastic, Paper-Mache, African, Indian, American Indian, South American, Venetian, Indonesian, Mexican, Carved, Ceremonial, Religious, Imported, Art, Sculpture, Collectible, Miniature, Wall, Free-Standing, Decor. Home Furnishings, Interior Design.
Masks say something about every culture. As a student of World Cultures, an Anthropologist, I am mesmerized with Masks. Their use in Religion, Theater, Ceremony, Ritual, Tribal Totems, Ornamental and Decoration.
Here is a description of Mask and their use, with all pertinent links, in Wikipedia:
Ritual and Theater
Masked performers as Punch and Judy by Horse and Bamboo Theatre
Throughout the world masks are used for their expressive power as a feature of masked performance. They are a familiar and vivid element in many folk and traditional pageants, ceremonies, rituals and festivals. Many of these are of an ancient origin. The mask is often a part of costume that adorns the whole body and embodies a tradition important to a particular society of people.
Masks are used almost universally and maintain their power and mystery both for their wearers and their audience, retaining an important place in the religious and social life of the community. The continued popularity of wearing masks at carnival, and for children at parties and for festivals such as Halloween are reminders of the enduring power of pretence and play.
The mask is also used in theatrical performance. In many cultural traditions the masked performer is a central concept and is highly valued. In the western tradition it is sometimes considered a stylistic device which can be traced back to the Greeks and Romans. The masked characters of the Commedia dell'Arte included the ancestors of the modern clown. In contemporary western theatre the mask is often used alongside puppetry to create a theatre which is essentially visual rather than verbal, and many of its practicioners have been visual artists.
Masks in contemporary theatre
Masks, as well as puppets, were often incorporated into the theatre work of European avant-garde artists from the turn of the nineteenth century. Alfred Jarry, Pablo Picasso, Oskar Schlemmer and other artists of the Bauhaus School, as well as surrealists and Dadaists, experimented with theatre forms and masks in their work.
The first real sustained and developed use of masks in contemporary theatre can be traced back to the work of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, founded in 1959, and to Peter Schumann and his Bread and Puppet Theatre, which was established in New York in the early 1960’s. Schumann, born in Silesia in 1934, combined aspects of European festival masks with a highly distinctive American sensibility, and his strongly humanitarian and anti-war polemic has continued to exert an influence on the use of masks in theatre, especially on street-theatre.[4] Other US and Canadian companies, inspired by Bread and Puppet, developed including In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater of Minneapolis; Arm-of-the Sea Theatre from New York State; Snake Theater from California; and Shadowland Theatre of Toronto. These companies, and others, have a strong social agenda, and combine masks, music and puppetry to create a visual theatrical form.
Ritual masks
Golden masks excavated in Kalmakareh, Lorestan, Iran. First half of first Millennium BC
Ritual masks occur throughout the world, and although they tend to share many characteristics, highly distinctive forms have developed. The function of the masks may be magical or religious; they may appear in rites of passage or as a make-up for a form of theatre. Equally masks may disguise a penitent or preside over important ceremonies; they may help mediate with spirits, or offer a protective role to the society who utilise their powers.[5]
Ritual and theatrical masks around the world
North America
Arctic Coastal groups have tended towards rudimentary religious practice but a highly evolved and rich mythology, especially concerning hunting. In some areas annual shamanic ceremonies involved masked dances and these strongly abstracted masks are arguably the most striking artifacts produced in this region.
Pacific Northwest Coastal indigenous groups were generally highly skilled woodworkers. The carving of masks are an important feature of that craft, along with many other features that often combined the utilitarian with the symbolic, such as shields, canoes, poles and houses.
Woodland tribes, especially in the North-East and around the Great Lakes, cross-fertilized culturally with one another. The Iroquois made spectacular wooden ‘false face’ masks, used in healing ceremonies and carved from living trees. These masks appear in a great variety of shapes, depending on their precise function.
Pueblo craftsmen produced impressive work for masked religious ritual, especially the Hopi and Zuni. The kachinas, god/spirits, frequently take the form of highly distinctive and elaborate masks that are used in ritual dances. These are usually made of leather with appendages of fur, feathers or leaves. Some cover the face, some the whole head and are often highly abstracted forms. Navajo masks appear to be inspired by the
South and Central America
Distinctive styles of masks began to emerge in pre-Hispanic America
For the Aztecs human skulls were prized as war trophies and skull masks were not uncommon. Masks were also used as part of court entertainments, possibly combining political with religious significance.
In post-colonial Latin America pre-Columbian traditions merged with Christian rituals, and syncretic masquerades and ceremonies, such as All Souls/Day of the Dead developed, despite efforts of the Church to stamp out the indigenous traditions. Masks remain an important feature of popular carnivals and religious dances, such as The Dance of the Moors and Christians. Mexico, in particular, retains a great deal of creativity in the production of masks, encouraged by collectors. Wrestling matches, where it is common for the participants to wear masks, are very popular and many of the wrestlers can be considered folk heroes. [7]
Asia
India/Sri Lanka/Indo-China Indonesia
Masked characters, usually divinities, are a central feature of Indian dramatic forms, many based on depicting the epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Countries that have had strong Indian cultural influences – Cambodia, Burma, Java, Thailand, Vietnam – have developed the Indian forms, combined with local myths, and developed their own characteristic styles.
The masks* are usually highly exaggerated and formalised, and share an aesthetic with the carved images of monstrous heads that dominate the facades of Hindu and Buddhist temples. These faces or Kirtimukhas, 'Visages of Glory', are intended to ward off evil and are associated with the animal world as well as the divine. During ceremonies these visages are given active form in the great mask dramas of the South and South-eastern Asian region. [8]
Eskimo cultures
Yup'ik shaman exorcising evil spirits from a sick boy, Nushagak, Alaska, 1890s.[9] Nushagak, located on Nushagak Bay of the Bering Sea in southwest Alaska, is part of the territory of the Yup'ik, speakers of the Central Alaskan Yup'ik language
See also: Masks among Eskimo peoples
Note: Eskimo groups comprise a huge area stretching from Eastern Siberia through Alaska and Northern Canada (including Labrador Peninsula) to Greenland. The term Eskimo has fallen out of favour in
Despite of some similarities in the cultures of the Eskimo peoples,[10][11][12][13][14] their cultural diversity[15] makes it hard to say how "the" Eskimos used masks. The sustenance, mythology, soul concepts, even the language[16] of the bands were not alike.
Archeological masks have been found, including miniature maskettes made of walrus ivory, coming from early Paleo-Eskimo and from early Dorset culture period;[17] and masks served several functions among Eskimos also in the (ethnographical) present:
· they could be used on rituals representing animals in personalized form;[18]
· masks could be worn worn also on song contest ceremonials;[19]
· they could be used also on ceremonials relating to spirits (as in the case of a wooden mask from southwestern Alaska
Europe
Masks are used throughout Europe , and are frequently integrated into regional folk celebrations and customs. Old masks are preserved and can be seen in museums, and much research has been undertaken into the historical origins of masks – most probably represent nature spirits, and many of the associated customs are seasonal. The original significance would have survived only until the introduction of Christianity, which then incorporated many of the customs into its own traditions, also changing their meanings so, for example, old gods and goddesses became demons.
Many of the masks used in these festivals belong to the contrasting categories of the 'good', or 'idealised beauty', set against the 'ugly' or 'beastly' and grotesque. This is particularly true of the Germanic and Central European festivals. Another common type is the Fool, sometimes considered to be the synthesis of the two contrasting type of Handsome and Ugly. [21]
The oldest representations of masks are animal masks, such as the cave paintings of Lascaux in the Dordogne in southern France. Such masks survive in the alpine regions of Austria and Switzerland, and may be connected with hunting or shamanism, and tend to be particularly associated with the new year and carnival. The debate about the meaning of these and other mask forms continues in Europe, where monsters, bears, wild men, harlequins, hobby horses and other fanciful characters appear in carnivals throughout the continent. It is generally accepted that the masks, noise, colour and clamour are meant to drive away the forces of darkness and winter, and open the way for the spirits of light and the coming of spring. [22]
Utilitarian masks
As well as their use in ritual and theatre, masks of many different kinds are in everyday use for a wide range of utilitarian functions. There is an interesting example of overlapping categories of mask usage in the use by penitents of masks in ceremonies to disguise their identity in order to make the act of penitence more selfless. The Semana Santa parades throughout Spain and in Hispanic/Catholic countries throughout the world are examples of this, with their cone shaped masks. Masks were adopted by the vigilante groups, and the cone-shaped mask in particular is identified with the Klu Klux Klan in a self-conscious effort to combine the hiding of personal identity with the promotion of a powerful and intimidating image.
Fashion Masks
Musical artists such as MF DOOM have worn masks for promotional effect.
· Attendants of a costume party may wear masks as part of their costumes.
· Many musicians, especially from the heavy metal genre, don masks or heavy makeup on stage or promotional pictures for theatrical effect. Examples include Kiss, Mayhem, King Diamond, Buckethead, Mushroomhead, Slipknot, Lordi, GWAR, Gorgoroth, The Sound of Animals Fighting, and Death in June.
· Wrestling masks are used most widely in Mexican and Japanese wrestling. A wrestler's mask is usually related to a wrestler's persona (for example, a wrestler known as 'The Panda' might wear a mask with a panda's facial markings). Often, wrestlers will put their masks on the line against other wrestlers' masks, titles or an opponent's hair. While in Mexico Japan United States
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