the face of death
Maskarah: Arabic, jester
Maskus: Latin, ghost Egyptian and American civilisations placed masks on important people when they died, were buried or were cremated. We, however, are not interested in the religious or symbolic importance these masks had. On the other hand, we are interested in the decorative use of these masks from the Middle Ages on. The aristocracy made it fashionable when they started making death masks of people as soon as they died. They were seemingly souvenir statutes used by Roman Emperors to ensure posthumous recognition. What was at first a custom of the nobility soon was in use amongst other important contemporary figures: politicians, writers, musicians, philosophers… This tradition allows us now to see what a lot of extremely important people looked like. The advent of photography in the 19th Century saw a gradual decline in the making of death masks. Families preferred photography to masks in their bid to remember the deceased ¨ad eternum¨. As the 20th Century progressed, a few families and organisations maintained the tradition.
To make a mask of a recently deceased person’s face, the technique of hollowed plaster is used by filling the spaces in the plaster with liquid wax. In this way, a true three-dimensional portrait of the deceased is obtained. It wasn’t the most beautiful job in the world but a special skill was needed to capture the ghosts of the many ‘jesters’ history has offered us. Wealthy families held the death mask artisans in very high esteem as the representation of their deceased’s beauty and character was fully in their hands.
Maskus: Latin, ghost Egyptian and American civilisations placed masks on important people when they died, were buried or were cremated. We, however, are not interested in the religious or symbolic importance these masks had. On the other hand, we are interested in the decorative use of these masks from the Middle Ages on. The aristocracy made it fashionable when they started making death masks of people as soon as they died. They were seemingly souvenir statutes used by Roman Emperors to ensure posthumous recognition. What was at first a custom of the nobility soon was in use amongst other important contemporary figures: politicians, writers, musicians, philosophers… This tradition allows us now to see what a lot of extremely important people looked like. The advent of photography in the 19th Century saw a gradual decline in the making of death masks. Families preferred photography to masks in their bid to remember the deceased ¨ad eternum¨. As the 20th Century progressed, a few families and organisations maintained the tradition.
To make a mask of a recently deceased person’s face, the technique of hollowed plaster is used by filling the spaces in the plaster with liquid wax. In this way, a true three-dimensional portrait of the deceased is obtained. It wasn’t the most beautiful job in the world but a special skill was needed to capture the ghosts of the many ‘jesters’ history has offered us. Wealthy families held the death mask artisans in very high esteem as the representation of their deceased’s beauty and character was fully in their hands.
