Back once again with an old thing i did when i was in school. So i took Art in A Levels in 2011 and i decided for my exam i would do my project on masks and make masks and so i had to write up on them with the topic Body Beautiful. By the way my paper was the best in the class too! Looking back on this i believe it to be lacking haha but at the time me having best result and paper in class? It meant a lot :) I LOVE MASKS. I have had problems with the whiteback ground and with text size while copy and pasting this to my blogger so yeah i done all i can hope you can still see and read it tidy :)
Body Beautiful: Masks
Beauty is an opinion, a characteristic. Everything possesses it. Some see it outside, others see it on the inside. For my project of body beautiful I am looking at cultures, holidays, artists, facial expressions and music and film because this is where masks came from and evolved to and from and have become so popular over the years.
I am looking at African culture, Picasso’s art, movies, halloween and for music bands like genesis, slipknot etc as well as looking at these I could also look at masks from another culture and that’s mexican wrestling where the mask means everything. There are a number of ways how and why I find masks beautiful and that’s because I find that masks posses something magical that can destroy the beauty of the face, masks can hide the beautiful face and change the beauty of the face underneath the mask. You can also be possessed to become something wearing the mask,you become someone else,a different side of yourself,that no one knows you,who or what you become with the mask on. The mask also possesses beauty of the colours; shape, pattern and design of them make them stand out and makes them beautiful in a lot of individual ways. Masks are normally worn for protection, concealment, performance, or amusement. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body, in parts of Australia giant totem masks cover the body, whilst Inuit women use finger masks during storytelling and dancing. There are many types of masks such as the following: Buccal, Death, Facial and Life mask. A "Buccal mask" is a mask that covers only the cheeks and mouth. A death mask is a mask either cast from or applied to the face of a recently deceased person. A "facial" is a temporary mask, not solid, used in cosmetics or therapy for skin treatment. A "life mask" is a plaster cast of a face, used as a model for making a painting or sculpture.
African cultures are so magnificent they are the one’s to start masks of really, they would make these masks for disguising the face, for hunting or for war or fighting to strike fear into they’re enemies and victims before they die it was just for sport at the time. Masks have come a long way from being made from paint and wood to metal, clay and plastic today. Masks are made for everyday use really people use them in movies, cultures, sport, music, holidays and cosplaying/dressing up, these days.
In the world of art there’s not been famous artists doing masks but facial expressions is what they have done like Picasso. He paints people and later on he mixed them up a bit changed things around which made his work beautiful and certainly unique and made masks more beneficial and stylish with just his shapes, patterns and designs made such a big difference and if it wasn’t for Picasso, masks as we all know and love today would be different and might not even be around today.
I practically love Picasso’s art of how he distorts people and makes it look so different that you wouldn’t recognise they’re face. Picasso’s works of art are so beautiful with the colour scheme and patterns and shapes he uses its what makes them stand out from the crowd.
Movies are mainly where we see masks the most because they are often symbolised as fear. We see them used mostly in horror movies because they conceal the identity of the killer. Notable examples include Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th series, Wes Craven's Scream series and Michael Myers of the Halloween movie series. All the mask's do is conceal their identity and be rid of their humanity.
Sport stars such as Wrestlers often wear masks as its part of their character a gimmick and it could be their lifestyle choice. In Mexico the lucha libre wrestlers wear masks with designs of god,animals,ancient heros and other archetypes. The wrestlers there normally start off their careers wearing masks and assign a character and name to themselves and they do everything to protect their identities because the mask becomes their life a big part of it and they aim to protect it from being taken off them, if a wrestler is unmasked it normally means retirement and some have said it is shameful and an ultimate insult to have it happen and that is why they then choose to end their careers. The masks luchadores wear are iconic symbols of the mexican culture,Contemporary Artists Francisco Delgado and Xavier Garza incorporate those style of masks in their work.The most famous well known lucha libre masked wrestler was El Santo aka Rodolfo Huerta his wrestling career gained him fame and fortune he was never seen unmasked not even when he retired. Wherever he would go if he was wrestling or not his mask would forever remain on. Rodolfo's wrestling career spanned 5 decades, over that time he also became a folk hero,a symbol of justice for the common man in his appearances in comics and movies. El Santo only removed his mask once on tv in his final interview in a mexican talk show after he retired and a week later he sadly passed away aged 66 due to a heart attack,he was buried wearing his famous silver mask.
In music they seem to be used as a sign,a symbol and to make the people who wear them stand out and to be more known and recognised,kind of like a gimmick. Many interviews with musicians who wear masks have said "We wear them for fun and we want to hide our real identities and become someone else, we don’t particularly wear them for scares, even though I don’t think anyone’s afraid of our masks"- Corey Taylor-Singer of Slipknot.
In the world of art there’s not been famous artists doing masks but facial expressions is what they have done like Picasso he paints people and later on he mixed them up a bit changed things around which made his work beautiful and made masks more beneficial and stylish just his shapes, patterns and designs made such a big difference and if it wasn’t for Picasso masks as we all know and love today would be different and maybe might not be around today.
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