The Mask Part 7: Revealing and Concealing

The Mask:
Introduction: Masks and Masking
Part 1: The Metaphor
Part 2: The Mask that Fits
Part 3: Ontology
Part 4: Masquerade of the Gods
Part 5: Mask of Sanity
Part 6: The Material Mask

I had initially intended to use more examples to plumb further the nature of mask, such as Batman and the villains he fights, MirrorMask and the mirror and the abyss, Nietzsche and some of the things he had to say, drawing and photography (art), et cetera. But upon further reflection I feel that they only reinforce ideas we have already covered, and therefore add nothing new to this exploration. I might perhaps toss some examples from those in to reinforce some other ideas we will get into, but nothing that will be looked at in depth. I really would like to wrap this little study up, so I only have in mind this post and one other. For this post we will revisit Michelangelo's New Sacristy in the Medici Chapel of San Lorenzo in Florence. What is of concern here is the two statues on Giuliano de Medici's tomb of Day and Night. We will focus on how Thomas Mann thought of Day and Night, and how the two are identical masks, but with opposing qualities.

Let's ask a silly question: does night mask the day? or does the day mask the night? Better yet, which masks and unmasks the other? Is one a mask and the other not? Seems like another chicken-and-the-egg question, but if we consider both as masks for the other something new is revealed. The day, revealing the radiance and warmth of the sun, does in fact masks the glittering brilliance of the nightly stars. On the other hand the night conceals the sun and reveals the shimmering stars and the face of the moon. Night and day are not masks for each other, but merely a process of masking. This introduces us to what is known as "fuzzy logic."

Fuzzy logic is a philosophy that involves things not having binary answers: yes and no, right and wrong, hot and cold. Fuzzy logic involves answers like both and neither, less or more, maybe and probably, et cetera. Sometimes is can be either and neither at the same time given the problem. The idea is that sometimes things are not always one or the other, but somewhere in between. Zedeh, one of the pioneers of fuzzy logic, used temperature as an example. He would ask his kids if it was cold or hot, but sometimes it was somewhere in between. Sometimes it's less hot than cold, or more cold than hot, but it wasn't exactly hot or cold. In our case the day is not the mask, nor is night, but rather both are the mask of each other.

Thomas Mann, in his Joseph and His Brothers, says that day is the liar, while night reveals what things truly are. While I doubt Mann truly felt this way, in that I doubt he believed that the day was the liar and night was not, especially given what he discusses about solar cults of Egypt in Part 3 and 4, nonetheless he does give insight into which quality of things are revealed or concealed at night or during the day. Mann says that the day distracts us with details and differences between things, which the night reveals that they are the same thing. He describes this when he discusses Jacob's marriage to Rachel, which was deceived by replacing Rachel with Leah in the dark bedroom. Because it is night and there are no candles in the room Jacob cannot tell the difference between Leah or Rachel. He compares this Biblical tale to Osiris's accidental affair with his brother's wife, Nephthys. It was night and Osiris was chasing his wife, Isis, in order to have sex with her. But Osiris accidentally caught Set's wife, Nephthys, and had sex with her, and she thought Osiris was Set. (By the way, Osiris, Set, Nephthys, and Isis are all brothers and sisters, but whatever). According to Mann the day distracts us with the difference between this man and that man, or this woman and that woman. Night reveals that they are the same. Night conceals what the day distracts us with and reveals that this woman is no different from that woman, Isis is no different from Nephthys, Rachel is no different from Leah. They are all women. Day is sort of like missing the forest for the trees: there is this tree and that tree, but ultimately they are trees and they make up forests.

I hope I'm not entirely misrepresenting Mann's opinion of night and day. Mann felt that night reveals by concealing the day. In a sense, the mask reveals by concealing, and the day conceals by revealing. By concealing the differences we see during the day between this person and that person another quality is revealed. This is what masks do: they reveal by concealing, and conceal by revealing. It is misguided to think of the mask as a concealer of truth. That's a binary conclusion to give something as powerful and wonderful as the mask. No, rather the mask abides to fuzzy logic: it reveals and conceals, and it does one by doing the other; it is both and neither simultaneously.

Is it any wonder then that Master Buonarroti depicts both Night and Day masked and unmasked? Night's face is refined and polished, but also has a mask. Day does not have a mask, but his face is unfinished, obscured, and never fulled revealed from the stone he was carved from. Michelangelo learned from his sculpting master, Bertoldo, that the figure was in the stone, waiting, sleeping, and needing to be released. Day is masked, but has not mask. Night has a mask, but is unmasked. One reveals what the other conceals.

In fact the entire New Sacristy is flooded with images of masks. Giuliano de Medici has a cuirass, much like Augustus Caesar Prima Porta, which fits him perfectly, and has masks on the ends of the straps that hold the cuirass on his body, a grotesque mask on the front and another on the back of the cuirass. Lorenzo de Medici has a lion mask upon his head, and a grotesque mask carved upon the end of the stone block under his elbow. The egg and dart molding that runs along the walls has grotesque masks in place of the eggs. George Hersey interpreted this replacement of the eggs (a symbol of female fertility and power) with grotesque masks was a sacrificial statement; that the eggs are broken/sacrificed to reveal what lays within, as if the eggs broke and are dripping a face/yoke, just like the Doric Order's triglyph is a femur bone broken into the three pieces that drip the guttae (the marrow). I'm not so sure about the sacrificial interpretation, but I would agree that the eggs (masks) are broken to reveal grotesques (another mask).

I suppose the same relationship of revealing is concealing and vice versa exists in the difference between drawing and photography. I believe it was Paul Clave (I'm not sure if I have his last name correct) who said that all art was a process of concealing, except photography, which can only reveal. Photography is like the mirror, in that it can only reveal what it is presented with. When we draw or paint or sculpt we are not always being honest. We might alter the proportions, exaggerate the light and shadow, omit or add to the models we use, et cetera. I suppose this is why Michelangelo always felt that sculpture was superior to painting. Painting is a matter of creating illusions of space, form, perspective, and light - a masking (lie) of features that are not true on a flat surface. Sculpture, on the other hand, is honest to space and form and light. It is a revealing. This is perhaps why Micky often left many figures unfinished, as if they were not completely revealed from the rock. They are part of a series called "Prisoners" for Pope Julius II's tomb. Michelangelo is revealing something by not fully revealing their forms. If sculpture is an unveiling, then what is revealed if revealing is concealing? To leave the Prisoners concealed Michelangelo is revealing. What exactly is being revealed I am not totally sure of (I've never spent a significant amount of time with the Prisoners), but I imagine in a way he was saying something about masking; the same sort of masking and unmasking is played with for the egg and dart modeling for the New Sacristy: the egg/mask is revealing another mask.

In summation the mask and the face are not necessarily important, because sometimes all we have are masks. This is really the nature, the essence (esse) of the mask: it isn't about what the mask reveals or conceals, rather it is that the mask reveals and conceals. It matters little that we put a smile on our faces when we are actually upset. What matters is that we are hiding an emotion by revealing a different one (signified verses signifier). It doesn't matter if the night masks the day, or the opposite. What matters is that they mask one another, concealing and revealing different aspects of reality depending on the mask. The mask almost does not matter anymore, but rather that we are masking is what matters. I think this could be summarized best from Batman Begins: "It's not who you are underneath but what you do that defines you." In other words: it's not what's under the mask, but what the mask does that defines the actor and the mask.

The Mask Part 6: The Material Mask

The Mask:
Introduction: Masks and Masking
Part 1: The Metaphor
Part 2: The Mask that Fits
Part 3: Ontology
Part 4: Masquerade of the Gods
Part 5: Mask of Sanity

In continuation of my little mask series it would be fitting to now discuss one of my favorite films that I to talk about a lot (and analyze... and for that matter, to watch): Fight Club. Given that my last post centered around American Psycho, it is fitting to now discuss Fight Club because I have always felt it is a corollary to American Psycho. Both are social critiques that focus on materialism and identity, and I consider both to be some of the greatest social critiques of the 21st Century (Fight Club I would just rank as the single greatest social critique for this century). Where American Psycho is a satire on the yuppie lifestyle and materialism, Fight Club is a straightforward protest against materialism. While materialism is the primary subject for both films, the materialistic lifestyle is a product (a masking) for a loss of identity - the unknowing of self. American Psycho is clearly a satire given its rather comical ending, its anti-climatic conclusion that is just as hollow and pointless as Patrick Bateman himself. In the ending monologue Patrick Bateman says, "But even after admitting this there is no catharsis; my punishment continues to elude me, and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself. No new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing." Bateman is an example of masking, only material masks covering a hollow core. This is the disease of materialism that fun is being poked at here. But the Narrator of Fight Club clearly has a different issue with the materialistic mask. Bateman has no intent of revealing or finding what lies beneath the mask. The Narrator, on the other hand, is searching for something deeper than his clever apartment and wardrobe.

I should go ahead and clarify here that the mask is not just a material thing, which should be clear from all that has been discussed about masks thus far, but here we will focus on the mask of materialism. The material mask is your job, how much money you have in the bank, the car you drive, the contents of your wallet, your fucking khakis. These are all things that we think define us, but they don't. Rather we define them. This should be evident when Tyler says, "The things you own end up owning you." It used to be that the things we owned, the things we made, the things we used and cared for, those things that would be with us for the rest of our lives were reflections of ourselves. Take Abe Lincoln's ax for example, which was also his father's, and his father's before him. The ax had the head replaced twice, and the handle replaced thrice. And yet it is still Lincoln's ax. While no single part of the ax is the original ax, it is nonetheless the same ax (ignoring Theseus's Ship paradox). The material ax is of no concern here, only that the ax reflected the men who owned and cared for it. The ax is a reflection of Lincoln, his father, and his father's father. Unlike Bateman's stainless steel ax used to hack up Paul Allen, the ax had purpose and was cared for. Lincoln owned that ax. Bateman did not own his. When we are no longer the masters of our stuff those things no longer reflect us (unless it's a literal reflection, like Bateman's face reflected on the metal of the ax), but rather we are a reflection of those things. It is clear that we are slaves to those things which are only there for a shallow image of materialistic success and wealth.

This is a wicked turn for the nature of the mask: suddenly we ourselves can become a mask for things we thought would define us. This was Bateman's problem: the things he thought defined him ended up being defined by him. This was the Narrator's search, the reason he invented Tyler Durden, the reason he created Fight Club: he needed to lose this material mask in order to define himself. This is something I have discussed elsewhere in this blog, but it would be useful to reiterate those ideas again through the framework of the mask.

The Narrator's quest is ultimately to hit "bottom." Rock bottom is a spiritual place, not material. As Tyler tell him: "Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not some goddamn seminar." The Narrator thinks because he gave up the condo life, gave up all his flaming worldly possession and moved into a dilapidated house in the toxic waste part of town that he has hit bottom. But as Tyler says: "Sticking feathers up your butt does not make chicken." There is a difference between material rock bottom and spiritual rock bottom. Here we have another perfect mask that concerns the problem of identity and personal definition: "sticking feathers up your butt." Just because your image appears to be a chicken does not make you a chicken, nor does appearing to be destitute make you free from the enslavement of materialism. We are not defined by our image nor by what we own. Tyler's message is to let those things go, to hit bottom in order to find ourselves. This is what Fight Club provided.

Fight Club was about finding freedom. Letting go, and "losing all hope was freedom." The Narrator initially finds freedom when he cries against Bob's giant breasts ("the kind you think of God's as big"). Upon crying, once he let go he saw his own sobbing face marked like a smiley face on Bob's shirt (a face made from his own face). But he suddenly became addicted to these support groups. This is wear Tyler begins to work his way into the Narrator's life, setting the groundwork for Fight Club and Project Mayhem. The support groups became just as meaningless to the Narrator as his stuff: he was not being defined by the groups, but rather he defined them. Marla showed him this, because "her lie reflected my lie." The mask is a reflection of ourselves. Marla is a reflection of what the Narrator needs to define himself ("I would ask: what kind of dinning set defines me as a person?"). He was reflected in the group (the mask), but the mask did not reflect in him. What's the point of a mask that doesn't show the world something about ourselves? What is the purpose of a mask that we have to answer to and not the other way around?

Tyler is one of the chief mask of the film for Marla. Marla is the expression the Narrator wants to present to the world. Tyler is the Narrator's mask (face - facere) that he made to reflect what he aspired to being like ("I didn't create some loser alter ego to make myself feel better"). Tyler says, "You were looking for a way to change your life. You could not do this on your own. All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you want to look. I fuck like you want to fuck. I am smart, capable, and most importantly I am free in all the ways that you are not." It is impossible to express an emotion (signified) without a mask (signifier). Tyler is the signifier for Marla, the signified. Marla is already at bottom or almost there ("I'll say this about Marla, at least she's trying to hit bottom"), and Tyler is the means to hit bottom, to find freedom from the material mask. The support groups were a freedom to, if I may use Eric Fromm's terms. Tyler is freedom from. Fight Club was initially freedom from, but it soon became something to identify with, so it evolved into Project Mayhem. Fight Club became freedom to Project Mayhem, which provided the freedom from materialistic enslavement.

There is two other important masks in Fight Club that concerns the material mask: the condom and the dress. After one of Tyler and Marla's sexcapades Marla approaches the Narrator and says, "The condom is the glass slipper of our generation. You slip one on when you meet a stranger. You dance all night, and then throw it away; the condom I mean, not the stranger." Immediately following this Marla gives another example of the exact same material mask: "I got this dress at a thrift store for one dollar... It's a bridesmaid's dress. Someone loved it intensely for one day, and then tossed it. Like a Christmas tree, so special, then BAM! it's on the side of the road. Tinsel still clinging to it. Like a sex crime victim. Underwear inside out. Bound with electrical tape." Narrator: "Well then it suits you" (the mask that fits, but is not her own). Marla: "You can borrow it sometime." Both the condom and the dress are material things that cover and fit perfectly. The condom is meant to fit anyone, just like the glass slipper was only meant to fit Cinderella. But rather than having Prince Charming, the perfect person, the condom allows anyone to be a prince, and then it's tossed. So special. Just like Miss Singer's bridesmaid's dress and a Christmas tree: one special night, then it's tossed.

This is the nature of the material mask. It defines nothing. The material mask defines us no more than a condom makes a man Prince Charming (wearing an identity that is not your own, like Augustus wearing the trophy cuirass). This is the point of Fight Club: to lose these material masks, to forget the condom, forget the dress, Christmas tree, DKNY wardrobe, string bean stripe patterned furniture, coffee tables in the shape of a yin-yang; to hit bottom to discover what these masks distract us from finding. When a man fights ("how much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?") he engages in primitive activities, fight or flight, there in the darkest of all places where instinct takes hold, there is where he hits bottom and finds freedom from material things (Fight Club makes it a point not to concern itself with women, which is left to Marla). What's the point of all our stuff in the hunter-gatherer sense? The question concerning what we find when we hit bottom is another matter. Supposedly it is at bottom that the men find themselves, discover their supposed identity, and how they define themselves. At the very least hitting bottom provides the solid ground upon which to rebuild our identities, to make the masks that truly define us. These can't be masks we purchased. We have to make them (facere, agere). Our masks have to reflect us, like Lincoln's ax. Tyler says: "You will wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life." He is describing a post-apocalyptic world where we make and fix our own stuff, hunt our food, build our houses, et cetera. These will be things we make (facere), things we wear, and not things that wear us.

Since I've discussed Fight Club before, I have written before that in hitting bottom we define ourselves. I would like to amend that, as I highly doubt that hitting bottom has anything to do with definition of identity; that is at bottom we find who we truly are. Rather I think, now, that hitting bottom gives us the foundation upon which we build a more authentic identity, or at least a less superficial and materialistic identity; because what is an authentic identity if all identity is masks and cross dressing? What is "authenticity" anyway? In our study of the mask it seems more fitting that in hitting bottom we make (facere) our identities/masks rather than finding them.

Now for an art example. Master Buonarroti did a sketch once entitled The Dream, which depicts an angel giving divine inspiration to a male inclined against a globe (often interpreted as melancholy, but also the world). In the background are depictions of a number of contorting figures representing sins, mostly the seven deadly sins with the exception of pride. The nude is sitting upon a box filled with masks. This is the only work by Michelangelo I know of in which masks are not depicted upon a face, except for Saint Bart's skin, but rather laying around.  These masks have been interpreted as worldly deceits, distractions from more noble work and aspirations. So in a sense they are like our material mask, the most useless mask of them all, the one mask that tells nothing about ourselves. They are not on a face because they define nothing, reflect nothing but their own distraction. They are not necessary, and therefore discarded like a condom or a Christmas tree. What is particularly interesting is that the most prominent mask, the one in the center, has a flat nose and a forked, boxy beard, which is in the likeness of Michelangelo himself. This would be our second example of Master Buonarroti depicting his self portrait on a mask that was not attached to a face; the other being the skin of Saint Bartholomew. It is not entirely understood as to why Micky made his self portrait on this material mask, perhaps he was speaking to his own childish, conceited nature, his own sins he was trying to overcome in order to receive divine inspiration for more noble work.

Whatever the reason, whatever the path, the point of the mask is help us define ourselves, to know ourselves, and to express what we have found out about ourselves and show it to the world theater. The material mask is the most dangerous mask because it does not define us, except by showing to the world that we are naught but a hollow core. Discarding the material mask, to hit bottom, to overcome our worldly concerns, to be better than our sins and shortcomings is the way to making the masks that truly define us. It isn't about authenticity, to show our true faces, but to show what we think we are under the masking.

The Mask Part 5: The Mask of Sanity

Thus far we have been exploring the mask as a metaphor, the mask as the lie that reflects the truth, as the essence of being, and as the face of abstractions. Now it's time to plumb further the depths of the mask in the light of other things I like to discuss; that is I would like to still use the mask as a means to tie together the diversity of things I enjoy writing about. Today I would like to use American Psycho, in particular the idea of the mask of sanity. This will be a further exploration of the difference between the signified and the signifier, the emotion and the expression of the emotion, the intent and the act, and the arbitrary nature of how the signifier represents the signified. This will further our study on culture and identity.

The film American Psycho is flooded with imagery and references to masks, some of which allude to materialism, others to personal image (a spawn of materialism), others to aspects of human nature, and still others to societal normatives (what ought to be done, as opposed to norms which are imperatives of what is to be done). The beginning of the movie gives a number of examples of masks and masking that are worth looking at. As Patrick Bateman introduces himself and his morning routine he is largely concerned with the appearance of his face. When he wakes up, if his face is feeling a little "puffy" he puts on an ice pack while he does his stomach crunches. Then later he uses an aftershave with little or no alcohol because "alcohol dries your face out, and makes you look older." (This could correspond to our discussion of Augustus Caesar Prima Porta statue, in which he is depicted a young, healthy, and perfect man). Then Bateman applies an herb mint facial mask, which he leaves on for fifteen minutes. As he is peeling this mask from his face his inner monologue says, "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me; only an entity; something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable, I simply am not there."

So far this quote should be nothing new to us. It corroborates the idea of the mask as a tangible face (facere) for abstractions, the face itself as a mask ("flesh gripping yours"), the idea (signified) of something beneath the mask that we are not privileged to, and the possibility of nothing beneath the mask. This latter part, "I simply am not there," brings us back to the question of whether there is a true face under all our personas, or if there is only masking, layers of masks that only conceal a hollow core. These are expanded upon later when Bateman is at the salon getting a massage, manicure, and a tan (not to mention in this scene he has his eyes covered while tanning): "I have all the characteristics of a human being: blood, flesh, skin, hair; but not a single, clear, identifiable emotion, except greed and disgust. Something horrible is happening inside of me and I don't know why. My nightly bloodlust has overflown into my days. I feel lethal, on the verge of frenzy. I think my mask of sanity is about to slip."

Why is sanity a mask? Is sanity actually a mask? Most certainly it is, because we have now come to one key element of our exploration of the mask: it is arbitrary in its definition and presentation; that is the signifiers are always arbitrary. It's back to the difference between the idea of tree or "tree-ness" and the word tree. Why the word tree? Does it hold something magical about the idea of "tree-ness"? Could we not just as easily have used the word feather to describe the idea of "tree"? Most certainly. If I suddenly tell you that anytime I use the word feather I am talking about a tree, you will understand from thenceforth what I have now arbitrarily established "tree-ness" with feathers: Feathers are usually tall, and there are two types: conifers and deciduous. Feathers are usually green because of chloropyll, which assists chloroplast in the the photosynthesis process of turning water and sunlight into starches and sugars. Feathers are part of the plant kingdom, and some feathers are amongst the largest organisms on planet earth.

Do you see how easily and arbitrarily I changed tree to feather? And by common agreement on the use of words and their meanings you can still understand what I was talking about. This is how the signifier is arbitrary in its role of defining and communicating the idea that it represents. Thus is the same with Bateman's mask of sanity. Sanity is arbitrary by definition (much like the self is arbitrary by definition, "some kind of abstraction... something illusory"). It is a cultural normative that society has come to a common agreement on what sanity means, and we reinforce the idea of sanity so that it can maintain its definition of what is sane.

To illustrate again how arbitrary cultural normatives (what ought to be done) are, I will use an example from the film Alice In Wonderland (2010). Alice is told that wearing knickers is not proper, and she questions her mother about what is proper. "What if it was agreed that proper was wearing a codfish on your head?" Note Alice's use of "if it was agreed that proper was..." All ideas of sanity, proper, and normal are established by agreement among a given culture's population majority. If the majority suddenly decided that it was normal to be raised in a dysfunctional family, then those who grow up in a functional family are now abnormal (it should be of some consequence that something like 60% of American families are classified as dysfunctional, therefore dysfunctional is normal, and normal is abnormal). This is the nature of sanity. We constantly wear a visage of sanity when we go outside and confront the world everyday. We have a consciousness programmed into us all that keeps us in check to make sure we continue to act as "functioning" members of society. This mask of sanity prevents us from murdering, raping, stealing, throwing feces at strangers, or urinating in public. Of course this mask of sanity is necessary for society to continue to exist and propagate, but what the mask of sanity actually looks like (metaphorically of course) is arbitrarily decided by common agreement amongst the majority for the sake of civil living.

This argument for the mask of sanity/proper/normality is the same argument made by Judith Butler in her paper "Imitation and Gender Insubordination." Butler argues that gender roles and sexuality are all imitation, arbitrarily defined attributes of what it is to be a woman, a man, heterosexual, homosexual, or transsexual. She calls this imitation "cross dressing." Essentially her argument is that the way we define what it is to be a homosexual or heterosexual is all cross dressing, i.e. we arbitrarily establish what homosexual or heterosexual or transgender is, then we wear (like a mask) what we have established, and then constantly reinforce those sexuality parameters in order to maintain them. I am no more a heterosexual male than I am a lesbian, because society has set its standards of what it thinks the normal manner in which a lesbian or a heterosexual male should behave, dress, talk, and present themselves. As a heterosexual male I am constantly reinforced these normatives by advertisements, my peers, my family, books, movies, et cetera. I am told I should either have a beard or shave, use masculine deodorants and hygiene produces, eat steak and bacon, lift weights, drive a truck or sports car, watch sports, read the paper, wear suits and ties, et cetera. Women are told to be thin, eat fine chocolates, wear dresses and makeup, use feminine hygiene products, have girls nights, et cetera. A homosexual male should speak femininely, wear tight clothes, have a sense of fashion, go shoe shopping with women. So forth and so forth. But how are any of these things masculine, feminine, homosexual, heterosexual, or transgender?

They're not; not in any way, shape, or form. The behavior and manner of a homosexual is no more homosexual than a mask is a face. This  is why Butler calls it cross dressing: they are not our own, but we wear them anyway; just as a cross dressing male wears women's clothes even though he is not a woman. But what makes them women's clothes? Because we are told only women should wear them? Why can't men wear them? Women like to wear their male significant other's clothes from time to time, why not men too? Because we have arbitrarily decided men don't do that. Just like Caesar Augustus's cuirass: it is a trophy (as indicated on the back of the cuirass), but it is not his even though it perfectly fits him. It is the same for cross dressing: women's clothes are not for men, but men can still fit in them, and they can fit him perfectly.

There is only one period of time in which Michelangelo felt that humans did not wear masks, and did not wear things that weren't theirs: before the expulsion from Paradise. Michelangelo was often criticized as to why he would paint nude figures on the Sistine ceiling, why he would paint something vulgar like the corrupt, nude body of man. He always claimed that he was trying to depict man and woman as God had originally made them: naked, noble, and without fear or awe. In other words: perfect. This is evident in the portion of the ceiling known as The Expulsion. On the left side is the naked, but noble, Adam and Eve being tempted by the serpent. On the right Adam and Eve are being expelled by the Cherubim. While Adam's naked body is still exposed, Eve is huddled over to cover her breasts. They are no longer noble, but rather old looking, tired, beaten, and Eve looks like an old hag. It seems as if Michelangelo is trying to say that in Paradise we did not wear masks, and that we made the masks once expelled; in other words, we made the masks of sanity and normality once expelled. Essentially, we are no longer what God had originally intended us to be, so now we must wear clothes and shield our true forms. Michelangelo also believed we learned sin from ourselves, and as a consequence had to establish a difference between right and wrong, good and bad, sane and insane, proper and improper, normal and abnormal in order to keep ourselves in check. This is God's Covenant with the Jews, and Christ's promise to Christians. Again these all lead back to knowing what, if anything, is behind our own masks; a way back to ourselves (something we will come to again).

This question of right and wrong, good and bad will be brought up again when we look into whether or not a mask is a good or a bad thing. But for now we will suffice with a conclusion and leave that for another time. In summation: we wear our sanity, a wear our sexuality, our gender, our emotions, and so forth, but they are not our own, but rather something arbitrary and illusory. What is "sane" is defined without cause. So I suppose once someone is no longer in agreement with society and its arbitrary standards, then that person's mask of sanity begins to slip. Perhaps Adam and Eve's ignorance and bliss were only masks that, once they were peeled off by the serpent - the serpent who promised to open their eyes, so that they may "know good and evil" and be like God himself - they lost their innocence, just as Bartholomew lost his skin. Perhaps innocence is only a mask that we lose as we grow up, and then we have to start to make new masks to pretend/act as if we still are innocent.

The Mask Part 4: Masquerade of the Gods

To recap: the mask is a metaphor for the face, it is also made from the face, and is the essence of identity. At this time there is no real order to the sequence of these posts. I'm just exploring some basic roots of the mask, and then building upon those as I go, and eventually will get to some center pieces of this blog to see how the mask fits those ideas (such as religion, culture, Fight Club, the gods, identity, et cetera). Well I think we have enough framework setup to start exploring some of these. We will of course build upon this framework with more basic ideas as we go, such as the mirror and the abyss, but let's start to get into some more substance. As mentioned in the previous post, the true face of the actor is an abstraction, something intangible and hidden, and possibly only a hollow core covered by a multitude of masks. Let's get into this idea of an abstraction covered by a mask, and let the mask become the metaphor by which we understand the abstraction beneath it. This can be done perfectly by exploring the masquerade of the gods.

At first this may not seem like a subject to get right into just yet, and should have been reserved for later. But the gods are a crucial foundation for humanity, and they constitute a large (if not one of the largest) portion of human history. The gods are foundational because they represent certain aspects of human institutions. Giambattista Vico illustrates this by pointing out that all the gods are patrons of this or that thing that is an institution of human life. Mars being the god of war; Vulcan the god of the forge; Venus the goddess of love and charm; Juno the goddess of marriage; Vesta the goddess of the hearth; Jupiter the god of imperial power; Odin the god of runes; Frigga the goddess of fertility and lust; Bacchus the god of wine; Diana the goddess of the hunt; Hades god of death and wealth; et cetera. Notice that most gods are patrons of human institutions, but their predecessors (the giants, the Titans, and such) were gods of nature, the cosmos, and order. Saturn, a Titan, was the god that created order in the world, and his Greek equivalent is Cronos, the god of time. All predecessors of the Olympians (or their equivalents in other cultures) are indifferent to humanity. This is with exception to one or two, such as Prometheus, who was punished severely for creating humans from clay and then giving them fire. The Olympians are our gods, and their forefathers are the world's gods. It is for our sake that the Olympians were the victors of the world.

It is completely unnecessary for me to clarify this or that culture's pantheon, and their differences or similarities. Joseph Campbell said it best in The Hero with a Thousand Faces: all myths and gods are the same, just wearing different costumes given the culture (I paraphrase). He called them "the masks of the gods" (the title of one of his better known series of books). He borrows a term from James Joyce to describe this phenomenon of the similarities between all myths and gods, which comes from Finnegans Wake, the "monomyth." The idea is to get past the masks of the gods and to focus on the essences behind them. But do not the masks give us something to identify with? I have friend who is an Asatru (Germanic-Norse) pagan, and he once told me in a letter, "I identify with the faces of Norse gods more than any other." That is just a wonderful way to put it. If the truth is exclusive and we are often denied privilege to it, but the mask is formed from the truth, is not the way to the essence of the gods found through their masks? Are these not all abstract notions that are intangible to us? Are not abstractions made concrete to us via the service of the metaphor? We certainly gave the gods masks for a reason. The masking of deity is our road to truth, since the palace of truth is not found without a road. Like the Arthurian Grail Knights, each of whom enters the dark forest alone to make their own path. Just like the face is facere, to make, or the actor is agere, to lead/make, the way to the gods is not without an actor (agere) or a making (facere). The true face of the gods or the monomyth is of little importance without a mask; the container, the impression and mirror of truth.

But, as Vico claims, the gods are institutions of human life, are not the masks of the gods ways to ourselves? Are not the gods little more than aspects of ourselves? So the identities of the gods, our gods, the way to the aspects of ourselves? They are the way to our art (the Muses), our destinies (the Fates), our creations (Vulcan), our inebriation (Bacchus), our marriages (Juno), our communion (Vesta), our strife and warring (Mars), our power (Jupiter). The masks of the gods are the masks of ourselves. The gods are reflections of ourselves, just like the mask is a reflection of our true faces. And it makes sense that we would pick a particular masquerade to identify with, just as my Asatru friend has done. In identifying with a particular masquerade we are at the same time identifying with the different faces of ourselves. It is easier to identify with a particular set of masks than to try an identify with the abstractions that lay behind the masks. If anything, to search out the universal truths autonomously on their own without the signifiers (masks) might be the most difficult spiritual path to take, if not a completely futile and impossible path all together. King Arthur and his knights set out into the primordial forest in search of the Grail castle alone because the quest for the Grail is a personal journey. It is one of discovery, whereby we find the masks - our masks - that show us the way to the citadel.

To say it again, the monomyth is pointless without a set of masks to define them. Take this analogy: you're watching a movie and you notice an actor you've seen before. You look for queues in their acting, voice, face, gestures, et cetera, to determine who they are. Finally you figure out which actor it is and what other movies they were in. Now without previous acting roles this person would have been no one worth noticing. In our analogy the person is the monomyth, and they are defined by their roles in various films. The monomyth is nothing without its masks and acting scenes. The person would have remained some nameless, faceless abstraction without any substance had not the variety of masks given him or her some definition.

Now for an art example: Michelangelo Buonarroti's tomb of Giuliano di Lorenzo de' Medici in the New Sacristy of the Medici Chapel at San Lorenzo. On the right side is Day with his classic Michelangeloan unfinished face, his beautiful solar bearded face looking up, and his body torquing the right while laying on his back. On the left is Nix, with her beautiful body on its side torquing to the left, right elbow resting on her left leg (inspiration for Rodin's Thinker), face looking down, an owl under her leg, and a masculine mask under her left arm. Not only does the mask of Night conceal the day (a mask of truth and light), it is the mask of the apparitions of our dreams, the faces of the psychic entities that entertain our nightly theater of dreams. 

The entities of our dreams, according to Carl Jung, are archetypal characters that wear different masks, but are all the same set of cast members. Jung, in his studies of the Collective Unconscious and his Archetypes, establishes a sort of call sheet of characters that act in our unconscious minds. Most notable actors of our dreams are the Anima (Animus if masculine), the Trickster, Christ-figure, Patriarch, Matriarch, the Hag, and the Shadow. There are of course more, but these seem to pervade more through Jung's writings than any others. These are all formless, substanceless apparitions that are only defined by their multitude of masks and attributes that define them. They may have some autonomous qualities, but these are hidden, and therefore only revealed, through their play acts and masquerades. Just like Nix, they are abstractions of the mind, and the way we come to know them is through their masks. Jung's Archetypes are creations of our own minds, residual products of our distant ancestor's unconscious minds, and they are reflections of ourselves. We come to identify with them, and thus with ourselves, via their nightly masquerades in our own dream theaters and nightmare cinemas.

It is a bit uncertain where the word "mask" comes from originally, possibly Arabic maskarah "mockery," or Provencal or Catalan mascarar or Old French mascarer "to blacken the face," or even Occitan mascara "to blacken, darken." The earliest known relative for "mask" is Middle Latin maschera, meaning "specter, nightmare." This is part of the etymological play John Henry Fuseli is making in his painting The Nightmare. A grotesque figure sits upon the breasts of woman toiling in her sleep. He is an incubus, which comes from the Latin incubare, "to lay upon." Behind him is a black horse, which is a play on night mare. These are expressions (masks) of those abstract apparitions that haunt our nightmares and entertain our dreams. They are aspects of ourselves, just like the gods are aspects of us.

All of this is the nature of metaphor. As Lakoff defines metaphors: they are concrete notions to describe and give definition to abstract ones. This is how we identify and face those things that don't have a face. We make them a mask (fashioned in the image of the given culture, their motifs, icons, and ideologies) and write them into plays we call myths. The journey through the dark forest alone is our road to them, and thus our road to ourselves. Where there is no road we make one (agere), and were there is no image of an abstraction we make a face for it (facere). Hence my use of At The Gates's "the face of all your fears." Fear being an abstract notion that haunts us, and in order to face them we must give them a face to look at. The spiritual journey is an abstract one, driven by ideas, notions, feelings, belief systems, et cetera. The only way through this dark forest of abstract ideas (signifieds) is to give them a form that fits them in which to identify with (signifiers). 

We had the ideas (signifieds), so we gave them verbal sounds to express them (signifiers). The idea behind the word is the actor (in a vague sense), and the word correlated to the idea is the mask. The whole study of etymology, the study of words, is looking at how the masks of the word-actor has changed to suit its audiences and stage sets. Just like the study of comparative religions, the monomyth, is a look at how the masks of the gods have changed given their audience and theater. In Catholicism the notion of a pantheon of gods was blasphemy, since there was only one true God (and his son, and the Holy Spirit). In order to convert pagans peacefully they created a pantheon of saints to take the gods' places, as all the saints are patrons of one human institution or another.

In summation, masks and faces are tangible analogies we make for abstract notions so that we may identify with them as aspects of ourselves, each other, and of higher forms of thought and aspiration.

The Mask Part 3: Ontology

Thus far we have looked at the metaphor of the mask as a dual aspect of our faces, and as a reflection of ourselves. Both of these are surface (masking) explorations of the nature of the mask. Now it's time to get into the nitty-gritty, some of the true substance of the mask. So here we will start to get into some of the aspects of the mask that set up the framework (enframement) for things such as the gods, identity, and culture. Now we will start to focus on the essence of truth and falsehood, and ontology in identity.

We will take this search for the essence of truth and falsehood with the mask in a quasi-spirited manner of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger never really sought "truth" per se, just the essence of truth. "Truth" is a rather subjective and arbitrary thing, so falsehood would also be relatively arbitrary thing as well. He felt that understanding the essence of anything begins with the concepts originally behind the words we use to describe things. This is principle that relates to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which states that our language limits or enhances our realities depending on the extent of our vocabulary. Thus Heidegger was rather fascinated by etymology, particularly with Greek and Latin, since most of our lexicon derives from these languages. Understanding what certain words meant to ancient peoples would enlighten our understanding of how we use derivatives of these words today. How we use a word today is a sort of masking of the true root of the word somewhere in the past. In some regard Heidegger's philosophy is suitable to our search in the nature (or essence) of the mask. We are not really trying to find the true face of the actor, but rather how to understand the essence of the actor (that is ourselves) by way of the mask, which can tell us more about the actor itself than the actor ever could on their own.

As discussed before, the mask is an imprint, a reflection of the true face of the person (persona) who wears it. So the mask is a sort of temporary identity, an identity we can wear for one audience, and then swap for another identity later. We all lead double and triple (and multiple) lives. But what is this thing we call identity? Well the word itself comes from Latin, id entis, meaning "it is of the thing." (Id being the nominative form meaning "it;" entis being the genative form of ens, meaning "thing"). Ens comes from esse, the infinitive form of the verb to be. So we can think of the word identity meaning, etymologically, as "it is of the thing that is being" or "it being of the thing that is." This is a fine example of the Epicurean philosophy of the signified and signifier (what is meant and what is said). There is an idea of an entity behind the mask, but what it is doesn't matter as far as identity is concerned. The word identity has little to do with the thing itself (the signified), but rather with the thing that it stands in for (the signifier). Identity has more in common with the mask than with the true nature of the actor. In a way we can think of the mask as being able to define us far more than we can define ourselves.

It should start to become clear that we have more in common with our personas than we do with ourselves, and that we become the masks we wear. All of this should start to make us think that our identities and personalities are detached from our true selves; whatever that is. It may start to feel like we are all hollow shells of masks with no real substance behind them. But what is this abstract notion of "true self?" Could you even identify with it, if all you can relate to is the tangible notions of personality and identity? But then again, how can we identify with the thing-ness of a tree (treen-ess), when we can only comprehend the essence (esse - to be) of the thing that stands in for the tree (the word "tree")? We relate to signifiers more than we do signifieds. We relate to masks more than we relate to "true selves" because we never get to see the true face of anyone.

We are treating the mask and the true face as two different things, which can be beneficial to explore them as such. But thinking of them as reflections of each other, and thinking of both duality and reflection simultaneously, we open up new broad avenues. Thus, in another regard, it is as if the lie is an impression of the truth, and, if I may paraphrase Picasso, the mask is the lie that becomes the truth. The lie is not the truth, but it represents it so much, and since we are not privileged to the truth, the lie is the truth as far as the truth will allow it. (It should be obvious at this point that truth and true face are interchangeable words, as well as lie is interchangeable with mask).

I mentioned previously that the mask does not conceal the truth, but rather contains the truth. And what truth that is! Harry Frankfurt makes a clear distinction between "lie" and "bullshit," and bullshit is always more dangerous than the lie. A lie acknowledges that there is a truth that it conceals. So within a lie is the truth, only hidden. But bullshit denies there is a truth. Bullshitting is acting like one knows what they're talking about without even knowing the actual truth. So masks are not bullshit, they're holding a truth that has yet to be revealed. Given that a falsehood is formed from the truth, just like the mask is formed from the visage of the actor. The falsehood and the mask are both a making of the truth.

I had mentioned before how face comes from facere, "to make" or "to do." There is another similar word in Latin, agere, which means "to lead, do, make." A person who leads/does/makes is called an actor. It is also where we get the word agent, meaning "they lead/do/make." An actor is an agent that makes/does. Masking is always a process of making our identities. We make our identities so that we may define ourselves. Just like our little ball of putty, when we press into it the other side of the ball is deformed as a reflection of the form pressed into the ball. Truth is not independent of the lie. Where there is truth there is falsehood. If you tell the truth you inadvertently told a lie. The face makes the mask, and the truth makes the lie, because the face needs the lie to express itself (the signified needs the signified to express it); the truth needs the lie to express it. The idea of the tree, the essence of "tree-ness" (the signified, what is meant) needs the word "tree" to express it (the signifier, what is said). This is why we relate to signifiers more than signifieds.

To summarize the previous two posts and this one: the mask is a falsehood that is an expression of the truth. It is born from truth, nurtured by it, shaped and formed from it. The nature of the mask is the essence of the being behind the false visage. In short, the mask is the essence of being, in Heidegger's phrasing. It is the identity, since it (id) is from the entity (entis). Identities and personas are all masks, and they are the expression the abstract "truth" that lies behind it. Sadly, we can't have this truth. We are the men tied down in Plato's cave watching shadows on the wall. We cannot turn our heads and see the objects that cast these shadows. As said before, the truth may be something we don't want to see.

I apologize for not having any art examples to explore these ideas, but we have enough etymological examples. So you can just enjoy a picture of the grotesque mask on the keystone of Porta Pia by Micky.

The Mask Part 2: The Mask that Fits

To recap my previous post, we looked at how the mask is a metaphor for the face, and that both are interchangeable as metaphors as we play out our lives on the world's stage. Now I want to explore the mask as a facade that conceals the true face of the actor, but is a perfect fit for the actor's face. In some regard this is correlated to Jung's quote given in the introduction on how the mirror is behind the mask. The mirror is something that will be touched on here, but will be expanded upon later. For now we will focus on the mask as a false facade that contains the truth on its reverse side.

The mask has often been criticized for being a sort of lie, something that hides the truth. But quite the contrary, the mask does not hide the truth, it holds it. Think of the mask's facade and its reverse side - which is fitted to the face of the actor - as reciprocals of each other, mirror reflections of each other. They are both dependent on each other, just like how the lie is dependent on the truth it is against. There is no mask without a face to put it on. Furthermore, they are formed from one another. Think of it as a ball of putty, and if you press your finger into one side of the putty ball you inevitably deform the other. It is like the cosmos according to Dante, who believed that Mount Purgatory was formed when Lucifer fell onto the face of the earth and made a giant crater, which became the pit of Hell, and on the exact opposite side of the earth Mount Purgatory was pushed out up to Heaven. Purgatory, in this instance, could be thought of as the facade of the mask, and Hell as the negative mold of the actor's face (whose face it is doesn't matter, as this is just an analogy).

Much like how the skin is a perfect fit for the face (it does constitute our own faces after all), the mask is a perfect fit for the face, and the facade of it is merely an imprint, a sort of reaction to the imprint of the face against it. The mask isn't just something that covers the face, it - like the skin on our face - is another face that fits perfectly against the flesh our visages. So the mask is made from our face, which is fitting because the word face comes from the Latin facere, "to make." And, like our own skin, the mask can be removed. And like our own faces, masks can give a multitude of appearances depending on which act we're play on which stage.

So let's look at a mask that fits perfectly. One of the best I have found is the statue of Caesar Augustus from the Villa Prima Porta. There are two aspects of this statue that are interest to our little pursuit here. The first is the cuirass, which is perfectly fitted to Caesar's body and covered in imperial imagery of Augustus's might and the renewal of Rome. It isn't just perfectly fitted to his body, it is as if it is the skin of his body itself. Notice the cut of his chest and stomach muscles, and how perfectly they curve to fit every nuance of his muscular form. Notice the detail given to his navel, which sits directly above the earth goddess (equipped with a cornucopia and two infants, probably Romulus and Remus). Even his nipples project from the armor, with the chariot of the sun's wheel directly beside his right nipple. While all of this detail to muscle and anatomy give the appearance that it could very well be his own flesh, it is a cuirass and it can be removed, as indicated by the fine stitching on the sides of his armor, as well as the flashing of the fabric around the waist and shoulders.

So how is this a mask? For one it is not Augustus's armor, nor really Roman armor at that, albeit it is modeled to be Roman armor. How can it look Roman and not be Roman? Because of one small detail on the cuirass's right shoulder blade (I apologize for not having an image). On the backside on the right is a depiction of a piece of armor held up on a spear shaft. This is a common Roman depiction of a trophy taken from a conquest, and armor was very popular to loot after a victory. It is possible that this trophy represents the conquest of Greece, as Augustus's pose and proportions - and this is the second aspect of interest - have often been compared to the statue of Doryphoros, the Spearbearer, often called the Canon by Polykleitos. It is a Roman Caesar wearing the image of Greece.

So, like a mask, the cuirass of Augustus di Prima Porta is not the skin of the Caesar, but it does fits like skin itself. It conceals his true body, while revealing a different expression of the body, just like a mask would. In fact, this whole statue is like a mask. If we think back to a question proposed in the introduction, we will find some similarities here: would we actually want to see the true face of anyone? In this case, probably not. Augustus Caesar was old, war bent, missing most of his teeth, decrepit, broken nose, et cetera. And yet he is here presented as young, reborn, healthy, and in the image of the perfect male body. And this is where I want to propose another intriguing question: could the mask be more important, if not better than the face it conceals? Here the image of Augustus Caesar is showing us a mask that expresses (the signifier) the rebirth of Rome after many war torn years of civil war and strife. It represent the dawn of a new era, and beginning of the expansion of the Roman Empire; the starting point of one of the greatest empires the world has ever known. In this case we are looking at a mask that is far superior to the truth it conceals: the truth of an old, decrepit man who is simply trying to pick up the pieces of what his uncle, Julius Caesar, helped ruin.

So the mask always fits its actor, because the mask is a reflection of its bearer. Did Michelangelo ever do anything where the mask reflects the image or personality of its bearer? Definitely! And like the Prima Porta statue, some of Michelangelo Buonarroti's masks I doubt any of us want to see what's underneath. Take for instance some of his grotesque masks, which he did many variations of, and in a number of places. They are incorporated into the abacus of the Ionic Order on the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill, as well as in the egg and dart molding in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. They often have a solar crown with mangy hair flaring up from it, and a mustache that runs down around the mouth to cover the edge of the mask around the mouth. Notice that the masks do not cover the mouth, so the wearer is opening their own gaping maw as if screaming (accompanied by fangs or deformed teeth), and often sticking their tongue out. Here is an instance in which the actor and the mask reflect one another. The actor, acting in a rather despicable manner, with it's mask portraying something equally terrifying. Do you want to see this actor's true face? Probably not, and, I think, because the mask says more than the actor's face could.

So not only do mask fit the face they cover, they also reflect, like a mirror, the face that bears them. They are one and the same. They fit the truth they conceal, because they are a reflection of the truth they hold. The two are twins, dependent of the same aspects that clarify them as signifiers of some abstract idea (signified) that supposedly lies behind the visage. So while we always seem to want the truth, to see the true face of everyone, could not the mask tell us far more about the person wearing it than their true face could? Could not the mask tell more truth than it conceals?

The Mask Part 1: The Metaphor

Last night I posted about masks and masking. In reflecting upon this post throughout the day I have come to realize that that post could more or less be considered an introduction. There was too much surface (masking) and not enough substance. I mentioned Heidegger and ontology (the essence of being), truth and lies, the mirror and the bottomless well, the duality of the mask, Michelangelo, identity and definition of self, culture and the arbitrary nature of role definition, drawing and photography, art and architecture, revealing and concealing, et cetera, et cetera. I want to delve deeper into these multitude of aspects for the next few days, to better plumb their depths. There is far more there than I realized, so I'm going try and give a post each day for the next little while and try and plumb each of these aspects. I would also like to try and start linking these ideas some previous posts. The mask, I feel, is a perfect metaphor for these things. So let's start with the mask as a metaphor, since the metaphor is what runs deepest.

Let's approach the mask as a metaphor in the spirit of George Lakoff. We use a number of metaphors everyday to indicate that we are wearing masks. There was one I placed in my last post when I interpretatively reworded Nietzsche's quote "He who fights monsters" to "He who faces monsters." We use this metaphor frequently, that is facing something. From what I understand this idiom really just means "turn your face to the face of another," but I think in some regard it can be seen as "put on a new face (i.e. mask) when you present yourself to another person." And how perfect that idiom is for such a metaphor. Obviously, in the spirit of masks, when we present ourselves to other people we are putting on a new mask. They are a new audience, and we are the actors playing a new act for them on the world's stage.

And how much more do we use "face" and "mask" as equals in the metaphor of living our daily lives? Do women not refer to putting on makeup as "putting on my face?" Have I not used the metaphor of faces when I discuss fear (i.e. "the face of all your fears")? Do we not use this same metaphor when we say the face of evil, the face of God, the face of a building, et cetera? When we are not in the mood to do something we are told to "put on a smile," or "put on a cheerful face" and just do it. Or when we are smiling at someone's misfortune we are told to "wipe that grin off your face." Or again, there's the common idiom "turn that frown upside down," as if our facial features were pieces on a Mr. Potato Head that can be rearranged and swapped out for others. I could keep going, but it is quite clear that the image of the face is interchangeable with that of the mask in metaphors of our everyday speech. Are our faces not masks we wear when we're on the world's stage?

This is leading into some Epicurean philosophy, which I will briefly introduce, but will elaborate in a later posts. In the metaphor of our faces as masks that can be swapped out like a Mr. Potato Head, we are dealing with the difference in our emotions and how we express our emotions. This is the Epicurean idea of signified and signifier, or, as the Epicureans put it, what is said and what is meant (i.e. the word and the meaning of the word are two different things). And there is difference here when we are on the world's stage: we may be mad (the emotion, the signified), but we smile and act happy (the expression, the signifier).

Since this whole search into the issue of masks started with Michelangelo Buonarroti, I feel it would be ideal to present some of his depictions of masks in his art and writings to elaborate these ideas as I go. It has often been hypothesized that Master Buonarroti painted his self-portrait on the flayed skin of Saint Bartholomew in the Last Judgement of the Sistine Chapel. The accepted interpretation is that the flayed skin represents the shedding of the skin, like a snake, to be born again. We can take this interpretation here in our study as putting on new masks to be reborn (birth a new identity). We take off one face and put on another. The snake sheds its skin for some new skin. I was told a number of years ago by one of my art history professors that written in one of Michelangelo's sonnets is: "I am Saint Bartholomew's skin" (where this is written and if it is true I am not sure, because I've never been able to find it). It is, however, practically indisputable that the face of Saint Bart's flayed skin is also the face of Micky himself (pardon me if I use my endearing nickname for such a master of sculpture, painting, and architecture as Michelangelo). Master Buonarroti was fascinated by masks, and he did many studies of them and worked them into his works (e.g. masks on the capitals of the Ionic columns on the Palazzo dei Conservatori, the mask of Nix in the Sacristy of Lorenzo de Medici, the mask on Porta Pia, the hundreds of sketches at the Windsor Castle, et cetera). Would he not have placed some significance between the face and the mask? Micky may never have had these intentions, but there is a correlation between the skin of the face and a mask, both of which, when removed, birth a new identity.

What is a face anyway? It is a layer of skin, something that can be peeled off, just like a mask. It's sort of like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs when he puts one of the guard's faces on his own (come to think of it, Hannibal Lecter's mask - to keep him from biting people - is probably one of the most recognized masks in movie history). And is not Lecter's human skin mask not fitting for a movie centered around Buffalo Bill? a man who wears other people's skin as his own? We see it time and time again: Ed Gein made masks from some of his victim's faces, and Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. To see how extensively human skin has been used as masks, it is highly plausible Michelangelo was making a connection between the faces we put on and the masks we wear as interchangeable analogues of each other.

So there is definitely a correspondence between the metaphor of persona (mask) and the faces we wear. Perhaps that other idiom "[such and such a person] wears their soul on their face" has some significance here. We wear our personas on our faces. I would venture a guess to say that our personas and our faces are mirrors of each other as signifiers, and they signify the same thing: whatever lies beneath the mask.

Masks and Masking

True, whoever looks into the mirror of the water will see first of all his own face. Whoever goes to himself risks a confrontation with himself. The mirror does not flatter, it faithfully shows whatever looks into it; namely, the face we never show to the world because we cover it with the persona, the mask of the actor. But the mirror lies behind the mask and shows the true face.
~Carl Jung, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious

Several things have lead me back to this quote from Jung. For one I have been studying heavily Michelangelo, and in particular his designs of masks. Another is from discussions I have been having with an old friend in prison, in particular our discussions about "the masquerade of the gods" (namely that all gods are the same no matter the culture or religion, they just wear different masks). And the final is simply my continued interest in how we define ourselves, how we are defined by others, and our perceptions of ourselves and our realities influence our supposed identities. All these circle around a sort of Heideggerian studies of ontology and the essence of being. But suddenly I found myself back to masks and masking, and I've been floating these ideas around for sometime, so now it's time for me to share them.

The Greek word for mask is persona ("he/she is just a completely different person today!"), and in a sense this reflects heavily on how we perceive ourselves and each other. To the Greeks the whole world, especially the city, is a stage set, and we are the actors. Hence why Jung says "...the persona, the mask of the actor." We do it everyday. We wake up and put on a persona while we make breakfast. Then we put on a new persona while commuting to work. Then a whole new mask we wear for our co-works, and an entirely different one when we face our boss. Then another when we talk with our significant others, or our children, or with the cute girl who works behind the counter at the deli we frequent. And all these people wear masks too that is appropriate to the stage set they're on. All the world is a theater, and we are the actors.

But if we always wear a mask in some situation, is there not some time, some moment when we are not wear a mask at all? Most, I suppose, would say yes, because we all think there is a time (probably when we are alone) when we are truly ourselves, and we don't have to wear a mask. This may seem plausible, but one cannot deny that - if the whole world is stage - that there no place that is not a stage of some sort? If we are always one stage, even if the theater is empty, are we not still acting? There may not be an audience in the theater at the time, but there is always a stage set waiting for actors and an audience. It's a bit like Fra Carnavale's painting of an ideal Renaissance city, in which there are no people. It is a stage that waits for actors and an audience.

Jung's quote, in some regard, approaches the answer to this abstract idea of a "true face." He is discussing Narcissus at the pool. It was foretold by Tiresias that Narcissus would never die so long as he never got to know himself. And it is beside the pool where he saw and fell in love with his own beautiful image that Narcissus commits suicide. It seems that by reflection (figuratively, of course) that we come to know ourselves. Jung claims that the mirror can only reflect faithfully what it is shown. The mirror cannot lie, and does not conceal, but only reveals the true image of things. Jung sees that if we only show the mirror a mask, then it can only show us a mask back. So where is the true image of things if only masks are presented to the mirror? I suppose a more succinct way of putting the question is: where is the truth when we only present lies?

Jung's solution is that the faithful mirror is behind every mask. At first I did not grasp this part, but now I believe I have a better grasp of what Jung is getting at. He is saying that all lies conceal the truth. In essence, behind every lie, behind every mask, is the face of truth. Think of it this way: the mask may be concealing the face of the actor, but the mask does fit the face of its actor. A mask does present one face to the world, but on the other side of the mask is a perfect fit, a mold of the the actor's face. So not only do we wear our personas, our personas fit us. It's not just a lie, it's a lie that fits the truth. In some way I think Pablo Picasso's quote is relevant here: "Art is the lie that tells the truth."

I had a professor some time ago who I discussed these ideas with, and he proposed a very interesting question for this problem. In short, he said that it may not be about the masks at all, and that there might not be no true face of an actor, but rather that it is all masking. This proposes something entirely different. No longer are we dealing with which mask is being worn, and if there is a face underneath it at all. Now we are faced with actions (masking, or making and wearing mask), not objects (the faces themselves). This returns us to the problem of there always being a stage set somewhere. If we are always on stage, regardless of the presence of an audience, are we not always acting? Are we not always masking?

This identity crisis, this masquerade, is similar, if not identical, to Thomas Mann's "well of the past" or Abbe Laugier's "abyss of the imagination." In both the well is so deep that no matter how much we plumb its depths it seems to just get deeper ("should we not call it bottomless?"). Might the same be thought of the personas we wear if all of life is just a series of masking? Perhaps there is a true face beneath the maskings, but it is unfathomable, unplumbable. Would it not be something unrecognizable? Like Plato's cave, would we not reject the objects that casts the shadows on the wall? Would we not reject the true face of any actor? Can we even imagine the true face of anyone? Perhaps it would be more comforting to go back to the idea of there being no true face at all, but only a successive series of maskings. At least with the question of masking we are not faced with the scary possibility of the truth, but rather the nature of the infinite number concealments. (I wonder what is more terrifying: the truth or the infinite?)

I believe Nietzsche's infamous quote has a corollary here in the spirit of Jung's suggestion that the mirror is behind the mask, and the well of the masks is bottomless: "...when you stare long into the abyss, the abyss stares into you." Are we not the monsters we face? Are we not the lies we wear? Especially since the masks fit us all so well. Or do we become our masks? Does the truth become the lie that covers it? Or is the lie only a reflection of the truth? Is the lie a truth? (There is a difference between what is "truth" and what is "true").

Are we the lie we wear? or a reflection of the lie we wear? Is the lie a reflection of ourselves? Or is the reflection of ourselves a lie? Are we a lie? Are we all masks and no faces? You may, perhaps, understand why I believe the entire history of the human race has been one big identity crisis. Or maybe I just have an identity crisis.

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

~Oscar Wilde