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?