Full Description
A cultural history of the face in Western art, ranging from portraiture in painting and photography to film, theater, and mass media This fascinating book presents the first cultural history and anthropology of the face across centuries, continents, and media. Ranging from funerary masks and masks in drama to the figural work of contemporary artists including Cindy Sherman and Nam June Paik, renowned art historian Hans Belting emphasizes that while the face plays a critical role in human communication, it defies attempts at visual representation. Belting divides his book into three parts: faces as masks of the self, portraiture as a constantly evolving mask in Western culture, and the fate of the face in the age of mass media. Referencing a vast array of sources, Belting's insights draw on art history, philosophy, theories of visual culture, and cognitive science. He demonstrates that Western efforts to portray the face have repeatedly failed, even with the developments of new media such as photography and film, which promise ever-greater degrees of verisimilitude.
In spite of sitting at the heart of human expression, the face resists possession, and creative endeavors to capture it inevitably result in masks--hollow signifiers of the humanity they're meant to embody. From creations by Van Eyck and August Sander to works by Francis Bacon, Ingmar Bergman, and Chuck Close, Face and Mask takes a remarkable look at how, through the centuries, the physical visage has inspired and evaded artistic interpretation.
Contents
Introduction: Defining the Subject 1 I Face and Mask: Changing Views 1 Facial Expression, Masks of the Self, and Roles of the Face 17 2 The Cult Origin of the Mask 32 3 Masks in Colonial Museums 42 4 Face and Mask in the Theater 48 5 From the Study of the Face to Brain Research 63 6 Nostalgia for the Face and the Death Mask in Modernity 77 7 Eulogy for the Face: Rilke and Artaud 84 II Portrait and Mask: The Face as Representation 8 The European Portrait as Mask 91 9 Face and Skull: Two Opposing Views 106 10 The "Real Face" of the Icon and the "Similar Face" 118 11 The Record of Memory and the Speech Act of the Face 126 12 Rembrandt's Self-Portraiture: Revolt against the Mask 135 13 Silent Screams in the Glass Case: The Face Set Free 150 14 Photography and Mask: Jorge Molder's Own Alien Face 157 III Media and Masks: The Production of Faces 15 The Consumption of Media Faces 175 16 Archives: Controlling the Faces of the Crowd 192 17 Video and Live Image: The Flight from the Mask 205 18 Ingmar Bergman and the Face in Film 211 19 Overpainting and Replicating the Face: Signs of Crisis 221 20 Mao's Face: State Icon and Pop Idol 229 21 Cyberfaces: Masks without Faces 239 Acknowledgments 247 Notes 249 Literature Cited 263 Index of Names 267
