Typical Greek masks of tragedy, 5-3rd century BCE

Before moving on to part iii of this exploration (focusing on the head as an oracle and omen) I offer up a selection of images and quotes addressing that most common of all disembodied heads, that most present of all types of the detached face: THE MASK.

So-called “The Mask of Agamemnon”, Mycenaean c.1600 BCE

“A mask of gold hides all deformities” ~Thomas Dekker

Leather mask, Venetian, 20th century

“There is no point in trying to determine the “nature” of masks, because it is in their nature not to have a nature but to encompass all natures.” ~ Rene Girard

Dogon Mask, 20th century

“With a mask to place over his face, each man began to join in. … “There was nothing the men wouldn’t try with masks over their faces,” ~ Judith Tannenbaum

Jenny Kee, Marilyn Monroe Mask, fiberglass, 2007, Powerhouse Museum, New South Wales

“People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn’t see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one.” ~ Marilyn Monroe

Pietro Longhi, “Exhibition of a Rhinoceros”, oil on canvas, 1751,         National Gallery London

Graham Parkes, from “Facing the Self with Masks”

Chinese dramatic mask, region unknown

“It is one of the main tasks of a real leader to mask the grim reality of dying and killing by evoking in his followers the illusion that they are participating in a grandiose spectacle, a solemn or lighthearted dramatic performance.” ~ Eric Hoffer

Three Klansmen in masks apprehended, Harper’s Weekly, January 27 1872.

“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” ~ Oscar Wilde

Noh Mask of a girl in the first blush of womanhood

“In wise love each defines the secret self of the other, and refusing to believe in the mere daily self, creates a mirror where the lover or the beloved sees an image to copy in daily life; for love also creates the Mask.”~ William Butler Yeats

Mexican Mask, 1940s

“Is language but a mask of thought? Are masks stories that froze before someone had the chance to tell them? Who can unlock the expression captured by the mask and turn it into an element of the narrative?” ~ Rüdiger Görner

Elliot Erwitt, Princess Lee Radizwell  adjusts her mask at Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball, The Plaza Hotel, NYC,  1966

“Larvatus prodeo” (Masked, I advance) ~ The personal motto of René Descartes

Teotihuacan mask 200-600 AD

Edward Robert Harrison from “Masks of the Universe”

James Ensor, “Self Portrait with Masks”, oil on canvas, 1899, Menard Art Museum, Komaki City, Japan

“For Freud the dream is not directly understandable. It is expressed indirectly: the dream symbol is a mask, a ‘model of absence’, which is present in a certain way.” ~ Solomon Resnick

Still Stanley Kubrick’s film “Eyes Wide Shut”, 1999, Warner Brothers

“Don’t you know that a midnight hour comes when everyone has to take off his mask? Do you think life always lets itself be trifled with? Do you think you can sneak off a little before midnight to escape this?” ~ Søren Kierkegaard

Edward S. Curtis, Eskimo Ceremonial Mask, 1929

“We may conclude that the ideas of assimilation, whether magical or religious, of terrorism, of protection, and even of disguise are secondary, and that the primary meaning of the mask is dramatic; the mask is a concrete result of the imitative instinct.” ~ A. E. Crawley

George Platt Lynes, “Mask”, c. 1940

“The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
“The song and water were not medleyed sound
“Even if what she sang was what she heard,
“Since what she sang was uttered word by word.”

~Wallace Stevens ~

Catalog of papier mache and wire masks, Ohio, 1915

Toby Wilsher from “The Mask Handbook- A Practical Guide”

Samurai helmet/mask, 17-18th century

“It’s a terrible thing to be alone — yes it is — it is — but don’t lower your mask until you have another mask prepared beneath –as terrible as you like –but a mask.” ~ Katharine Mansfield