Face and Mask: A Double History

Hans Belting

Published by Princeton University Press 2017

Face and Mask

A Double History

Hans Belting
Translated by: Thomas S. Hansen and Abby J. Hansen

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691244594

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

Hans Belting has held chairs in art history at the universities of Heidelberg and Munich and has been a visiting professor at Harvard, Columbia, and Northwestern. He also cofounded and taught at the School for New Media in Karlsruhe, Germany. His many books include An Anthropology of Images (Princeton), Florence and Baghdad: Renaissance Art and Arab Science, Looking through Duchamp's Door, The Invisible Masterpiece, and Art History after Modernism.

Reviews

Praise for the German edition: "This intriguing and important book offers a history of the face in Western European visual culture from Neolithic times to the present. Filled with insights, its analysis of a breathtaking array of sources and topics deserve repeated reading for the richness of the ideas they produce. Face and Mask will be relevant not only to art historians, but to readers concerned with cultural history, cultural studies, and visual culture."—Matthew Rampley, University of Birmingham

Praise for the German edition: "Vertiginously wide-ranging and endlessly thought-provoking, Face and Mask represents a decade of work by arguably Germany's most internationally recognized art historian and media theorist. A book that will have a major impact, it will be read by art historians of course, but will also appeal to scholars in many other disciplines and general readers interested in its many subjects, including ancient art, European paintings, icons, death masks, photography, mug shots, film, and theater."—Elizabeth Otto, University of Buffalo

Praise for the German edition: "Belting is one of the most renowned and innovative German art historians and image theorists of his generation. . . . [Face and Mask] is full of well-known and also exciting lesser-known examples of masks and portraits, drawn from all eras and visual cultures, and discussed within the context of the face as a cultural history of the mask. . . . A significant book."—Isabella Woldt, caa.reviews

Praise for the German edition: "It is the spirited juxtaposition of faces from all eras as well as the rich quantity and interesting selection of illustrative material that give the book its wide-ranging appeal and invites the reader to browse different sections to draw new parallels. There is no doubt that this book will become a popular addition to many a bookshelf."—Andrea Gáldy, Kunstform

"[Face and Mask], a marvellous collection of lore, has a wealth of well-illustrated examples from art history and broader visual culture."---David Carrier, Burlington Magazine

"[This book] is very rich in detail and allusion and its insights are often suggested rather than stated. It raises challenging questions about identity, how we create it, perceive it and represent it. Above all, it brings into sharp focus what we often take for granted: the extraordinary expressivity of the human face and the way its expressions assume a social form."---Alan Dent, Penniless Press

"A compelling study."

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction: Defining the Subject Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
I. Face and Mask: Changing Views
1 Facial Expression, Masks of the Self, and Roles of the Face Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	17
2 The Cult Origin of the Mask Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
3 Masks in Colonial Museums Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	42
4 Face and Mask in the Theater Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
5 From the Study of the Face to Brain Research Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
6 Nostalgia for the Face and the Death Mask in Modernity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
7 Eulogy for the Face: Rilke and Artaud Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
II. Portrait and Mask: The Face as Representation
8 The European Portrait as Mask Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	91
9 Face and Skull: Two Opposing Views Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	106
10 The “Real Face” of the Icon and the “Similar Face” Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
11 The Record of Memory and the Speech Act of the Face Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	126
12 Rembrandt’s Self-Portraiture: Revolt against the Mask Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
13 Silent Screams in the Glass Case: The Face Set Free Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
14 Photography and Mask: Jorge Molder’s Own Alien Face Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	157
III. Media and Masks: The Production of Faces
15 The Consumption of Media Faces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
16 Archives: Controlling the Faces of the Crowd Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
17 Video and Live Image: The Flight from the Mask Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
18 Ingmar Bergman and the Face in Film Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
19 Overpainting and Replicating the Face: Signs of Crisis Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	221
20 Mao’s Face: State Icon and Pop Idol Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	229
21 Cyberfaces: Masks without Faces Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	239
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
Literature Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
Index of Names Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	267