Face and Mask: A Double History
288Face and Mask: A Double History
288Hardcover
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Overview
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.
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780691162355 |
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Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
Publication date: | 03/28/2017 |
Pages: | 288 |
Product dimensions: | 6.70(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Table of 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
What People are Saying About This
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, KunstformPraise 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.reviewsPraise 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 BuffaloPraise 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