Organising institutions
• Scuola Normale Superiore
• Leiden University
• King's College, Cambridge University
• Museo di antropologia e etnologia, Firenze
Like the face, the mask is a topic that cannot be fitted into any frame, like the face it is par excellence an image, both natural and cultural, of the human, but also of the animal, or the supernatural. But what is the mask? Ritual artefact, work of art, object of social aesthetics, philosophical-literary category, political instrument, how do we circumscribe its boundaries and define its functions and meanings? First of all, the mask is a material object: funeral, ceremonial and ritual masks, theatrical and carnival masks, hunting and war masks, protective and health masks. Since the Neolithic period, the mask has been an object placed on the face or the body to conceal or proclaim a different identity, to intimidate or seduce, to conceal or reveal. Thanks to the material wrapping, in the theatre of classical Greece as in a Siberian ritual of shamanic healing, the human individuality becomes other than itself, representing and identifying with real or imaginary characters - animals, spirits, divinities and ancestors. Even before being an artefact, the mask is a complex behaviour that mankind has experienced since childhood - in disguise games or in the simple gesture of hiding the face with the hands -, homologous, on an evolutionary level, to the extraordinary masquerade behaviour of other animal species. Around the world cultures perform meaningful rituals to structure social, political, and religious ideas and realities. In these rituals masks often play a crucial role. Masks hide regular daily life; they create an exceptional environment in which things happen that are different from what people usually do and observe. Masks reveal the world of the spirits, the ancestors, and the gods. During the ritual performances of masks, the community is in a state of transcendence, as opposed to the regular daily routine. Several ethnographies describe the role of masks in specific cultures, but comparative interpretations are virtually lacking. In art history and archaeology particular varieties of masks and their uses have been studied in some depth, such as the Roman use of masks in funeral rituals, or the use of masks at the courts of the Medici, the Valois kings, or Louis XIV. In the 19th century the cultural historian Gustav Klemm, and the architect and theorist Gottfried Semper have placed the mask at the point where animals and humans, nature, and culture meet. Generally speaking, masks have been studied in detail when either ethnographical data or archival sources happened to be available, but with a few notable exceptions the existing literature tends to be either very descriptive or highly speculative.
As the mask concerns a global phenomenon, an attempt to analyse mask performances in a comparative perspective is necessary and would be timely. In a radical departure from existing studies this seminar aims to develop new perspectives by starting from a group of masks that, though very heterogeneous in nature, function, and provenance, share a common feature: they are all located in Florentine collections and buildings. Since an understanding of masks is often hindered by lack of knowledge about its origins, makers, use, provenance or object biography, this seminar aims to rethink the topic by starting from individual masks, to acquire detailed knowledge of the object itself, and the circumstances of its making, use, and collecting. Because of the richness of Florentine collections examples can be taken from the animal and human world, from armour, architecture, ceramics, painting, and sculpture. Starting from concrete cases will enable us to move beyond existing tropes in scholarship (the mask as an image of its wearer, the mask as an effigy of the face, the mask as theatrical disguise), and instead develop new commonalities with masking features and behaviour in nature as well in human material culture.
Programme
Monday 23 september 2024
Florence, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology
h. 14.00 - 14.10: Welcomes
Fausto Barbagli (President of the National Association of Science Museums)
Marco Benvenuti (President of the Florence University Museum Complex)
h. 14.10 - 14.30: Introduction to the workshop: Lorenzo Bartalesi (Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa) - Is a general theory of the mask possible? (or even desirable?)
h. 14.30 - 15.15: Opening lecture: Pieter ter Keurs (Leiden University) - The Power of Nakamutmut. Siassi, Papua New Guinea
h. 15.45 - 17.15: Masks at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology - visit conducted by Francesca Bigoni (Ethnographic collections, Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology)
Tuesday 24 september 2024
Pisa, Scuola Normale Superiore
h. 10.00 - 12.30: Morning session
• Graeme Were (SOAS School of Oriental and African Studies, London) - Malangan masks of northern New Ireland, Papua New Guinea: some ethnographic notes
• Sabine du Crest (Université Bordeaux Montaigne) - Meaning and Display of a Florentine Mask (Inv. Gemme n. 707, h. 9, 7 cm including the mount).
• Pascal Griener (École du Louvre) - The Mask in Renaissance Architecture and Architectural Theory. Sebastiano Serlio's Livre extraordinaire (1561) in context.
h. 14.00 - 17.00: Afternoon session
• Caroline van Eck (Cambridge University) - Animal-shaped Masks in sixteenth-century Italian Sculpture, Architecture and Armour: an Anthropological Perspective.
• Hannah Gruendler (Kunsthistorisches Institut Florence) - Mask Yourself! Resistant Practices of Disguise in Politically Adverse Times
• Zoë Vanderhaeghen & Bram Van Oostveldt (Ghent University) - The Chameleon as a Symbol of Dissimulation in Seventeenth-Century Discourse