Covered face as a means of keeping silent

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wusya-pyan.blogspot.ru/Covered face 

The frailty of the human body makes its owner instinctively hide behind something at the moments of its highest vulnerability. Behind the walls, behind the clothes and behind the armour. The eye immediately hides behind the eyelid as soon as a foreign object approaches too close to it. The wound requires a dressing as an area deprived of its protective layer, as an area where the body tissue has been damaged. Death represents the ultimate degree of the human frailty — it is a condition when the skin cover cannot save anything anymore. Those interested in protecting the dead body created a shell for it using the materials obtained in the outer environment. For instance, Ancient Egyptians made mummies of the dead because mummification preserved the bodies and it was important for their belief in the afterlife. Creating cocoons for living bodies is related to the area of art experiments because it hinders the interaction of the organism with the outer world which is necessary for retaining vitality. The text below describes disguising the face as a stylistic device.

Salvador Dali. Tristan Insane, Costumes for the Spirits of Death. 1944

In the edition of "Diary of a genius" by Salvador Dali, published by "Eksmo-press" in 2006, one may find a costume sketch for "Tristan Insane". The sketch represents four dancing girls dressed in ribbons. The most captivating and sirenizing thing about them is their resemblance to the Greek Charites. For in both cases the female creatures are grace incarnate. The Charites of Dali turned out to serve not Apollo and Aphrodite but Tanathos. This suites them better. The spirits of death should not have faces — at least certain faces. In this case their faces are carefully wrapped in cloth. It means that they belong to those who hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil and — what is important — make no evil with their gaze. And the viewer's gaze does not get stuck at the wordy features of a concrete and transitory face because there are none. There are wavy night silhouettes belonging to no particular woman but to the woman in general. They are absolutely detached, beautiful and eternal.

Anna Chromy. Čeští muzikanti. Amazonka. 2002

Almost the same message is conveyed by the Ganges, the Amazon, the Danube and the Mississippi which make the statuary group of the fountain "Czech musicians" by Anna Chromy in Prague. This time the female Danube and Amazon are accompanied by the male Ganges and Mississippi. Pieces of fabric knotted at the back of their heads fit tightly over their faces but the Danube's bandage has slipped and revealed her mouth and nose. There are the same ecstatic curves and generalisation combined with the water allegory. It is freedom and unbound beauty.

René Magritte. The Lovers. 1928

"The Lovers" by Rene Magritte are more laconic (and at the same time more expressive due to the colour): he allows us to see only their shoulders and heads. Their faces are covered with a white fabric. With the help of this cover the two get free from their mortal incarnation and gain anonymity and invisibility. This is not Mr X and Mrs Y kissing but the man and the woman kissing. It is timeless, spaceless and nonaesthetic.

Robert Mapplethorpe. White Gauze. 1984

Due to the special characteristics of the production, there is a relatively large number of photographs containing a similar visual generalization. One cannot but recollect the two bandaged men of the White Gause series by Robert Mapplethorpe. The men are wrapped in white both separately and together so that they are immobilized by this interconnection. They transform into one creature but soon their closeness turns into suffocation — there is a shot in the series where the lower part of the right man's face is out of the cocoon. His mouth is open in such a way as if he is short of breath. The concealment of individual details leaves a space for the most important things — human desires, sensations and feelings — to show up to the full extent. It is easier for the viewer to associate themselves with the people depicted if one sees the same things in them that are in him or her and does not stumble over the differences.

Sayuka Kimura. Silence

The last item in the collection takes us back to the Dali's spirits of death. The man depicted by the Japanese artist Sayuka Kimura has deadly long fingers, bare feet, protruding ribs, a smoothly curved silhouette, and tightly swathed face. Silence which is referred to in the artwork's title may well be the key word for any image with a hidden face. The viewer's eye asks: "Who are you?" And the person's appearance which nowhere reveals itself more clearly than in the person's face serving as a label providing all the necessary information does not give a visual answer. Facelessness is unrecognizable. It takes the person out of the comparison and does not let him resemble anyone.

This is the way one's back keeps silent, the way one's hair keeps silent when the wind blows it into one's face, the way love keeps silent — without paying any attention to figures and letters people use to read each other.