Sophie Sommers Gothic Horror Make-up blog: Death Masks * History * My version

Death is a subject that has been shrouded by interest, fear, calm or repulsed by it. It is part of life that some people do not want to face, but eventually will have to.

My opinion on death is that I know it will happen to everyone, my Mumma, my partner and me, but I hate to think that it can be taken early by illness or just ordinary life routines or having an unhealthily lifestyle. I used to be fine with the subject but as I get older I get this pang of unease in my tummy that I would rather not have!

Death masks can be many things for the family to have as a Momento or be used to create a portrait after the have died. They are usually made out of either wax or plaster cast following he persons death.

In other cutters like the ancient Egyptians used other things like artefacts being placed on the face or the use of clay. The most well known of the masks is Tutankamuns mask which was traditional in the mummification process.

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Author: Hairdressing

Year of publication: 1893

Title: Harpers Bazar

Viewed: 13th February 2015

Available from: http://www.historyofmasks.net/mask-history/history-of-egyptian-masks/

Within the ancient Egyption culture, masks were mostly used for two purposes, as death masks and as ritual masks. They believed that it was important to preserve the body of the deceased because the soul has to have a place where to dwell after the death.

Mummification; This is the preservation of the dead body, a process that involved removing of the internal organs and placing it in canopic jars, wrapping body in linen and embalming.

Author: Hairdressing

Year of publication: 1893

Title: Harpers Bazar

Viewed: 13th February 2015

Available from: http://emhotep.net/2011/06/28/egypt-in-the-news/mumab-a-modern-day-ancient-egyptian-mummy-and-what-he-has-taught-us-so-far/

It was also considered very important for the soul to be able to recognise the body so it can return to it. I find that was an amazing outlook on how they considered he afterlife to be, to be so technical about it by removing body organs and everything I find quite amazing.

Death masks were made to resemble the deceased and they did they picked up each pore or scratch, and even now they have got e technology to show us what the people actually would have looked like through a scanner ( link below to documentary on the history channel)

Royal death masks were made from precious metals; gold or gold leaves on bronze. One of the most famous funerary masks is the mask of the Tutankhamen. All death masks were made to resemble deceased but with a slightly enlarged eyes and a faint smile and also showed fashion of the moment with painted jewellery and makeup. These death masks later evolved into a full body inner coffins in the human shape with same decorations and ornaments.

Ritual masks were worn by priests during rituals. Those masks were also made from cartonnage and then painted. They were made in the likeness of animal heads, heads of gods of ancient Egypt. Head of Anubis, god of death with a head of a jackal, was worn during funeral ceremonies such is “Opening of the Mouth” which was a symbolic animation of a mummy. Priest would wear a mask on his head and it would cover his shoulders. Head of the mask was also taller than a priest’s head so he was constrained to look through two small holes on the neck of the mask. Other gods and goddesses also had their masks. Religion in the Ancient Egypt was very important. Temples were places where gods lived and statues of gods were gods themselves. Everything considering the religion was shrouded in mystery. Priest who wore a mask of a god during a ceremony would become an avatar of god, aembodiment of god himself. Priest would speak his words and convey his will.

L'Inconnue de la Seine is French for "the unknown woman of the Seine". This was an unidentified young woman whose death mask became a popular thing to have in artists homes in the 1900. From just an mask of her face, she became inspiration for numerous literary works.

Author: Hairdressing

Year of publication: 1893

Title: Harpers Bazar

Viewed: 13th February 2015

Available from: http://www.cultofweird.com/medical/most-kissed-lips/

The story that has been told over the years;

"The body of the young woman was pulled out of the Seine River at the Quai du Louvre in Paris around the late 1880s. Since the body showed no signs of violence, suicide was suspected.

A pathologist at the Paris morgue was, according to the story, so taken by her beauty that he had a mould make a wax plaster cast death mask of her face. It has been questioned whether the expression of the face could belong to a drowned person. According to other accounts, the mask was taken from the daughter of a mask manufacturer in Germany. The identity of the girl was never discovered. Claire Forestier estimated the age of the model at no more than 16, given the firmness of the skin.

In the following years, numerous copies were produced. The copies quickly became a fashionable morbid fixture in Parisian Bohemian society. Albert Camus and others compared her enigmatic smile to that of the Mona Lisa, inviting numerous speculations as to what clues the eerily happy expression in her face could offer about her life, her death, and her place in society.

The popularity of the figure is also of interest to the history of artistic media, relating to its widespread reproduction. The original cast had been photographed, and new casts were created back from the film negatives. These new casts displayed details that are usually lost in bodies taken from the water, but the apparent preservation of these details in the visage of the cast seemed to only reinforce its authenticity.

Critic Al Alvarez wrote in his book on suicide, The Savage God: "I am told that a whole generation of German girls modeled their looks on her." According to Hans Hesse of theUniversity of Sussex, Alvarez reports, "the Inconnue became the erotic ideal of the period, as Bardot was for the 1950s. He thinks that German actresses like Elisabeth Bergnermodeled themselves on her. She was finally displaced as a paradigm by Greta Garbo."

Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24534069

The mannequin that is used in CRP is the famous'Inconnue de la Seine. Over the years Rilke, Louis Aragon, Man Ray and Vladimir Nabokov successively fell under the Inconnue's spell and at one time no fashionable European drawing room was complete without a mask of the Inconnue on the wall.

In Asmund Laerdal saved the life of his young son; at that time he was a successful Norwegian toy manufacturer, making children's dolls, model cars and what not for the new generation of soft plastics.

When he was approached to make a training aid for the newly-invented technique of CPR, the combination of chest compressions and the kiss of life.

I have read that Asmund wanted his mannequin to have a natural appearance and felt that a female doll would be 'less threatening to trainees'. Inconnue de la Seine would become the face of Resusci Anne!

I find it a sad but lovely story, she may have died alone but she has become a recognised face to all; we all have tried to breathe life back into her!