How to go about analyzing a mask? A painting often starts with subject matter: Venus nude springing up from the sea foam in a shell Marat murdered in a bathtub. Comparably, masks are faces (though not always human), although not human subjects: this Noh mask might have been modeled after the famous Heian-period poet Ariwara no Narahira. (Is this then a portrait of the poet in life, or in death?)
Can a mask tell a story like a painting? Is a mask a portrait?
Certainly there is more of a connection between mask and sculpture, and many of the mask-carvers Zeami names in one of his treaties are also known Buddhist sculptors. However, masks have a particularly different quality for their proximity to the human body. There is an inherent functionality to a mask's decoration (at least for the masks made to be worn rather than hung on the wall).
Would it be best then to proceed to a discussion of the theater of Noh itself, the world for which the masks were specifically created?
to be continued.
