“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” -Oscar Wilde
This stunning painting by the Italian magical realist Cesare Sofianopulo shows a group of masked partygoers at the Venice Carnivale.
If you look closely you can see that the figure on the left is actually death wearing a mask. He reminds us that even our true faces are masks we wear, hiding a skull underneath.
It’s oddly reminiscent of a similar painting by James Ensor, titled Death and the Masks (1897). Although this one is slightly more spooky.
It’s often said that magical realism is about blurring the boundaries between real and imaginary worlds. But what these paintings show is that more often than not they’re about demonstrating how even ‘reality’ is a kind of fantasy world. As the French psychoanalysis Jacques Lacan observed, we only access reality through fantasy. And perhaps life, in all its disguises, is the ultimate fantasy, the one which we call reality. At least that’s what these paintings seem to suggest. I find them beautiful, but also unsettling. And maybe that’s exactly the point.
Julian
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PS: I should add that not all of the figures in the top painting are masked, although they are all in costume.
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Today I would like to add a thought:
the partygoers are the same person, aren't they? And yes, so very true: the skull ... our skin is thereby also declared a mask, a bit devilish this truth behind our natural surface, unmasking our short lives