Death Masks- Victorian Art of Dying... ♰

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It amazes me how much Death meant to the Victorians and how it was celebrated... How much of a meaning it had. The most intriguing thing is that even though that era has ended, most elements of the process of saying goodbye to our loved ones, have stayed the same. For instance the fact that we were black after someone's died- which is suppose to represent mourning,a practice taken up wholeheartedly by Queen Victoria after the death of her husband Albert. However, with fabrics and colours changing over time to mark how long it had been since the death of your loved one. Also, funeral and memorial cards are still produced and distributed. Another thing that I found interesting was that the Victorians valued the last words of the dying a lot, which until this day is still something that all of us do. Even in films we hear 'his last words were...'. Men's attire was fairly simple: mourning coats early on in the period and black bands on their hats and black gloves later. Women’s mourning attire would often consist of a black crepe dress, complete with black caps and even black ribbons tied to the underwear. Later during a period of “half mourning” women would be permitted to wear purple or grey. In addition to this women were expected to be isolated in mourning. Where men might be able to work through their grief, women were expected to stay at home, with visitors only allowed after the mourning period was over.

The importance of some traditions from the Victorian era has not gone even though the era itself has. To me that is very fascinating.

Facts taken from: http://www.history.co.uk/study-topics/history-of-death/victorians-and-the-art-of-dying

Death Mask #1

                   

In lesson we were asked to create a Death Mask, which had to represent a dead person's face. I found this quite hard... It was tricky for me to find the balance between the highlight and shading. Knowing where to put which so that it looked realistic and made logical sense. I have used a black shade of eyeshadow from #Inglot and a white eye shadow from the #Kryloan pallet. If I was doing this again, I would definitely pay more attention to where the light falls on my face naturally instead of having to guess and think 'is this even going to look real?'... You know, instead of theatrical!

Death Mask #2

This Death Mask looks the most realistic in my opinion. I think the shading could be more dramatic, but I think the left side of my face looks darker and gives off that creepy effect I was going for. I put some highlight in the middle of the forehead to represent the light that was directly hitting my face, which I think added to this look as a whole. Now looking at the photograph I think I should have emphasised the eyes more and make them more 'dead looking'. I.e. more dark circles!