Vietnam and Lao Masks Art as Ritual.

Art as Ritual, Theatre Masks of Asia

Recently, while walking through the National Museum in Luang Prabang, I came across a collection of theatre masks, and naturally, I quickly made a few sketches to add to my book on Masks of the World. Because of the ancient nature of much Asian Theatre, masks, gestures and ornate presentation of every scene create a timeless atmosphere without parallel in their ritual. On this occasion, I drew two Lao masks to add to the Vietnamese Woven rattan ones I saw in M alacca. These masks are part of ahuman ritual that allow a person to transform themselves into another being, permitting the dancer or actor to transcend cultural and national ties.

Vietnan Ratten Theatre Mask

Theatre Mask. Vietnam

 

Masks are universal, all cultures use them to provoke fear, symbolize status, mock or amuse the audience. The wearer is transported from the mundane world of reality to a state of fantasy, were tensions are relaxed, dilemmas resolved, and social taboos bridged. The Venice Mask Ball serves as a good European example. I find new examples everywhere I go, and the Lao examples of the Ramayana monkey and Samphari masks are good examples. The mask enables an individual to suppress their self-consciousness and expand their personality.

Monkey Mask National Museum

 

Every work of art causes the receiver [viewer] to enter into a certain kind of relationship with the person who produced the piece, and those who simultaneous previously, or subsequently receive the same artistic impression. On a purely physical level masks are made to hide the real face of the wearer and substitute artificial faces drawn either from tradition or the imagination of the mask maker. However, the act of covering ones face is more profound than a simple disguise, for it has greater significance than any other of our physical features. It represents our very identity, the means by which you are recognised.

Vietnam Mask

Ratten Mask Vietnam.

 

Finally, this new symbolic mask translates a human situation into a cosmological one. Creating an independence between human existence and cosmic structures. After all the function of myth is to briefly strengthen tradition, and endow it with greater value and prestige by tracing it back to a higher  better reality of the initial events.