I am fascinated with masks. Not so much the pragmatic masks we are familiar with today for protecting from germs, welding sparks, hockey pucks, or poison gas (though I confess my interest is enough to have accrued a small collection of the last kind), but the varied sorts of masks designed with more artistic intent. Cultures in virtually every corner of the globe have produced wild, exotic, bizarre, and beautiful artificial faces. My interest has grown lately such that I’ve threatened to hang a collection of masks on a wall in my home, to my wife’s persistent disapproval. Her distaste at the thought of a menagerie of lifeless visages strewn across the wall all but confirms their significance in my mind. Their potency is more than aesthetic. I think there is an important sense in which such masks do more than hide faces, but are faces themselves.

The fusiform facial area is the section of the brain responsible for most of the processing involved in facial identification. There is perhaps no other object of which human beings are able to distinguish so many unique examples. There is evidence to suggest that the process of facial recognition begins developing even before birth.

When Moses asks to see God, he is told that the face of the divine spells doom and is permitted only to view God’s back, and even that must be done from the cleft of a rock. If, as the apostle John writes, God is spirit, then it is strange to consider that he should have a face or back at all. It seems to me that “the face of God” refers less to a literal, anatomical structure and more to the full aspect of God. Just as with people, the face of God is a display of identity.

Curiously, Moses veils his own face later in the story as a direct result of his encounter with God. This is mirrored in the New Testament in Christ’s transfiguration (the symbolism of both taking place atop a mountain being a topic I also hope to explore more). The glory of the Lord manifests repeatedly in the human countenance. This is not even to speak of the significance of mankind bearing the image of God. Suffice it to say that faces are important to humanity, and this perhaps reflects something about God.

If you’ll indulge me further as my train of thought continues to skip rather than roll along, consider this notion prevalent in Romantic thought that, broadly, the inner self is the authentic self. This idea often manifests in the more-or-less Rousseauian premise that social pressure drives individuals to wear masks of conformity when they would be more happy showing their true selves. The absurd implications for civilization aside, I would contend that the whole thought is riddled with absurdity even on the individual level.

Returning to literal masks, it is worth pondering the many functions that masks serve. The Romantic metaphor fails on this level given that masks are rarely a tool strictly of social conformity in real life. For one, masks often serve ceremonial roles. These are intended to stand out rather than to conform, they elevate the identity of the wearer through transfiguration rather than undermine it. They conform to a culturally dictated pattern, yes, but this is for the purpose of establishing identity rather than eroding it. Let us cast off, at least for the sake of this exploration, the notion that identity emerges primarily from within rather than without.

Masks have also historically been a hallmark of warfare. Some masks are built with protection in mind, but in antiquity a war mask more frequently had the greater purpose of invoking something beyond the wearer. A war mask calls upon an icon of the ferocity desired in the wearer. His identity is informed by that which he aspires to become in relation to his enemies, namely, a terror, a nightmare, a fiend. Another species of mask, the death mask, has served to preserve identity more than shape it. Some masks, like those found in Venice or quaint ballrooms in cinema, are meant to elegantly conceal identity. I could go on.

It is possibly as magnificent an art form as language itself. The unique human propensity toward facial detection and identification begets an equally unique desire and capacity for facial creation — not merely to create faces, but to subsequently appropriate them to our own bodies. Most masks are meant to be worn, after all, to supplement or supplant the wearer’s existing face. While any of the examples given could be viewed through their proximity to facilitating group inclusion, none of them fit the bill for the mysterious mask found in the Romantic metaphor. Where could this notion of the social conformity mask come from?

Perhaps the thought is that of the Venetian mask, that true identity is being concealed all the time by conformity to social norms. But this is hardly analogous. Perhaps Rousseau himself might disagree, but it does not seem to me that wearing clothes is degrading to identity, yet it is nonetheless a potent social more in the majority of cultures. To the contrary, clothes are an excellent way of expressing identity, whether in the collectivist or individualist sense. If this is the case, then conformity to norms cannot be rightly considered as equivalent to identity erosion.

No, I think history shows that the mask ought to be considered an authentic kind of face. As a conveyor of identity, its validity is not eliminated by virtue of its human construction. It would be only prudent to grant, however, that because it is made by man rather than God, it cannot be classed as the same kind as a biologically real face. Even so, human beings are dependent upon our own creative nature to survive. An artificially constructed home is no less a home, and I contend that the concealment of real faces can serve not only to blur identity but also to elevate it.

Masks are truly a wonderful form of art, and I would rather not see them abused by a metaphor that denies the beauty of civilization. Surely, the Rousseauian type, if I may stretch the metaphor even thinner, only complains about a certain kind of mask. Anyone of that persuasion would doubtlessly applaud any mask they (naively) perceived to be constructed beyond the reach of social intervention or influence. But, as with language, to divorce masks from the world of social, collective, interpersonal dynamics is to amputate their meaning (see, Two to Tango).

Fear not, I will not allow the opponent I’ve imagined for myself to ruin my musings on this fascinating medium. I’ve yet to finish Claude Levi-Strauss’ work The Way of the Masks, but his discussion of various Native American traditional masks has already revealed to me a bountiful world of rich storytelling, myth-making, and intracultural communication — and, to think, all facilitated by painted lumps of wood.

I believe that is what I find so interesting about masks. The comparison to language becomes even harder to avoid here. I am enamored with what they reveal about humanity and, as a result, what they reveal about God. God creates identity, and we have the capacity to imitate Him in a lesser way like children making-believe. He creates living things by His Word, and we create facsimiles to convey our own words. He’s bequeathed to us, though we are infinitely lowly by comparison, the rich and wondrous gift of hearing the songs of His creation glorifying Him. Though we are unworthy to look upon His face, we are still fashioned after His likeness. All the more reason to desire restoration to Him, to long for His face to be turned from our sins, and to consequently fashion the likenesses we design to reflect the true Beauty.

It is for this reason that I think masks reflect something particularly poignant artistically. To return to the metaphorical masks, the Christian calling is not to contentedness with our worldly, fleshly identity, with our nakedness, with our uncovered, shameful faces. The calling is to don the armor of God, to be clothed in righteousness, I might say, to wear the mask Christ gives, to embrace the identity He bestows, which is more real than this face, identity, of fallen flesh and bone. A true mask is perhaps not one that conceals reality but reveals it.

Unlike Rousseau, Christ understands that man cannot return to paradise by giving in to the worldly self. God clothed Adam and Eve when He banished them from the garden, for them to disrobe would not be sufficient to return there. To embrace the uncontrolled, irreverently rebellious, unsubmissive, uninhibited self is an illusory paradise and a false freedom. The Romantic notion that true actualization of identity comes with the casting off of all masks bears a fatal resemblance to this pattern. Make no mistake that Adam and Eve prior made poor clothes out of fig leaves for themselves. They required the sacrificial clothing given by the Lord. Not all masks deserve to be worn, not just any will do. Let us not forget that our masks, our language, our art can easily fall short, even worsen our condition. We must strive in all we do to attain to and imitate the Truth, which is Christ.

And he said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live. …

And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. –Exodus 33:20, 34:29 (KJV)

And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, and was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him. –Matthew 17:1-3 (KJV)