Abstracts Law

The Greek mask; its origin and function

by Carolyn Cooper

The origin of the mask can be clearly traced to pagan ritual. The early Greek religion involved human sacrifice in which the mask played a major role. The dancer-executioners who performed these religious acts wore the mask originally as a disguise against the revengeful ghosts of their victims. These masks came to symbolize the deity to whom the sacrifice was performed. The dancer donned the mask and was filled with the spirit of the god; he could then generate that spirit to his audience. The ritual masks therefore gave the dancer a power, the power of the god that enabled him to perform, in the name of the god, certain magical feats. Early ritual masks are of three types: the animal masks, such as the mare or the bull, which gave to its wearer the power of rainmaking; the Gorgon masks, a device serving to protect the wearer from ghosts and to keep out trespassers; and thirdly, the white gypsum and the wine-lees; worn traditionally by Thespis???s choruses, which were disguises rendering the ritual participants unidentifiable. By the era of great tragedy the early ritual purposes of the mask were largely forgotten. The mask, like the Greek theater in general had risen from ritual to art. The tragic masks used in the Greek theater of the fifth century fall into three categories: the stock character masks of the major characters, the homogeneous masks of the choruses, and the special masks of original design used in a specific performance of a particular play. In general, all three types of masks appear to have been relatively free from distortion and though greatly oversized, were natural enough in appearance. The masks, however, were not devoid of imaginative, highly theatrical effects, such as Aeschylus' terrifying masks of the Furies, or the three changes of mask designed for the character of Dionysus in Euripides??? The Bacchae. The mask of the Greek theater was the dramatist's most important visual tool. It not only helped to compensate for the distance of the audience from the stage in the ancient theaters, but provided the Greek Tragedians with an aesthetic means of transcending the commonplace and achieving that spiritual communication which is the basis of their art.