Face-paints

Schminke,/, (face) paint, make-up. Schmink-mittel, n. cosmetic, -rot, n, rouge (the cosmetic), -weiss, n. flake wdiite, pearl white (basic nitrate or oxychloride of bismuth), Schmirgel, m. emery, -leinen, n, -leinwand,/, emery cloth. 

Skewered by eyes as sharp as the servant s darning needle, I bowed low. She was a tall, but not heavy woman, clad in fine velvet and lace, all in black, and carefully adorned with pearls and face paint. Palace life and ample servants and wet nurses had preserved her well only the hollow cheeks caused by lost teeth acknowledged that she must be over fifty and had borne many children. 

I headed for the tete-a-tete, collecting a chair on the way. Somehow Violetta seemed much less outrageous in her nun s costume than she had the previous day. Had I grown used to it, or had Milana altered it for her Her sun-bleached hair was well tucked away and she wore no face paint, but it was equally possible that Violetta was merely actingnun so effectively that I failed to find her display of ankle and bosom as outrageous as I should. 

Giorgio did not approve of a courtesan dressing as a nun he rowed us in angry silence. I did not approve either, although I pulled down the blinds of thefelze to enjoy the guilty fun of cuddling her. I could kiss her freely, because nuns do not wear face paint to smudge, but my talk was not romantic. 

Early Huichol representation of Another face painting often the face painted for "mother of seen in such ceremonies, this... 

Figure 4 Carajurone (R=CHs) and the related carajuretin (R=H) result by the very rapid enzymatic aerial oxidation of flavans present in the leaves of Arrabidaea chica. The plant is one of the most used Amazonian medicinal plants and the anti-microbial and other activities may be related to the presence of these red pigment. Some indigenous tribes use them as face paints and carajurone has been commercialised in the past as chica red. Genipa americana fruit juice, by the action of an endogenous glucosidase followed by aerial oxidation, provides another pigment. The juice has multiple medicinal uses probably associated with its antimicrobial action. Here the dye is blue-black and is believed to be an ethylene-bis- -aza-azulene , derived by condensation of the genipin monomer with primary amines. ...

The third and fourth chapters move from medicinal drugs and potions towards a more abstract notion of remedy, identifying the visual spectacle of the theater with the chemicals used in face-paints, and the allure of beauty, femininity, and erotic desire. As a form of... 

While women tend to be at the center of discussions of the dangers of face-paints, ample evidence indicates that men were significant consnmers of cosmetic products as well. Tuke, for example, refers in his title to Fainting and Tincturing of Men and Women, and Platt, among others, offers recipes on How to colour the head or beard. Bulwer similarly writes of... 

As we have seen earlier in this book, the theater s capacity for contamination was routinely understood in terms of poison by its detractors, just as its capacity for restoration was described as a medical treatment by its supporters. Although in the case of face-paints the associations with both helpful and harmful drugs were clearly catalyzed and reinforced by the fact of their chemical ingredients, the example of theater seems to yield to the same charges without the... 

The relationship between face-paints, poison, and the theater is explored at greater length in Chapter 3. 

Bulwer, Anthropometamorphosis, 263. For further examples and analysis, see Drew-Bear, Painted Faces, 28-31, 73-8, and 82-4. Scenes satirizing male face-painting occur in comedies such as Marston s Antonio and Mellida, Glapthorne s The Lady Mother, Massinger s The Bashful Lover, and Ford s The Fancies Chaste and Noble. 

Dolan, Frances. Taking the Pencil Out of God s Hand Art, Nature, and the Face-Painting Dehate in Early Modern England. PMLA 108 (1993), 224-39. 

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