Face Painting :: A Brief History

Thursday, 25 September 2008

Hello and welcome to the blog section of Tumshies! Over the coming weeks and months we'll be updating this area with articles and news from the world of face painting, as well as fun tidbits and items we encounter along our travels. For the first article it seemed like a good idea to start at the beginning of face painting itself and take a brief look at how it developed into the exciting form of entertainment it is today.

Face painting has roots within ancient civilisations from right across the globe. The Ancient Egyptians, Native Americans and Celtic tribes, for example, have all employed face painting techniques for a variety of purposes. Tribe recognition was one important application of face and body art. Alternatively the hunters would prepare themselves for the hunt by decorating themselves before the chase. In the same way face painting would have been performed as a technique to instill fear in the enemy during times of war. There is a psychological advantage to wearing a new face, or hiding ones own underneath paint too, because it helps us to detach from who we are. In this way soldiers and hunters had the ability to justify their actions in the fighting or keep the fighting/killing part of themselves separate from the peaceful, family/tribe oriented side. Face painting was also a large part of religious ceremonies; worn to appease Gods or as part of some rites of passage.

In these early face painting experiments the colour itself would be created via a mixture of coloured stones or clays ground down and mixed with animal fats. Plants were also used either by grinding up roots or by boiling the leaves, drying them and then crushing the remains into powder to be mixed with the fats and oils.

Since those days the art of facepainting became more popular in theatrical circles and among clowns and other performance acts before eventually translating into a form of childrens entertainment. Of course the various factions of the military do still use face paint to enhance camouflage, but when we think of face painting in the modern age our thoughts tend to turn towards childrens parties, fairgrounds and other such events.

Labels: face painting