With the approach of Halloween I looked up "masks" on Google and inadvertently stumbled on these. They're death masks, probably of well-known people, but I don't recognize them.
They all look like people I'd like to have known. How sad to see them like this, with their nobility intact but bereft of life.
In a comment Steve Worth says this (above) is Beethoven,
The faces are so striking. A passage from the Bible comes to mind: "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"
This man (above) looks like death came on him in his sleep.
This woman (above) appears to be smiling. Could that be? Would anybody ever smile at the moment of death? In a comment Kelly Toon has this to say about the mask:
The smiling woman has a very interesting history. She was a girl of about 15, whose body was taken from the Siene river. Her face had such a serenity and peace despite her tragic end, that she became a well-known and sought after mask. Many artists used her as reference and inspiration.
The faces also remind me of the lines from
Hamlet: "What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals. And yet to me what is this quintessence of dust?"
