Commedia Dell'arte

Commedia Dell'arte is a performance, improvisational theatre, created in Italy in the 16th Century. The name 'Commedia Dell'arte' is said to be difficult to translate, but a close enough translation into English would be "Comedy of the Craft". The actors typically acted out cunning behaviours, in which; hunger, love and money were the most important part of the plays.

These are the masks of Commedia'dell Arte. We have had to base one of our own creations of a mask based on the characters (the original masks.) I personally chose Harlequin (Arlecchino).  We were allowed to change a few aspects of the mask, but not so it was entirely unidentifiable, so keep the main aspects on the mask, strong. 

Harlequin's mask is the most famous Commedia Dell'arte character and I chose to do Harlequin's mask as I thought it has the most room for experimentation. 

This is my mask before I let the liquid latex dry. Although, I established that I am actually allergic to latex, so this is essentially all I did until the painting stage for health and safety reasons. However, I did power through it to get a final mask piece. 

This is the final piece. Sadly, I cannot actually put the mask on my face, because I am allergic to latex and I can't risk having an allergic reaction. The mask peals off firmly and everything is in place. The only down side to my mask is that it isn't very neat, mainly because I had to be quick due to my allergies. I chose bold colours to represent what a bold character he is and kept the main aspects of the mask; the nose, mouth and eye shape.