VOL. IV (XXI) 2009 - Departamentul de Filosofie si Stiinte ale ...

AHMED MIHAELA MERAL 8
representations (in tragedies) also in the limitation of the role of masks. But,
for Nietzsche this limitation isn’t marked by the victory of truth because
tragedies are not the place where the unveiled truth should manifest. The
text above marks (by the theme of mask) the border between aristocratic and
non aristocratic, because “the aristocratic soul has a deep respect for itself” 8 .
Reminiscences of mask which offer dignity, trying to camouflage the
individual and so to offer a better man, refined, are conserved in Charles
Baudelaire’s aesthetics where the make-up as technique that gives the
impression of supernatural is considered almost as a duty. As make-up at
Baudelaire, the mask at Nietzsche doesn’t want to seduce, but only to avoid
the obscene. In the same way at Jean Baudrillard, the make-up is the one
that puts order in the features. The make-up is not a characteristic of the
obscene, because this character ( the obscene) concerns primarily the
necessity of making oneself famous, and the make-up as mask means just
the opposite: the individual doesn’t want to expose oneself. The figure of
dandy at Charles Baudelaire presents the characteristics of the one that
knows to ware the make-up-mask, because his aristocracy consists in
simplicity, the dandy characters “are the messengers of the necessity, so
rare today, to fight and reduce to nothing the triviality” 9 .
The supernatural impression represents the aspiration to magic; at its
limits (at Baudelaire) it means the erase of limits between human and divine.
He offers here the example of powdering the nose, technique that has as
purpose the standardization of the color of skin creating the appearance of a
statue, implicit of a superior human being, even of a divine creature. 10
Baudelaire underlines the absence of vulgarity of make up, which represents
the victory of artistic beauty upon natural beauty; this option comes from the
protest towards art as imitation of nature. Make up is considered a “painting
of face” 11 that “doesn’t have to be use in the vulgar, concealed purpose of
imitate the pure nature and to compete with youthfulness” 12 . Baudelaire
sustains that make up as artifice “doesn’t make ugliness beautiful and it is
only working for beautifulness” 13 . Make up has to be recognized as it is,
doesn’t have to be a hiding mask, “at contrary, it can reveal itself, if not with
fastidiousness, at least with a sort of candour.” 14 The make up-mask assures
protection of individual and trough him of culture in general, this way it
represents a impediment for the democratization of culture (it is known the
8
Friedrich Nietzsche, Dincolo de bine şi de rău, in Opere complete, vol. 6, Editura
Hestia, Timişoara, 2005, p. 164 (my translation)
9
Charles Baudelaire, Curiozităţi estetice, Editura Meridiane, Bucureşti, 1971, p. 209
(my translation)
10
Ibidem, p. 215 (my translation)
11
Idem
12
Idem
13
Idem
14
Idem