The visage and the mask: semiotic considerations around representations of visages in Japanese Nō

Abstract

This paper aims at confronting a semio-anthropology of the face, based on the principles of Lévi-Strauss and Greimas, with the representation of the visage in Japanese Nō theater. As a theory, semiotics permits an explanation of the signification of faces, reduced at first to a series of masks, and their representations in different cultures. Within this framework, we will show that representations of visages in Nō form a semiotic system specific to both Japanese culture (myths, legends) and theatrical performance, and that the latter reintroduces a dynamic dimension which questions their status. Initially described as “narrative masks” depicting characters, they finally emerge as “movement masks” that blur the boundary between mask and face even further.