THE HISTORY OF GREASE PAINT

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 141, 17 June 1936, Page 20

THE HISTORY OF GREASE PAINT

t™. centenary of Joliann Ludwig

Leichner, the pioneer of expertly made grease-paints, made an occasion not only for tributes to the man, but for comments on this most ancient of human exercises, the painting of the taco, says Ivor Brown, an English writer. War and religion among the primitives, love and play-acting ever and always have demanded tho ritual or revelry of “making-up.” Few habits have been more denounced and few more dear. Poets and philosophers, railing Hamlet, or recording Diderot, havo cursed or chronicled the intoxication of rouge and that making of the second face which vainly would improve upon the more natural creation. Certain it is that Plsaroak’s daughters wero already as eager as Dobsou’s Ladies of St. James’s for tho white that stays for ever and the red that neuer dies to rcplaco Phyllida’s transient blush and trembling bloom. Tho Egyptians darkened their eyes with with “kohl” and tinted their hair with henna. Theso were probably tho chief resources of Jezebel’s tiring room. The Homans, as usual, took over alien pleasures and indulged in them to tho full. They also favoured the bleaching of hair, and the first platinum blondes seem to have been “Frenchified ladies” who had. learned tho trick in Gaul. Later on the more painting was scolded, tho more it was liked. Queen Elizabeth set an example (Shakespeare’s observations on tho subject seem almost treasonable in their violence), and all the ladies of tho time had their “sweet cotter,” as the make-up box was called. The paintings of tho eighteenth century wero so lavish and notorious that Parliament was invoked to stop it. It was proposed to punish as guilty of witchcraft any woman who had beguiled a man into matrimony by painting—among other things. In Pennsylvania a marriage at this timo could actually be annulled if the husband could prove that ho had been seduced by a made-up face and won, as it wero, under falso colours. The use of paint in mumming is vastly old. Tho blanched taco of Pierrot looks down tho centuries out of the ghostly rites of long ago. Our own mummers in tho play of St. George were practising • make-up of a rough and rural kind long before professional drama was known. Hero is a Cornish record of tho Mummers’ Play in 1846. “Old Father Christmas camo ’welh a malco-wiso feaco possed on top of his auu, and es long white wig”; the Doctor “with a three-corner piked hat, and es fence all rudded and whited, with spurticles on the top of cso nawse.” There must havo been high times painting up tho Doctor. Tho Elizabethans, who acted professionally both in open and sun-lit and

Beauty from the Pot

in closed and artificially illuminated! theatres, must havo found it hard t® adopt any single method of make-up. Later we kuow from a satire on tha Play-House by “T.G.”, quoted by Mr Montague Summers in his book on “The Kestorution Theatre,” how elab* orate was the facial preparation. Here is his picture of tho Tragedy; Queen iu Congreve’s time: , His Itoyal Consort next consults her Glass, And out of twenty Boxes culls a face. The whit-ning first her Ghastly Looks Imsmears, All Pale and Wan th’ unfinished Form appears: Till on her Checks the blushing Purple glows, And a false Virgin Modesty bestows; Her ruddy Lips the Deep Vermillion dyes; Length to her Brows the Poneil’3 touch supplies And with black bending Arches shades her Eyes. Well pleas’d at length tho Picture she beholds, And spots it o’er with Artiiieal Molds; Her Countenance comploat, the Beaux sho warms With looks not hers, and epight of Nature, charms. Alas, later on, “should youth behind the scenes retreat” be would see the ruin wrought by dramatic ardour (or more coarsely, by perspiration) on this elaborate facade. At last Tho borrowed visage he admires n® more And nauseates every charm he loved before. If Herr Leichner had only been alive tho damage and the disillusion would havo been far less. For grease-paint, though it cannot prevent heat, can prevent the running, of colour which disastrously, happened in tho old days of dry powdor. Yet the powders, according to Sir John Martin Harvey, may still be very useful to proiluco a haggard effect. Greast-paint mollifies a natural asperity of countenance and that is no advantage for the impersonator of a Scrooge. Tho films havo necessitated a now* make-up altogether, and tho i>rofession of laco-painter for tho studio is one of great skill and great rewards. Elaborate make-up is not nearly so common on tho modern stage as it used to bo in days of more characterful acting and hairer faces. But the film has given the old art a new and tremendous scope. The “make-wise” face, ouce applied to Father Christmas by English yokels, is more than ever in need. A leader of men is one who sees which way the world is going and then steps in ahead. —“PI Paso World News.”