This wood mask is meant to evoke winter wonderlands. The joy of fresh snow. In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera wrote about “the realm of kitsch, [where] the dictatorship of the heart reigns supreme” (trans. M. H. Heim). And about two tears of sentimentality “flow[ing] in quick succession”. The first triggered by a pastoral image: children cavort on a lawn or – as evoked by the mask – young girls play in snow. The second – “[the] tear that makes kitsch kitsch” – touches us in unison with fellow humans: “How nice to be moved, with all humankind!” But this exhibit of joy is something else. Joy isn’t always a byword for kitsch.
One more thing: a ko-omote is a mask of a teenage girl. To be precise, it is expected to emphasise the innocence of a fifteen-, sixteen-year-old gal. Perhaps only young girls feel such joy and express it so? Mind you, neither the bacchante nor a ko-omote has come of age yet. As if joy was forever linked to adolescence. Or perhaps less joy than its mask?
