u/Susy_ja73

Not sure about you but I find these masks extraordinarily emotive. Some have sold for millions of dollars so I'm not alone. This essay (https://www.humancondition.com/freedom-essays/ceremonial-masks-reveal-truth-about-human-condition/) by Jeremy Griffith reveals why in such a deeply profound way that I would never have thought possible. A little extract below but let me know your thoughts! Which is the mask you'd like to put on and do a tribal dance with in your living room?!

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"The word ‘mask’ is actually derived from the term ‘msk’, which was used in the middle Egyptian period to denote ‘second skin’. That ‘second skin’ that the mask sought to exorcise was our soul-corrupted, immensely upset, human-condition-afflicted real state that [Scottish psychiatrist R.D] Laing described above as being a ‘shrivelled, desiccated fragment of what a person can be’. Masks allowed the wearer to momentarily relieve themselves of their extremely dishonest everyday masquerade of being a secure, sound, well-adjusted, happy person, and let the truth out, which could be very therapeutic for both the wearer and the observer.

>By far the most common variety of masks are those that reveal the true extent of the, in truth, volcanic, demonic anger inside of humans...

>Masks that focused on revealing and exorcising the other aspect in the duality of the human condition, of the extent of the devastation of our cooperative, all-loving and all-sensitive original instinctive self or soul...

>Just how deeply these masks affect us when we look at them is a measure of how extraordinarily revealing they are of the true extent of the inner devastation, loneliness, emptiness and sadness of the human race’s now 2-million-year soul-repressed and soul-devastated condition..."

Some great photos of a recent flyer day with some of the Fix The World Centre founders in Manchester -- thought everyone would enjoy!

This essay blows my mind, it’s truly, truly beautiful. You can apply Jeremy Griffith’s understanding of the human condition to any subject you like and it will make it remarkably understandable and transparent, but for me, being able to understand art is very special, as the title says "art makes the invisible visible”, https://www.humancondition.com/freedom-essays/power-of-art/ . To quote from the essay:

>“Great art ‘can make the invisible visible’; it can cut a window into our alienated, effectively dead state and bring back into view some of the beauty that our soul has access to. After years of developing his skills, Vincent van Gogh was able to bring out so much beauty that resigned humans looking at his paintings find themselves seeing light and colour as it really exists for possibly the first time in their life: ‘And after Van Gogh? Artists changed their ways of seeing…not for the myths, or the high prices, but for the way he opened their eyes’ (Bulletin mag. 30 Nov. 1993).”

Jeremy touches on multiple forms of art in this essay but primarily focuses on painting, and uses the examples of well-known artists such as Francis Bacon, Edvard Munch, Vincent Van Gogh, Goya and Paul Gauguin. Jeremy explains the two extreme spectrums of art, one being those that express the truthful agony of the human condition, the truth of our corrupted and alienated existence (like Bacon, Munch and Goya); and on the other extreme, as touched on above, those that expose the ‘sensitivities of our soul, and reveal some of the true beauty of our world that our soul has access to’ (like Van Gogh and Gauguin). To quote Jeremy further:

>“Clearly, some truth and beauty was needed to counter all the denial/darkness/black-out the human race was living in—and that is precisely what great art has provided. It allowed the light of some honesty about our corrupted human condition and some access to our species’ lost state of all-sensitive and all-loving innocence to escape from the dark cave in which we have been hiding. The literature Nobel Laureate Albert Camus recognised how art provides a counter to all the darkness and confusion of the world when he wrote, ‘If the world were clear, art would not exist’ (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942).

>Great artists, be they painters, sculptors, singers, musicians, actors, dancers, poets, writers, architects or designers, are basically people who either didn’t properly or fully resign to living in denial of the truth of our immensely corrupted human condition and to blocking out all the exposing and confronting sensitivities that our original innocent instinctive self or soul has access to; and/or, people who cultivated access back to the truth of our corrupted human condition and to the sensitivities of our original instinctive self after they became resigned to living in denial of the human condition. Occasionally a person’s protective block-out develops, as it were, a crack or tear in it, either because they didn’t fully adopt denial or block-out when they were adolescents, or because they cultivated that crack or tear in their resigned state of block-out. Through this small rent these people can touch upon and reveal the truth about the human condition—whether it is the true horror of our corruption, or some of the true beauty that exists on Earth—but often, as will be explained, at great cost to themselves.”

In regard to the ‘great cost to themselves’ Jeremy explains this towards the end of the essay, and includes this poweful piece by Van Gogh titled Wheatfield with crows (1890), which is believed to be Van Gogh’s last work before he took his own life, and ‘conveys something of the terror of the human condition’. I will leave you there, you will savour every word of this profoundly impacting masterpiece from Jeremy Griffith, one of many for sure!