Why Body Painting? — 3: Origins — Touching Ancient Sources

“Chauvet Lions Watching”

by Christopher Agostino

At the core of my approach to bodypainting is my continuing exploration into its traditional sources and cultural functions. Just as a painter on canvas studies the masterpieces of the past to find his own way forward, I study the images and significance of traditional bodyart as a foundation for my work. Searching for an understanding of how and why we paint ourselves leads back to the origins of our humanity and our most ancient art. Whenever I paint someone I am aware of my small place in this vast tradition, one more human seeking to understand how our art can transform us. Although bodypainting is ephemeral, its legacy is timeless.

The Transformation Lecture – click here

This is a primal part of the story I’ve told myself to keep myself painting, that “before we ever painted a cave wall, we painted ourselves…” — my slogan. Going back 30 years when I was first trying to convince people that facepainting could be an art and not just something that clowns did at kid’s parties this was an important part of my argument.

You search for validation when you are working in a fringe art form and I continue to get jazzed seeing moments like the one in the PBS Nova episode “Becoming Human” where, just as they are describing the final evolutionary shift that made us the humans we are today they are showing a re-enacted image of an ancient human painting themselves. Or the book How Art Made the World: A Journey to the Origins of Human Creativity by Nigel Spivey, which makes the case that it is our ability to conceive, record and understand symbols (through language and art) that lifted us above the animal state—”we are the symbolic species”—and he also points to our own skin as the original canvas for these social symbols.

Our skin is the physical edge of who we are, the place where we touch the world, and so, as we first gained self-awareness, that spark of consciousness that makes us human, we marked our new awareness onto our skin to tell the world who we are. And that is a fine answer to the question “Why Body Painting?”

In The Mind in the Cave, David Lewis-Williams presents a timeline of the development of ancient art and culture. Cave paintings go back about 32,000 years, but art is older than that. The image here of the etched ochre rock from Blombos Cave from 77,000 years ago is considered the “earliest art object” yet discovered, and there is evidence of ochre colored earths being processed to produce pigment from much earlier. Pigments derived from ochre are still used as traditional body paints. It’s discovery radically reorganized anthropologists’ understanding of the origins of humanity, and the place in our collective history of our ancient ancestors at Blombos Cave is a truly remarkable story, as depicted in the PBS “Becoming Human” series. See also the links below for more information, including the incredible recent discovery of what might be the earliest facepainting kit ever.

The bodypainting at the top uses imagery from European cave paintings that are 10,000 to 32,000 years old, and I painted it several years ago. Ancient sources, modern inspiration for this bodypainter.

30,000 year old cave painting from the Chauvet Cave

One of the most inspirational art exhibits I have seen in many years was in a movie theater watching Werner Hertzog’s 3D film of the Chauvet Cave in France, The Cave of Forgotten Dreams. Seeing Hertzog’s film, I experienced art that is as great as anything I have ever seen in a museum, both in the technical quality of the painting (as Picasso said upon seeing similar cave paintings: “we have learned nothing!”) and in the depth of response it requires from the viewer. Through Hertzog’s fantastic use of 3D to bring the physical shapes of the painted cave walls to life, and dramatic flickering “torch-light” effects to recreate the experience of the original audience for these paintings, I could imagine myself there and understand how, at our origins, art was a driving transformational force.

See Talking Art to learn about my stage presentations on the origins and history of the art of transformation. See also my Bodypainting gallery .

The ancient art studio (shaunsmillie.com)
100,000-year-old ochre toolkit discovered at Blombos Cave in South Africa (news.bioscholar.com)
Werner Herzog – he likes the lions, too. https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/04/22/werner-herzog-he-likes-the-lions-too/
First Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain (newscientist.com)

Ancient Origins – Chauvet Lions Watching https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/04/25/ancient-origins-chauvet-lions-watching/
Out of Africa , post by Jeremy Lent http://jeremylent.wordpress.com/2010/10/31/out-of-africa/
Blombos Cave — Anatomically Modern Humans of the Middle Paleolithic By K. Kris Hirst http://archaeology.about.com/cs/humanorigins/a/blombos.htm
World Heritage and Nature : Early cave painters showed realist streak (environmentaleducationuk.wordpress.com)
Ancient Derain Dancer Pt.1 -Bodypainting Concept https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/03/30/ancient-derain-dancer-pt-1-2/
Rebirth revisited — Ukrainian Eggs and Ancient Eggs https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/2011/04/12/rebirth-revisited-—-ukrainian-eggs-and-ancient-eggs/
First Neanderthal cave paintings discovered in Spain (newscientist.com)

Why Body Paint? — 1: Collaboration — Painting the Mangbetu Queen

Nov9

From 1910, Queen Mutubani of the Mangbetu people being body painted by serving girls — it's good to be the Queen.

By Christopher Agostino

One of the more remarkable photographs of the cultural use of body art is the image from 1910 of a Mangbetu Queen in the book Body Decoration (see Books page for bibliography). As the queen stands in a regal pose she is being painted by several servants. I was reminded of this image last week during the bodypainting preparation for a video shoot. We had 4 dancers to paint. I was the primary bodypainter and there were two makeup artists doing the hair and eye makeup — as they finished with that they would help me paint the bodies. Towards the end all 3 of us were painting the 4th dancer simultaneously, and she remarked about what it felt like to be the center of that much attention. So I told her she should feel like a queen, a Mangbetu Queen.

Bodypainting is an intrinsically collaborative art. The primary collaboration is between the artist and the model, but it isn’t the only one, and that is not the collaboration I am addressing here, for there are often more people in the bodypainting room: assistants, photographers, multiple models to be painted — and spectators. The theatrical and presentational nature of bodypainting often means there is a crowd present watching the process. The ephemeral nature of the art compels us to maximize the amount of time people have to see our work. Whereas canvas painters work mostly alone in studios, we bodypainters make a spectator sport of it.

The Body Painting room for Bodies Alive!

A formative experience for most novice bodypainters is the first time they are at a convention, festival, performance or competition working in a room full of artists painting models. I’d say that this experience, more than any other, is the reason for the growing number of bodypainters in the U.S. — the fun they had, and the inspiration gained, from the sense of camaraderie in a room full of bodypainters drives them to keep doing it. Speaking personally, I find the bodypainting room much more exciting than the painted body fashion show or competition that follows, and especially when the painting being done in that room is all towards a unified purpose. Jam sessions are fun, and I understand the commercial necessities that make so many bodypainting events into competitions, but the ultimate for me is when the painters are all working in collaboration to achieve a collective vision, such as painting those 4 dancers for the video shoot, or the bodypainting room for the Bodies Alive! show at FABAIC 2008 http://www.fabaic.com/ , which I am very proud to have been a part of. We had about 30 primary painters plus many more additional volunteers working collaboratively — for numerous participants it was the first time they had helped to paint a full body, and I’m sure that experience has been a source of confidence as they have continued bodypainting.

In preparation for the stick fighting competitions, Surma men cover their skin with chalk mixed with water and then make line patterns through the chalk with their fingers

Painting bodies is more like performing music than like a studio art. It is a performance art, you certainly need the audience. I think you also want the fun of being part of a band, you don’t paint a body all alone — at the very least it is you plus the model. In its traditional functions, body painting is a social act, a shared community activity. For one thing, you can’t paint your full body yourself, and I believe that in traditional cultural uses (such as the Surma men painting each other in preparation for the ceremonial stick fights, or the Surma women painting together by a river bank for their part of the festivities) the participants experience the time spent painting each other in a unifying, celebratory way — in much the same way bodypainters enjoy the communal spirit of all painting together in a room at a convention. Any time you see an example of tribal or traditional body art, with full bodypainting or intricate designs on the back or the limbs, it is created communally, with the help of another person, and usually a reciprocal social act, as I paint your back and you paint mine.

Women of the Surma gathered to paint each other with colored earths and ochres.

Getting back to the Mangbetu, I have notes in an old journal about seeing an exhibit called “African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire” in 1990 at the American Museum of Natural History www.amnh.org/ of objects from the Mangbetu culture in the Congo region of Africa from around the time of that photo of the Queen being painted. What has stuck with me through the years since that exhibit is that every object — from household utensils like spoons, to clothing, house poles, drinking vessels — every object was a work of art. Including the people, for the exhibit said they would paint each other in intricate and original patterns with dyes made from the gardenia plant that would last a few days, and then be re-painted in new and unique designs. The exhibit displayed a collaborative, ongoing social act to create a world of art.

Again I am reminded of the practice and function of making live music, particularly in a traditional setting, it’s an experience we visual artists don’t get to have in our process much, except perhaps when doing something like bodypainting, in which the process is intrinsically collaborative and the work of art is alive.

Another Mangbetu bodypainting example, from 1937.

From the African Reflections exhibit I saw in 1990, a figure with body art lines — I have a sketch of this figure in my old notebook and found this image searching the American Museum of Natural History web site.

Not to put too fine a point on the communal, egalitarian nature of tribal arts, the text accompanying this image of a Mangbetu male from "Body Decorations" states "the elaborate painting indicated the social superiority of the Mangbetu elite" — so the body art contained social information as it did in most cultures.

An example from the Amazon Txukahamae culture of communal body painting

The Odd Ball in 2009 was another very fun body painting room — see the link to that page below

See my fine art bodypainting at https://thestorybehindthefaces.com/body-painting/ Christopher Agostino

The Odd Ball video: http://wp.me/p1sRkg-2C
Why Body Paint? – 1: Collaboration – Painting the Mangbetu Queen (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Body Painting Dance Company: Art Color Ballet (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 4: Radical Act – The essential celebration of our humanity / the ultimate modern art (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 2: Ultimate Collaboration – MODELS, Pt.1 What I have learned from models. (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 2: Ultimate Collaboration – MODELS, Pt.2: Just how much a model can help, Amber and Kuniyoshi at FABAIC 2011 (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 1B: Collaboration in Action – UV Action Painting with Emma Cammack and Carolyn Roper (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 1A: Collaboration – Meeting Colleagues like Carolyn Roper (thestorybehindthefaces.com)
Why Body Painting? – 3A: Origins – Why did we start painting ourselves? Ancient bodypainting kit discovered at Blombos Cave (thestorybehindthefaces.com)

Halloween Face Painting — Photos from the Company

Nov4

Extra Spooky Ghoul by Laura

There just weren’t enough faces to paint this weekend. I have a very disappointed company of artists. Roberta feeling bad that she had no chance to paint some of the real scary stuff because both her events were “snowed out” — Laura frustrated that she couldn’t paint the Day of the Dead faces she’d been researching. At some of the events that did go on, only a handful of people showed up due to the extreme and surprising weather. In the limited opportunities, a bunch of the artists were good enough to take photos and send me some, a selection of which are here, including faces from Lorraine, Jennifer, Britt, Christine, Laura and one of our newest members, Colleen, who contributed a really cool skeleton design. I think Laura wins the “spookiest” award, with her “Extra Spooky Ghoul” face. Jennifer continues to forge ahead into new design concepts for all of us by continuing to apply the lessons we are learning from fine art paintings to new themes such as her “Gauguin Witch“. And Lorraine’s juxtaposition of the face of the Statue of Liberty with the New York skyline is something we can use all year round.

If you paint faces, take photos. You will learn more from looking at your own work than from any teacher. Retain the successes, learn from the failures. Try designs again, even the failures. And don’t be afraid to try something new. I am very happy that all the artists that work with me don’t just paint the same designs I do — i learn from them as much as they learn from me.

Yo-Yo Ma was on Colbert the other night, and he had some advice for all of us who do any art. Talking about the new group he’s working with, and their new album “The Goat Rodeo Sessions”, he said they all want “to do something very well”, but he also said they always wants to take risks, “to go to the edge where you see a better view”.