In June of 1935, Watsuji Tetsurō first published the essay Mask and Persona [Men to Perusona 面とペルソナ] in the prime of his career, before the excesses of the war and remorse of the post-war, but well after his turn away from Western “individualism” and embrace of the method of hermeneutic ethical anthropology.†First published in Thought [Shisō 思想 v. 157, pp. 107–112]. In December of 1937, Iwanami Shoten published a collection of writings by Watsuji with Mask and Persona as the title essay [pp. 1–12]. It was reset into the post-war orthography and included in Watsuji’s Complete Works [Watsuji Tetsurō Zenshū 和辻哲郎全集 v. 17, pp. 289–295], and more recently it has been republished in pocket-sized book format as the co-title essay of Reviving the Idols and Mask and Persona: Collected Thoughts of Watsuji Tetsurō [Guzō Saikō - Men to Perusona: Watsuji Tetsurō Kansōshū 偶像再興・面とペルソナ 和辻哲郎感想集]. The latest version was used in the preparation of this translation, but to the translator’s knowledge, the only difference between the different versions is the use of pre- and post-war orthography. In addition to its value in giving us insight into the mature Watsuji’s method of philosophical cultural comparison, the influence of Mask and Persona can also be seen in its influence on later Japanese works, such as Sakabe Megumi’s The Hermeneutics of Masks [Kamen no Kaishakugaku 仮面の解釈学], which explicitly extends the thought introduced in Mask and Persona.
In Mask and Persona, Watsuji reflects on the importance of the face in human existence by explicating three main Japanese terms — men 面, kao 顔, and gammen 顔面 — which he contrasts with the Latin term persona. For the convenience of the reader, these are consistently translated throughout as “mask,” “face,” “facial surface,” and “persona” respectively.
The character for men, 面, can also be read as omote or tsura and can be thought of as a outward aspect or “surface,” from which it derives the meanings of “face” and “mask.” It is used in such kanji compounds as heimen 平面 “plane,” hōmen 方面 “field,” suimen 水面 “surface of the water,” gamen 画面 “screen,” etc. Its meaning as “face” is reflected by its use in writing omoshiroi 面白い “interesting,” literally “something that brightens the face.” It is used in such phrases as men wo suru 面をする “to wear a mask,” shikamettsura wo suru しかめっ面をする “to scowl,” men to mukatte 面と向かって “face-to-face,” and other expressions listed at the end of essay by Watsuji. As in English, the expression “wearing a mask” men wo kaburu 面を被る is an idiom for “deceiving others.” More abstractly, it is used in taimen 体面, mentsu 面子, and memmoku 面目, which all mean something like “honor,” “appearances,” or “face” in the sense of “losing face.” The term “mask” can be explicitly indicated by fukumen 覆面 (a cloth mask) or kamen 仮面 (a hard mask), but in Mask and Persona, Watsuji never uses the term fukumen and only uses kamen once, when referring to Greek masks. (This instance is also translated as “mask” but marked for the reader.)
Kao 顔 can usually be treated in translation straightforwardly as “face,” but this obscures its relation to gammen 顔面, which can also be translated as “face,” though more literally it is the “facial surface.” Kao has a slightly broader metaphorical connotation as the countenance of a person, whereas gammen typically refers more narrowly to the physical surface of the face. Nevertheless, unlike the somewhat awkward English “facial surface”, gammen is used in everyday Japanese and is not an especially technical term. Ultimately, it is a loan word from Chinese, whereas kao is indigenously Japanese. In spite of the broad similarity of the two, the reader should keep in mind that the “facial surface” of gammen brings with it a connection to men as “masking surface” and “sur-face” that kao lacks.
Turning to the final term, persona, we see that it would not be inappropriate to translate the title of the essay as “Japanese Masks and the Western Persona.” However, rather than just chauvinistically champion Japanese terms over their Western counterparts (or vice versa in a bit of cultural self-denigration), Watsuji uses the differences between the terms to better fill out our understanding of the role of the face. As elsewhere, his basic philosophical method is to enhance our understanding of abstract philosophical concepts by contrasting concrete cultural traditions and artifacts as they are located historically and climatically. In the West, the power of the face is demonstrated by the way in which the term persona shifted in usage from mask to the character portrayed by the mask to personhood itself. (The Latin persona is the root of the English “person.”) This examination of the term persona was somewhat anticipated by Boëthius, who connected it to the Greek term prosopon in Contra Eutychen, and Jung, who helped revived the term as a part of his psychology of types, but Watsuji is able to take his examination further by extending it to the East, where the power of the face has been demonstrated by the negative use of the blank Noh mask in portraying an endless variety of expressions.
As is well known, Noh [nō 能] is an indigenous Japanese theater form which is performed by a masked actor with a chorus, similar to ancient Greek theater. Noh emerged in the 14th century, and typical plots concern the intersection of the otherworldly with ordinary or historical personages. A skilled actor is able to cause his (traditionally, all Noh actors are male) mask to take on a variety of expressions by changing its angle and thus the shadows on its otherwise emotionally blank face. The five major categories of Noh masks are men, women, the elderly, spirit, and gods/demons, but there are many other subdivisions. The more overtly emotional the mask, the more difficult it is to show a variety of emotions. Thus, often a demon mask may only be employed at the climactic end of a play, whereas the mask of a ordinary woman might be employed throughout. The masks of Noh derive from Gigaku 伎楽, an ancient form of masked dance that is now largely extinct. Both were preceded by Kagura 神楽, the divine dances of Shinto, the roots of which recorded even in the earliest Japanese writings. Kagura survives in a number of different local forms today and is also used as the name for a style of dance within Noh.
In Mask and Persona, Watsuji uses all of this background information in order to philosophically explore the importance of the face both for human existence and as a metaphor for human interaction. One unfortunate aspect of the legacy of hermeneutics as the science of translation is that we may sometimes fall into the trap of looking for the “true language” into which our words are translated as thoughts or looking for the “true face” that hides behind the mask of false appearances. We see this, for example, in Jung’s positing of an anima behind the persona. Watsuji tries to overcome this tendency without thereby falling into the opposite trap of thinking of words or masks as exhausting themselves by their surfaces, as some post-modern thinkers claim. On the one hand, positing a hidden language or a hidden face that is only different insofar as it is hidden merely displaces without solving the problems that led us to posit the existence of a hidden realm in the first place. On the other hand, removing the face from behind the mask removes a part of experience and reality. For Watsuji, there is a fundamental “mysteriousness” which is neither reducible to a hidden face nor eliminable by Occam’s razor. Rather, it is exposed by the way that the Noh mask — though perfectly static and blank — freely takes on whatever expression it needs to take on. Through this artistic expression the personality (jinkaku 人格, a translation of the Kantian Persönlichkeit) which is the noumenal source of the person becomes an object of possible experience.
While some might say that is only the “pathetic fallacy” that causes us to project feelings onto the frozen Noh mask, numerous thinkers in Japanese art and philosophy deny that projection of emotions is fallacious. For example, Bashō showed no hesitation in projecting his own emotional state onto the fleeting natural world around in him in many of his haiku. Similar examples can be found throughout the Japanese arts. Failure to succumb to the pathetic “fallacy” is really a failure to experience the mysteriousness of the phenomenal world. Through its own negativity the Noh mask helps demonstrate the negative existence of the human being, which always exists through its expression by signs like the face, yet is never fully captured by them.
There are countless things subsisting around us that, when left unquestioned, are thought to be completely obvious, but that when we do try to question them turn out not to be really understood. The “facial surface” [gammen 顔面] is one of such thing. Though we must expect there are no sensible persons who don’t know what a facial surface is, still there is nothing quite as mysterious as it is.
We are able to interact with others without knowing their faces [kao 顔]. Linguistic expressions [hyōgen 表現] such as letters, messages, etc. mediate for us. However, in those situations, it is merely that we do not know the face of the other; it is not that we think of the other as faceless. In many cases, we are made to unconsciously imagine others’ faces from the manner in which they express themselves in language or from their countenance [hyōjō 表情] in writing. Though this process is ordinarily extremely indistinct, still it has enough power to cause one to feel clearly whether one’s expectation has been met when actually meeting such a person firsthand. This is to say nothing of the case in which one knows the face of the other — one certainly cannot recall the person without the face. If while looking at a picture one happens to think of its artist, what pops up in that moment is a face. Also, in the cases where a friend enters one’s consciousness, the face of that friend comes out along with the name. Of course, besides faces one’s memory of others is tied to such other things as posture, appearance from behind, gait, and so on. However, even if we can exclude all of these things when recalling a person, still the face alone is the thing that cannot be taken away. Even when thinking of a person’s appearance from behind, it is the face that is facing away.
Bust and portrait are two categories that show this straightforwardly. An artist can reduce the expression of a “person” down to the “face” alone. We do not at all feel that the limbs and trunk are broken off but see there the whole body of the person. Yet were a torso with the face cut off presented, we might find there a beautiful, natural expression, but certainly we would not see something expressing “person.” Of course, for an artist to begin by treating the physical body like such a torso is the standpoint of the modern era, which sees nature through the physical and is not primarily aimed at expressing the “person.” What about something that does express the “person” but through damage becomes a torso? This is clearly because of the breaking off of the head, arms, and legs. That is to say, it has become a “fragment.” Seen this way, regardless of whether a head separated from the trunk can stand by itself as a expression of “person,” a trunk separated from the head changes into a fragment. What is shown here is how central of a position the face holds for the existence of persons [hito no sonzai 人の存在].
This point come out all the more clearly with the mask [men 面, also read omote]. In this, the head and ears are taken away, leaving just the facial surface. Why was such a thing created? In order to express a specific character on the stage. At first, it was necessary for religious ceremonial pantomime. Following the transformation of pantomime into drama, masks also were differentiated as the appearing characters became more complex. Such masks were first perfected artistically by the Greeks. It was, however, none other than the Japanese that maintained the tradition of those masks and developed it to a surpassing excellence.
Those who saw the Gigaku and Noh masks at the Hyōkeikan†The Hyōkeikan is a section of the Tokyo National Museum, then called the Tokyo Imperial Household Museum, in Ueno, Tokyo. last autumn [1934] are aware of how many masterpieces there are among Japanese masks. From my own humble viewpoint, it seems that the wooden masks [kamen 仮面] of Greece do not surpass them. They simply display the “part” of king or queen alone, and do not attempt the thorough typification of a specific countenance that can be seen in Gigaku masks [men 面]. Having said this, neither do they carefully wipe away any positive countenance as is done to Noh masks. Among masks, the artistic pains taken by Noh masks are perhaps unrivaled. Does this not show that the eye of Japanese sculptors, rather than focusing on physical beauty, focused on the “person” in the physical and thus “the mystery of the facial surface”?
But the true excellence of these masks cannot be understood merely by lining them up on the shelf and looking at them as one would a sculpture. Masks qua masks have been separated from the trunk and especially the head precisely because they are not the sort of things to be treated like sculptures. That is to say, they are what they are for the sake of a living, moving person who performs a specific gesture by wearing the mask over his face. If this is so then compared to sculptures, which are authentically stationary, masks are authentically moving. What truly manifests the excellence of a mask has to be its being placed in a position of motion.
When a person wears a Gigaku mask to do a specific performance, it truly exposes how sharply the mask typifies countenances of joy, anger, etc. and how closely it shapes a specific personality, character type, and so on. It is at this time that we can clearly see that all unnecessary things are stripped away by the facial surface and that merely what ought to be emphasized survives. And for this reason, this surface actually comes to live many times more powerfully than even the facial surface of a living person. On the stage, were a person’s face to be detected in its natural, unchanged state from behind a moving Gigaku mask, one would have to feel how poor, shabby, and lacking in vitality the natural face is. The power of art heightens, strengthens, and purifies the mystery of the facial surface with a mask.
If Gigaku masks aim at positively emphasizing and purifying the “person” in the facial surface, then Noh masks may be said to negatively radicalize it. What is revealed in a Gigaku mask is always a “person” — however mythological and emptily speculative of a facial surface it may create. For example, even if the mouth were to become a beak, we will strongly feel it to be a human-like countenance. However, in the Noh mask of a demon, we find all trace of humanity erased from the facial surface. Though this can also be said to “embody awesomeness,” it cannot be said to typify the awesomeness of a person’s countenance. Generally speaking, it is not the face of a type of person. This characteristic of Noh masks is also seen in the ordinary masks that represent men or women. Whether a man or a woman or even an old person or a young person, in any case, the facial surface of a person is what is shown; however, joyful or angry countenances and the like are not shown there at all. The muscular activity ordinarily seen on the surface of a person’s face is here washed away carefully. Thus, its fleshy feeling resembles with extreme closeness the facial surface of a person who suddenly died. The old man mask and old woman mask foreshadow death especially strongly. Masks from which human-like countenance is as radically stripped away as this are to be found to subsist perhaps nowhere but in the world of Noh. The mysterious feeling that one gets from Noh masks is founded on this negativity.
Be that as it may, when a Noh mask appears on the stage and gains a moving body, at that point something surprising occurs. Namely, the Noh mask — from which all countenance or demeanor ought to have been stripped away — actually begins to display a boundless variety of countenances. When the actor who puts on the mask creates some demeanor through the movements of his hands and feet, what is expressed there has already become the mask’s demeanor. For example, if his hands move as if to wipe away tears, the mask has already begun crying. A presentation in the melody of the “chant” [utai 謡] is added on top of this, and all of this together becomes the countenance of the mask. A facial surface that is so able to reveal the nuanced shadows of the heart with such perfect freedom [jiyū jizai 自由自在] and subtlety does not subsist in the natural facial surface. And this freedom of its countenance is founded on the fact that the Noh mask is not statically revealing any human-like countenance whatsoever. A laughing Gigaku mask is not able to cry. However, a corpse-like old man mask or old woman mask is able to both laugh and cry.
What especially draws our attention in the activity of these masks is that the mask totally absorbs into its own self the body and gestures of the moving actor who puts it on. Though in actuality it is the actor who puts on the mask and is moving, speaking in terms of the effect, it is the mask that has acquired a body. If a particular Noh actor when standing on the stage wearing the mask of a woman were not felt to have the appearance of a woman, then there would be nothing of value behind that actor’s fame. Indeed, even if the actor were inexperienced or a complete amateur, still we should speak of an actor wearing a woman’s mask as having become a woman. So great is the power of the mask. Consequently, we can also say the other way around that the mask is controlled by the body which it acquired. This is because the body has become the body of the mask, all of the movements of the body are comprehended as the movements of the mask, and what is expressed by the body becomes the countenance of the mask. One example that shows this relationship can be made by studying a comparison of the Kagura of the mythological age with Noh. The difference between the gestures made in Noh and those made in Kagura by a formally identical mask is glaringly obvious. If what appears to us is the undulation of a soft, womanly body of a kind that cannot be seen in the gestures of Noh, then even if that same mask of a woman were used, it utterly becomes something seductive in a way that has never been seen on a Noh stage. This transformation is enough to actually surprise the actual person himself. Yet, on top of this, the same mask if it acquires the body of a dancer during the singing of nagauta [長唄] becomes another completely different mask.
We can explain the preceding observations as follows: A mask is just the facial surface which remains when the body and head are stripped away from the original physical person. Yet this mask has reacquired a body. The expressing of the person can be reduced to just the facial surface, but this reduced surface holds the power to freely restore itself to a body. Seen this way, the facial surface has a core significance for the existence of a person [hito no sonzai 人の存在]. It is not simply one part of the physical body, but the seat of the subjectivity of the self for the physical body. In other words, it is none other than the seat of personality [jinkaku 人格].
What we have thought about so far cannot but naturally remind one of its associations with “persona.” This word first meant the mask used in a drama. This meaning shifted, and since it meant the various roles in the drama, it became a word indicating the characters in the drama. This is the “dramatis personae.” Yet, this usage is common in real life apart from drama as well. The various roles in human life [ningen seikatsu 人間生活] are personas. I, you, and he are the first, second, and third personas, and the various positions, statuses, and titles in society are personas. Hence, this usage spread even up to God, so that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are called the three personas of God. However, persons each have their own roles and duties in society. Acting according to one’s own persona is how one does what must be done. Therefore, in the case that one acts in another’s stead to do what must be done, one has become employed as the persona of the other. This being so, the persona must mean “personality” as the subject of acts and of rights. Thus, “mask” has become “personality.”
Now, the most vitally important point about the reason for this turnabout in meaning is that first “mask” had come to mean “role.” If masks were only seen as being merely a sculpted facial surface, such a meaning could not have arisen. It was rather because masks held the power to acquire living persons as their own bodies that they were able to be a role or to be a character. Following from this are we able to say about those colleagues who cause us to feel this power vividly that, “Before you played the mask of a king, but this time play the mask of a queen.” If this is so, then then we should be able to recognize the previously mentioned mysteriousness of the facial surface acting even in the historical background by which persona acquired the meaning of personality.
The word mask [men 面] is different from persona and did not acquire the meanings of personality or legal person. However, this is not to say that it had no inclination to acquire such meanings. If the word “men-men” [面々] is used to mean “people,” then the meaning of each person individually is given by “mei-mei” [めいめい] (perhaps a dialectal version of men-men). Along with usages such as “establish one’s prestige [men-moku 面目],” “shame one’s face [kao o tsubusu 顔をつぶす],” “show one’s face [kao o dasu 顔を出す],” and so on, there are signs that facial surface is used to mean personality.
Postscript. For more about Noh masks, refer to the forthcoming collection “Nō Men” [1937] from Nogami Toyoichirō [1883–1950]. He is a recognized authority for understanding and research in the field of Noh masks.†The translator would like to thank David Ashworth and Shusuke Yagi for their enthusiastic inspiration and instruction.