Modern Balinese painted wood masks for sale to tourists
About this photograph
- Creator
- Margery H. Freeman
- Date created
- 1986
- Location
- Mas, Bali, Indonesia
- License
- This photograph copyright ©2007. Terms of use
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- Search LEARN NC for Bali, carvings, dance masks, Indonesia, Mas, masks, tourism, and woodcarving.
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Five modern Balinese painted wood masks hang on a dark wall display for sale to tourists. Of varying sizes, the white-painted masks show a variety of expressions from peaceful sleep, to playful smiles, to frowns of sorrow or fear.
Mask making in Bali and Java traditionally is done for the use of classical dancers who don them to perform well-known characters in ancient dramas. As foreign tourists began to appear at mask carvers shops and ask to purchase the masks, new styles and sizes arose that conformed to tourists’ interests.
