Gigaku Mask, Chido
Asuka period, seventh century
A large wooden face with a huge hooked nose, wide flaring nostrils, heavy brows and a mouth set in a look of grim concentration. It is carved from a single block, hollowed behind so it could be worn over the whole head, and the paint has mostly worn away leaving the grain and the old cracks visible. This is Chido, the road clearer, the character who led the procession at the start of a gigaku performance, walking ahead to drive evil spirits from the path. The nose is exaggerated because the character was understood to be a foreigner from the far west.
Gigaku was a masked dance drama that arrived in Japan from the Asian mainland in the seventh century and was performed at Buddhist temples with music of drums, flutes and cymbals. Its characters included a lion, a drunken Persian king, a wrestler and a lecherous old man, all with masks as large and expressive as this one. Look at the carving: the planes of the cheeks are cut boldly, the eye sockets are deep so the wearer could see, and the ears are separate pieces. Traces of red and white show how vivid the face once was.
The Horyuji treasures include thirty one gigaku masks, the oldest in Japan, some of wood and some of dry lacquer. They are so sensitive to humidity that the museum shows them only on Fridays and Saturdays, when the doors of room 3 open, so plan a visit accordingly. Gigaku died out by the medieval period, replaced by other court dances, and these masks are the main evidence of what it looked like. Standing before them you are looking at faces that were laughed at by audiences more than thirteen hundred years ago.
Did You Know? The masks are so sensitive to humidity that the museum opens their room only on Fridays and Saturdays.
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