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Home About the Museum Exhibitions Events Collections Departments Manak's House Visit us Contact Guest Book Sadržaj - Content |
Masks and Rituals
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The mask is a false
face, another face. The shape and appearance depend on the function assigned to it. In other words, the mask is understood as an object associated with the physical and social image of man which ostensibly separates him from the world of reality by its appearance and gestures. It is most frequently placed in the form of an object on the face or the body of a chosen person with the task of performing a certain action. In such a context, the mask also implies everything that such persons carry with them as additional instruments, including even the pattern of their overall behavior that is, their gestures and actions. |
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| From prehistory all
the way till present times, people have used masks to enhance the power
and the mystery through religions, wars and entertainment. Masks have been
used as symbols and guides in rituals of both transition and renewal
(during annual holidays). The exhibition Masks and Rituals in Serbia presents masks, figures from certain processions practiced by the population of Serbia during the nineteenth and the twentieth century. Certain figures with masks have been preserved in some parts of Serbia until today, while elsewhere they have undergone transformation and assumed new meanings; there are areas where they completely disappeared from the customary practice. |
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| Masks and figures, which appeared or appear even today in rituals in the territory of Serbia, may be followed through the annual calendar cycle of customs and through segments of the life cycle. Masks and masked processions are observed in two ways: according to the annual calendar and to the life cycle of the ritual practice. |
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| This opportunity is
used for the exhibition of masks of the annual cycle of customs, which are
employed in processions of carolers (at the time of the winter cycle of
customs – around Christmas), at the time of the carnival (seven or eight
weeks prior to Easter), on the day of the Raising of Lazarus (seven days
prior to Easter), on the Day of Pentecost (fifty days after Easter) and at
times of great droughts during the summer. By analyzing the types of masks in processions, it has been noted that some figures can be conditionally associated with the older cultural level of the pre-Christian era and that they have found fertile ground in the broad Balkanic area. Over time, many figures with masks changed and were transformed in keeping with social changes, however, names of those masks have remained preserved. |
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| During the winter holiday season, masks and their wearers kept for a longer period of time somewhat archaic and formal connection with the old cults pertaining to the souls of ancestors and nature. Over time, with the Christianization of rituals, the contents, however, changed. |
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| In the springtime, masked processions assumed the entertaining character in the first half of the nineteenth century already. This is where influences are noted, which the majority of the population, particularly the part of it settled in the north of Serbia, took on from patterns of Comedia dell’Arte and the Italian Renaissance carnivals. In illustration of this, rituals in spring masked processions of the Catholic and Orthodox populations in Serbia (Vojvodina) can be singled out. |
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