Last evening I finished reading one of my favorite books, Appointment in Samarra by John O'Hara. The story is set in the fictional town of Gibbsville, PA which anyone from the Coal Region knows is based on Pottsville, PA. In the last few pages of the novel I read the following:
"The girl stood waiting while the man checked his hat and coat. She was tall and fair and had been told so many times she looked like a Benda mask that she finally found out what it was."
I made a mental note to myself to find out what it was.
W. T. Benda (1873 – 1948) was an artist and illustrator. In 1914 he attended a masquerade ball and made his own mask for the party. As the story goes, he came home from the party and tossed the mask in the garbage only to retrieve it later to tinker with the design. Soon thereafter he became passionate about creating masks. He engrossed himself in the subject matter researching the history of masks and even authored the entry on "masks" in the Encyclopedia Brittanica. He became so well known for making masks that his name became synonymous with any life-like mask.
No comments:
Post a Comment