[music]
In the 16 years I have been making these masks,
I have never used models except in the very beginning
as I wanted to create types, however imaginative they may be,
rather than portraying definite personalities.
Now let's bring to life some of these masks.
So we shall begin with a demure young girl.
And this one not so demure.
Here is a piano mover.
Here is the golden goddess of vanity.
Snodgrass from Dickens' Pickwick Papers.
I wonder what is the gossip here.
I think I better break it up.
Why don't you take your mask off?
And you too, young lady.
Alright, then I'll do it for you.
When the sunshine heralds spring
over the sun-capped mountains,
it's carnival time in Switzerland.
In all the villages, they put on their masks and make whoopee.
Don't ask me why! It's just an old Swiss custom.
But arms aren't everything.
Some faces are interesting too.
Especially when they're covered.
And here are some of the masks featured in Mr Duncan Melvin's entertaining television series.
A collection worth about £2,000.
The first is a Senegalese mask.
And these two Japanese
showing fat-cheeked laughing females,
their features typically Oriental and unadorned.
The Tibetan devil mask
is a very ornate affair
worn by the lama priests in the temples and seen by few strangers.
This African mask had a moveable jaw that could be worked by the witchdoctors to impress their rather guileless patients.
This mask has a futurist appearance.
A remarkably skilful piece of workmanship.
This is the only example of an African idol mask in the form of a man.
And there's a Benin mask of bronze.
This particular kind of head covering
was one of the most advanced forms of culture in Africa.
And specimens are extremely rare.
This mask comes from New Guinea
and was used at the initiation of young men to secret societies.
It is thought to bear some resemblance to a crocodile.
Also from the South Seas is this other Adonis.
He's made of cane covered in mulberry cloth.
The dancing masks of Java, though not exactly handsome, were wonderful examples of native art.
Nor were the Senegalese anxious to err on the side of beauty.
Although the actual workmanship in these examples
is of a very high standard.
You wouldn't doubt that these were devil
- in fact, the very devil - masks
to frighten away evil spirits.
They must have been pretty successful.
This Indian mask is about 2,000 years old
and for 200 years it lay at the bottom of the sea.