The European Tradition
European Makeup: The Long Argument Between Adornment and Concealment
Four centuries in which the face was painted with great effort and the painting denied with equal effort — traced here through England, Ireland and Venice.
Britain, Ireland, Italy and Greece · 5th century BCE – 1930Artifice & Denial
- 24articles
- 5moments
- 13min read
The European Tradition: The Chronology
5 moments · 5 open an article
In short
What this archive can show of the European tradition is not a sequence of looks but one unresolved argument: cosmetics were used continuously for four centuries by people who agreed, in public and frequently in print, that using them was a form of lying.
In the European Tradition
Artifice & Denial
24 articles across 4 collections
Showing all 24
Explore Further
Eras
The same question, at another time
Ingredients
What the face was made of