Rick Fitzgerald
Fall 2001
IRLS501
Prof. Coleman

 

Final Project

"Masks are the most ancient means of changing identity and assuming a new persona. From the beginning, putting on a mask has never been a singular activity. In order for masking to have meaning and relevance, it needs an audience, a minimum of one observer. The urge, perhaps even universal human need, to transform ourselves has coexisted with the development of human society" (Nunley 15).

 

I. Introduction

The properties of masks:  The use of the mask as a vehicle for personal transformation has been a constant throughout human history. This is particulary true in the case of Mexico, where masks have long been central to cultures past as well as those in the present day. They play many roles in the context of society: religious, mythical, psychological and story-telling. They range in design and technique from rough and primitive to elaborate and meticulous, are sometimes vivid in color, iconography and symbolism, and can carry a variety of meanings based on the regions and peoples they represent, and in the context in which they are used. Mask-makers employ a rich variety of materials and techniques in creating their works in order to depict the wide variety of subject matter that the masks can represent. (Universidad 79-90)

Masks of Mexico:  Throughout Mexico's history, masks have been used in dances, festivities and ceremonies. Traditions from the pre-colonial civilizations such as the Mixtec, Aztec and Maya were later meshed with ones adopted during the Spanish colonization, a synthesis of themes and symbols that continues to this day. Central themes to masks include depiction of human faces (such as the "Christians and Moors") male and female, animal faces (tigers, owls, bulls, alligators, etc.), those of devils and death, supernatural and fantastic, abstracted faces, and/or multiples of these depicted in the same mask (Lechuga 7-15).

The project:  The goal of this project is to create a retrieval tool that provides researchers, and those with a general interest in masks from Mexico, online access to and across collections of Mexican masks housed in several prominent repositories of Mexican masks in North America. Also, to develop a standard structure for cataloguing, classification and retrieval, including a set of relevant elements, use of important descriptive terms, vocabularies and thesauri, that facilitates such access. Also, to identify the properties of Mexican masks as they differ from other formats of information, even other objects, and to incorporate such findings into the retrieval tool.

 

II. Developing the Retrieval Tool

User groups:  Due to the aforementioned properties of masks, they have garnered significant attention by researchers from a variety of disciplines. Researchers form the fields or art and design, art history, cultural studies, anthropology, as well as anyone with an interest in Mexican art and culture are among those who would benefit from a well-designed, easily navigable and effective retrieval tool. All of these groups are arriving at the masks through different access points. In order to develop a retrieval tool that accommodates the needs of all of these user groups, it is important to consider what properties in masks each group finds important.
          Artists and designers have an in interest in the physical properties of the mask -- its shape, its color, its measurements, the materials and techniques the mask-maker may have used in creation. Art historians may have a particular interest in the symbolic and thematic properties of the mask, in other words, what does this mask signify or represent as an artistic creation? Cultural anthropologists, ethnologists and those with a general interest in Mexico may find more significance in elements such as context (what is it used for?), where it comes from, who made it, and when it was made.
          Obviously there is some overlap here in who is interested in what -- it would be naive to assume that certain elements are the exclusive domain of certain disciplines. But it is important to delineate, at this stage, what may be of interest to include as elements of description in this catalog.

A user-friendly model:  Just as a mask has no meaning without its corresponding audience, a retrieval tool for a particular collection is "faceless" if it does not consider the needs of its users. Accordingly, this catalog aims to satisfy the needs of its users regardless of what discipline of research they are in. Non-core elements have been pared away, leaving a streamilned, simple, and (hopefully) easily navigable catalog.

Scope of collection to be considered, plus sample size:  This collection, ideally, would encompass the holdings of several of the various major repositories and personal collections of Mexican masks in North America. Thus, the collection's size would grow in size relative to the number of institutions or private collectors involved, and a comprehensive catalog would surely number in the thousands (according to its website, the Arizona State Museum collection alone houses over 500 masks).
          I have chosen a derivative sample of seven masks to illustrate the catalog record samples. Information about, and photographs of, the sample masks, have been taken from the book Mask Arts of Mexico by Ruth D. Lechuga and Chloë Sayer (Photographs by David Lavender). The masks themselves are from the personal collection of Ms. Lechuga. They represent a decent, though in no way exhaustive, cross-section of the variety of styles, representations and subject matter to be found in Mexican masks.

What type of retrieval tool best suits the need for this collection?:  The retrieval tool best suited for this collection is a thrd generation online public-access catalog (OPAC). According to Arlene Taylor (25). a third-generation OPAC is defined by "web interfaces, hypertext browsing, graphical user interfaces (GUIs), and Z39.50-compliant communication protocols". It is expected that this catalog would possess all of these features. The rationale for an OPAC is, as described in Thomas Mann's "Computer Workstation Model", as follows: "In an electronic catalog, each work can be represented by only one record; but that one record can have as many points of access as there are different words, numbers, or codes on it." (Mann 107). Given the numerous points of access predicted for this retrieval tool, an OPAC would be the logical choice. This catalog would be database-driven. Nearly all of the elements will be searchable in some way.

 

III. Elements in new standard

A mask is a type of material object. Objects Collections of objects are generally housed in museums or in personal collections. Museums have created several types of metadata standards by which to catalog and classify objects. Among these are the REACH element set, CIMI access points, the CIDOC information categories model, and finally a hybrid scheme utilizing points from all of these, the Categories for Description of Works of Art (CDWA), developed by the Getty Information Institute. CDWA is a rather exhaustive list of elements used to describe a variety of objects ranging from artwork (prints, paintings, sculpture, etc.) to decorative items to jewelry to furniture, textiles, and even environmental art and spaces such as rooms. The disparate descriptive needs of all of these items is one of the reasons for CDWA's exhaustivity. Another reason is the museum's need for a very detailed record for its items, which are usually very rare, unique and valuable. It should be noted that more elements in a set requires more cataloging, usually at greater manpower and cost to the institution.
          Furthermore, researchers' needs do not always parallel those of museums. Certain areas of depth can be sacrificed in favor of a more streamlined approach more focused on the user than the repository. For example, elements such as condition/examination history, conservation/treatment history, ownership/collecting history, identifying marks, exhibition history, critical responses, related works, etc. (all elements in CDWA) are all useful to museums but are not core considerations, in my opinion, for researchers. Additionally, there may be elements of interest to researchers, particularly in the case of masks, that museum standards like CDWA have not considered -- though to be fair, CDWA is a pretty comprehensive set and covers most of the core elements (subject, creator, date and place of creation, context, physical description, materials/techniques); indeed, many of the elements in this new standard have been lifted from CDWA to an extent that one could argue that the new standard is merely a modified, stripped-down version of CDWA. However, the peculiarity of masks does require certain accommodations, as the first element in the set shall illustrate. I will now go through the elements of inclusion one by one and give a description of the relative importance of each element.

Representative Form:  In 1980, Donald Cordry released the book Mexican Masks, which was the first volume published specifically for the study of Mexican masks. Included in this book was a general classification guideline (Cordry xxiv) for masks based on a particular attribute: the physical shape or form a mask takes to represent its subject matter. This attribute differs from the subject matter itself in that is dealing more with the physicality of the mask rather than what it is representing (roughly analogous to "shape" but slightly different. I will restate the Cordry classification guideline here. In the catalog, this guideline will be included as a key.

I. Anthropomorphic (masks taking human form)
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single human
	D. One or more humans with additional human elements
II. Anthropomorphic with zoomorphic (animal form) elements
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single human with some animal elements
	D. More than one human with animal elements
III. Anthropomorphic with phytomorphic (plant form) elements
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single human with plant elements
	D. More than one human with plant elements
IV. Zoomorphic
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single animal
	D. One or more animals with additional animal elements
V. Zoomorphic with anthropomorphic elements
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single animal with human elements
	D. More than one animal with human elements
VI. Zoomorphic with phytomorphic elements
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single animal with plant elements
	D. More than one animal with plant elements
VII. Anthropomorphic with zoomorphic and phytomorphic elements
	A. Realistic
	B. Disproportionate or exaggerated
	C. Single human with animal and plant elements
	D. More than one human with animal and plant elements

 

          Though it has been found in recent years that many of the masks in Cordry's collection are of questionable merit (Esser 219), his classification guideline is still quite good in my opinion. One of the things it accounts for (and hence no need to create a new element) is the appearance of multiple forms on the same mask. Often a mask will depict a primary figure with secondary figures, or dual figures, and this method of classification allows for this. Being as it is a two-tiered hierarchy, it employs a coding system, true to the outline, of one roman numeral followed by one or more arabic letters. For example, the code "I.A.C." would represent an anthropomorphic (human form) mask (I), realistic (A), depicting a single human figure (C).
          Users would have the option of searching the catalog via a drop-down menu consisting of the seven categories of the first tier of the Cordry system, with further options to search by properties listed in the second tier thereafter.

Subject:  A primary access point for users, this element sheds light on what exactly the mask is about. The use of searchable keywords dictated by a subject thesaurus is preferred here. In this case, the thesaurus would be the Art and Architecture Thesaurus (AAT), developed by the Getty Museum, which provides a rich base of subject headings for the museum community. In addition, some of the more common subject keywords would be provided in a list as a guide for users. Masks show a variety of possible subject content options. Relevant terms that cannot be found in the AAT should still be included.

Context:  Nearly as important to users as the subject matter is the context in which the masks have been or are being used. In other words, what is the purpose of this mask in a broader scheme? "When a mask is extracted from its context it is converted into an object -- perhaps beautiful or even exotic, but inert and cold" (Esser ix). The context and usage of the mask is essential to true understanding of the mask itself. That being said, describing such context requires a bit more than a few keywords or a coding scheme. To truly examine the intricacies of mask wearing in context is it beneficial to employ a free-text description of this element, allowing it room to breathe and examine interrelationships. Possible or suggested criteria might include the event in which the masks is worn ("a funerary offering, propitiatory rites and ceremonies, and entertainment" (Esser ix), dances or processions, parades, etc.) the tribal group or community involved, the wearer of the mask.

Creator:  Though in most cases, this would be a primary access point, in the case of masks the creator is often unknown or anonymous, leaving one with little information in this regard. Though there are prominent mask-makers known through Mexico, the creator of the mask is generally not as substantial a point of interest to researchers with the possible exception of artists, who may wish to identify individual mask-making styles. Knowing who created the masks lends itself to verifying authenticity, as there is a lot of proprietary and commercial mask-making (not to mention forgery) in Mexico. Those reasons aside, the element of creatorship is of significantly lower value in this case, and may often be given a null value or an "unknown".

Date of creation:  This is also a grey area -- often there is little information known about the age of the mask when it is collected. Though knowing the time period from which the mask came could have significant value, often this is nearly impossible to determine. Still, it is important, and any relevant information should be given. Usually a specific year is not known but rather a circa date, but any rough estimate would be better than nothing. However, in the sample records, approximate date is usually known.

Place of creation:  Somewhat related to context, the place where the mask comes form can illustrate some of the meanings behind the mask. Important information to know would be the state in Mexico form which the mask comes (Guerrero, Oaxaca, Jalisco, etc.) and more specifically, the local community. This ties into the rites and rituals, dances, etc. of that local community which can help researchers immensely. A controlled value should be used here -- in this case the best option is the Thesaurus of Geographic Names (TGN), also created by the Getty. This gives standardized place names and spellings for both states in Mexico and specific localities.

Colors:  One of the more defining characteristics of masks is their use of colors. This could also serve as a logical access point, particularly for artists, designers -- for example if one wanted to search the catalog for a predominant color found in a mask, this element would allow them to do so. The AAT has a hierarchy in its "Physical Attributes" facet devoted solely to color names, so this could be a controlled value as well. I have tried to list the colors in the order of their predominance in the masks. So if a mask is mostly red with hints of white or black, red would be listed first.

Materials:  also a hierarchy in AAT as well as its own facet, this attribute is also one of the defining ones in masks. Masks are often constructed using very diverse materials, and this should be noted in an element as it is defines what exactly the mask is comprised of. Using AAT-defined terms allows for controlled values.

Physical Description:  This free-text element would describe any physical attribute not covered in the Representative Form, Colors, and Materials elements. The attribute of "Techniques" has been folded into this element. Having it as free-text, as in the case of the Context element, allows for more clarity in description of attributes and also their interrelationships with one another. This is most important in the cases of masks where several things are happening at one time. Physical description does not deal with the condition of the mask.

Measurements:  The physical dimensions of the mask. The height will be given in the sample records as that is the information available. Other dimensions to consider would be width and depth. Inches or centimeters could be used, preferably both.

Current Location:  Where the mask is currently being held. Records of previous ownership are not important in this case. Researchers would need to know the current location of the mask in case they were interested in performing more in-depth research or if someone simply wished to view the object first-hand. Repository names can be standardized, a relevant authority file would be the Library of Congress' Name Authority File. Geographical locations, as in the Place of Creation element, would be standardized using the TGN.

 

IV. Conclusion

         It was my intention in this project to create a retrieval geared towards researchers' needs in the study of Mexican masks, using some existing elements from other standards, eschewing unnecessary elements of description and adding new elements, such as "Representative Form" to enhance the functionality of the catalog. In this regard, this project tries to take the most insightful elements of an object-based standard such as CDWA and to simplify it to the point where it is as efficient and streamlined as say, a Dublin Core. Perhaps just as important was to thoughtfully consider the properties of the relatively narrow object format of Mexican masks, to separate them conceptually from even other objects, and to devise what system would work best for this particular format.
          During the process of creating this catalog, I became aware of a few things. First, the importance of separating the subject matter from the form -- often in masks, there is a symbolism where the form an item takes does not totally give the impression of what the item is about. Often, one needs background and context to really make that connection. Also, more often than not, a subject is more of an intangible concept, such as an emotion like fear or happiness, rather than a tangible thing, like a tiger or a female face. So it is wise to make this distinction.
         The AAT seemed to lack terms for such intangible concepts. Though there is an Associated Concepts facet within AAT, many of the terms I searched by keyword in the AAT browser came up short. Some terms I was required to make up myself. Perhaps this was due to blind searching rather than browsing (or the lack of guides). The AAT itself is a compiled resource, it makes no claims of being comprehensive and it solicits input from various other institutions. For materials and particularly for colors it was an invaluable resource. Some colors I was grasping for until looking in the AAT. The TGN was quite useful in standardizing place names. Localities were usually to be found under the "inhabited place" subdivision of TGN right below "state".
         The elements using free-text description, though not controlled, offered a wealth of information -- this may do with the fact that they were not controlled, therefore not allowing the descriptions to be dissected into individual terms, rather using prepositions to bridge the gap between concepts and retaining its flow and sequence of events, much like in a narrative or story.
         The collection I have described in this project does not actually exist as a unified whole; rather, I envision this catalog as a possible basis for a collaboarative effort between different repositories that house Mexican masks. Researchers and the general public could benefit greatly from such an effort, as it would allow them access to information about a vast range of Mexican masks, infromation they could use to compare and contrast different types of masks and gain a clearer understanding of their unique properties.

 

V. Bibliography

Arizona State Museum, Ethnological Mask Collection. Arizona State Museum. 9 Dec. 2001. <http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/coll/maskstxt.shtml>.

Art and Architecture Thesaurus.  2000. J. Paul Getty Trust. 10 Dec. 2001. <http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat>.

Categories for the Description of Works of Art.  2000. J. Paul Getty Trust. 10 Dec. 2001. <http://www.getty.edu/research/institute/standards/cdwa/index.html>.

Cordry, Donald Bush. Mexican Masks. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1980.

Esser, Janet Brody, ed. Behind the Mask in Mexico. Santa Fe: Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of New Mexico Press, 1988.

Lechuga, Ruth D. and Sayer, Chloë. Mask Arts of Mexico. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1994.

Mann, Thomas. Library Research Models: A Guide to Classification, Cataloging and Computers. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Mauldin, Barbara. Masks of Mexico: Tigers, Devils and the Dance of Life. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 1999.

Nunley, John W. and McCarty, Cara. Masks: Faces of Culture. New York: Abrams in association with the Saint Louis Art Museum, 1999.

Taylor, Arlene G. The Organization of Information. Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1999.

Thesaurus of Geographic Names. 2000. J. Paul Getty Trust. 10 Dec, 2001. <http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/tgn/>.

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Máscaras: Museo Universitario de Ciencias y Arte, Mayo de 1981. [Mexico City, Mexico]: Coordinación de Humanidades, Centro de Investigación y Servicios Museológicos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1981.