Mask – A Temptation to Overcome Fears

Abstract

This article presents the program of art education workshops that took place in the Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga in Lisbon, a program related to the triptych of Hieronymus Bosch, “The Temptations of St. Anthony” (c. 1500), that belongs to the museum. This painting it shows a victorious saint surrounded by rich colors and original demonic figures. The connections created between the real and the fantastic are resolved genially allowing the observer’s imagination to run free. The exuberant parade of pantomimic figures does reflect on how the unknown becomes scary. In this perspective, “The Temptations of St. Anthony” proved to be a perfect starting point for the creation of scenarios, characters and masks that would serve to combat personal fears. The emotional experience between the knowledge of a work of art linking with one’s own imagination permits a means of exteriorizing, by objects and images, the inner world that we have inhabited since childhood.