The Art of Theatrical Make-up

by Cavendish Morton

I can best express the admiration I feel for the work of my friend M. Gustav by calling attention to the perfection of the wigs that appear in the following prints. I believe that he has brought wig-making to a pitch never realised before. Much of the effectiveness of my impersonations is in no small measure due to his sympathy and skill.

I selected for my illustrations, in most cases extreme types; sometimes presented in a more or less exaggerated manner. I felt that thus I might cover a wide area and make the book the more suggestive.

The student will find but little difficulty in modifying a character, or if he requires only certain features, in selecting them. Or he may combine certain peculiarities of one make-up with the peculiarities of another, and thus produce an additional type.

Many of the characters slightly modified will prove valuable as studies for modern personalities.

With the exception of those prints where the make-up is shown in progressive stages I have striven to exhibit the character under the stress of one of the most emotional moments of the play, illuminated in a manner that would be desirable to its stage presentation.

I have done this because I felt that a character was essentially a medium of emotional expression, and that by presenting them in this way the sensitiveness and flexibility of the characterisation might be better realised.

Or in other words, that the disguise in no way impaired the ability to show a great variety of facial expressions.

When I originally contemplated the work I feared that it would be difficult to get a sufficient number of contrasted types to make the book interesting, but I found, once under way, there was literally no end to the quaint creatures that clamoured to be noticed. It became a hard matter to select, and I have only introduced to the public a few of the odd personalities I have grown so intimately acquainted with. Each has been to me a living creature, who was able to let me see the world from his peculiar standpoint.

I had such an impulse in the work, that at one time I felt that I should not be able to rest until I had exhausted all human creation. Aye, perhaps not even then, but would have to wend my way through all the animal kingdom, till I ended up by trying to make myself look like inanimate things such as icebergs or lumps of coal.