Large Wooden Folk Mask 'Oomen'

Large wooden folk mask carved as a scowling man with a topknot and a moustache

A scowling man with his hair tied up, carved large. This folk mask is cut from a single block of pale wood as a man's face with a topknot carved on the crown, long ears, heavy brows over drilled eyes, a broad nose, a moustache and a mouth turned hard down, left unpainted so the grain runs across the cheeks.

It is the face of the village festival, the old man or the god who comes down the mountain once a year, and in this size it is a presence on a wall.

The name, Oomen, is simply the big mask, and it is.

The mask is carved from a single block of a pale wood, the tool marks left visible on the back and smoothed on the face, with the eyes drilled through and the surface left unpainted so the grain shows. There are two holes at the sides for a cord. It is carved to hang, not to wear.

Hang it on a wall by a cord through the side holes, at eye height, where the light rakes across it from a window or a lamp, because a carved face is made by its shadows. It is the piece that reads as sculpture rather than costume.

The topknot is the detail: it is carved on the crown as a bound knot of hair with the cord showing, in the same block as the face, and it is what makes the mask a man rather than a demon. The moustache is carved in two sweeps under the nose, and the mouth turns down at both ends.

Hung on a wall it is a face in the room, and that is how most of them end up: on a nail by the door, over a desk, in a hallway where a guest meets it first. It is photographed at the same scale as every mask in the collection, so the pages compare.

Dust with a soft brush; keep it out of direct sun and away from a radiator, which crack unpainted wood, and out of a damp room. It darkens a little with years, as pale wood does.

From across a room it is a large pale face with a knot on top. From close the wood shows its grain, the knot its cord, and the mouth its scowl. It is the mask for a large wall and a person who wants the village god.

One size, large. It is larger than a face, carved in the round, and it hangs from a cord through the side holes. It is the biggest piece in the collection.