Venice Venice

Carnevale

A back street near Campo Santa Margherita, February. The performer was standing against a wall with a red postal box behind them — the collision of the baroque and the municipal. The costume was weeks of work: hand-sewn silk, feathers, gilded headdress. It had been worn for perhaps four hours at the point this image was made.

The mask is a Bauta-derivative, white with the characteristic dropped lower mask that allows the wearer to eat and drink without removal. The expression the mask has been given is the expression of someone who knows something you do not. Which is, of course, the whole point of Carnevale.