Digital Image Production; 'Macabre' research.

The word Macabre originates from the Old French Language in the 9th-14th century, pronounced as 'Danse Macabre' meaning 'Dance of death'. 

"The association with the dance of death seems to be from vivid descriptions of the martyrdom of the Maccabees in the Apocryphal books. The abstracted sense of "gruesome" is first attested 1842 in French, 1889 in English.

"The typical form which the allegory takes is that of a series of pictures, sculptured or painted, in which Death appears, either as a dancing skeleton or as a shrunken corpse wrapped in grave-clothes to persons representing every age and condition of life, and leads them all in a dance to the grave. ["Encyclopaedia Britannica," 11th ed., 1911] " Information found from online source http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=macabre owned by Douglas Harper 2001-2016.

From the starting information above I found that 'Macabre', has a history of being a very morbid, dark and deathly word with an interesting origin. I love how in the last section of writing, the explanation of Macabre and its deathly history is described through the use imagery, dancing and a 'shrunken corpse' as it makes the history of the word seem almost animated. 

Something I also found interesting was the difference in meaning compared the English 'Google' definition I also looked at. The definition above discusses the origin and historical background of the word, exploring France and its language, where as the Google definition simply explains how the word would describe something from someones perspective. 

"Disturbing because concerned with or causing a fear of death."

Sourced from Google online dictionary.

Moving on from the Origin and history of my word I began to explore the synonyms and antonyms associated with the word Macabre also.

Synonyms 

- Cadaverous 

-Morbid 

-Dreadful 

-Offensive

-Unearthful

-Ghoulish 

-Deathly 

Antonyms 

- Common

-Normal

-Cheerful

-Happy

-Pleasant 

-Living 

I began to think of ways that I could create some make-up looks that would mix two of the opposite words together, to present a 'Haute Macabre' look of my chosen word. what I mean by this is, I would take the word 'Pleasant' and think of ways 'Macabre' could be appealing in an ad but also scary and deceiving. I also thought about the word' Offensive' and how I could create an scandalous ad that could have the same effect as the old fashioned ads we saw in the previous seminar which pushed the boundaries of hair and beauty products causing controversial trends. But while keeping my ad creepy too so that it relates back to my word, I wanted to experiment by creating some veins, organs, sagging skin, hollowed facial features in make-up designs, so that it looks as if the model in the ad has translucent skin. 

I became inspired to create a 'Translucent Haute Macabre' make-up look, because of some really amazing images I found on Pinterest which showed pin up style girls in awkward positions with exposed skin and organs, but they look really beautiful. 

References.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_French
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=macabre