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''The Masque of Blackness'' was an early Jacobean era masque, first performed at the Stuart Court in the Banqueting Hall of Whitehall Palace on Twelfth Night, 6 January 1605. The masque was written by Ben Jonson at the request of Anne of Denmark, the queen consort of King James I, who wished the masquers to be disguised as Africans. Anne was one of the performers in the masque along with her court ladies, and appeared in blackface makeup. The plot of the masque follows the ladies arriving at the English Court talking amongst themselves of how black complexions used to be beautiful, "''that in their black, the perfect'st beauty grows''". Reflecting the historical context of the masque, the ladies go on to talk of how black skin is now deemed as least attractive, "''now black, with black despair''" in favour of skin that has been "''blanch''" meaning whitened or lightened. As a result of this trend, ''The Masque of Beauty'' was also written as a sequel to ''The Masque of Blackness'' to show a greater disdain for darker skin tones ''.'' (''The Masque of Beauty,'' originally intended for the following holiday season, was displaced by ''Hymenaei,'' the masque for the wedding of the Earl of Essex and Frances Howard. ''Beauty'' was finally performed in 1608.)〔Leapman, p. 94.〕 ==Design== The sets, costumes, and stage effects were designed by Inigo Jones; ''Blackness'' was the first of many masques for the Stuart Court on which Jonson and Jones would collaborate. The music for ''Blackness'' was composed by Alfonso Ferrabosco. Jones designed a raised and mobile stage for the masque, forty feet square and four feet off the floor; this was employed for many subsequent masques. The stage contained inner space for the machines that produced stage effects and the technicians who operated them. ''Blackness'' introduced effects that Jones would repeat with variation throughout his career as a stage designer: it opened with a tempestuous seascape, simulated by flowing and billowing cloths. The opening stormy sea was populated with six blue-haired merman-like tritons. The gods Oceanus ("blue") and Niger (black) entered, mounted upon giant seahorses. The twelve daughters of Niger, played by the Queen and her ladies in waiting, entered in the company of a dozen nymphs of Oceanus as torchbearers; the ladies of the Court were dressed in silver and azure, with pearls and feathers in their hair, while the torchbearers, in green doublets with gold puffed sleeves, had their faces, hands, and hair dyed blue. The ladies rode in a great hollow seashell, which seemed to float upon and move with the waves, and was accompanied by six large sea monsters carrying more torchbearers.〔Leapman, pp. 73-7.〕 (With ''Blackness'' as with many subsequent masques designed by Jones, one of the aspects of the show most commented upon by witnesses was the dazzling intensity of light involved...which inevitably says something about the normal conditions of life in the Jacobean era.) 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Masque of Blackness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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