Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction Chapter 1. "Cosmetic" art and "painted" faces: a prehistory of the debate Verbal cosmetics: the use and abuse of "colours" in early modern rhetoric French Academics quarrel over "made-up" paintings Cosmetics in the Encyclopédie and Diderot's criticism of Rococo aesthetics Deceived by rouge no more: Kant on the power of illusions Chapter 2. Acting the part: makeup on stage and off stage The theatre of fashion: acting, imitation and woman's "nature" Actors' beauty: between advantage and liability Character makeup and physiognomics Chapter 3. Living statues and death masks: the ambiguity of cosmetic whiteness The many kinds of statue-like women (Un)seeing the paint: made-up sculptures in art and life Porcelain and plaster: material hierarchies in makeup metaphors Chapter 4. From realistic to abstract: makeup as painting on the face The riot of color: face-painting beyond physiognomics From transparency to opacity: makeup as a visual paradox Learning from painting: makeup principles and techniques borrowed from a painter's studio Shaping vision: makeup and the artist's touch Beyond illusionism: makeup as a "tattoo" Chapter 5. Makeup in avant-garde art: from appropriation to othering Radical makeup: futurist face-painting Modern art as defacement: cosmetics in Proust Makeup for the face of new art: Malevich's white Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index.