De la mimique codifiée au visage individualisé dans la pantomime fin-de-siècle

The ‘silent play’, which had long been characterised by the use of masks, experienced a renaissance at the end of the 19th century, when the art of theatre was to be renewed through the revaluation of body language, with a new significance being attached to the expressive power of faces. The supposedly universal character of body language led to a codification of gestures and facial expressions, from which artists in the theory and practice of pantomime such as Max Reinhardt, Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Grete Wiesenthal wanted to break away. The latter two in particular regarded the language of the body as highly personal and authentic, and facial expressions as a mirror of the soul. However, other authors who experimented with literary pantomime, such as Arthur Schnitzler or Robert Walser, questioned this postulated authenticity: their reflexive pantomimes reveal the mask and illusion games in society and theatre.