This article is about a style of body painting. For the paint pigment made from corpses, see mummy brown.
Enzifer of Urgehal wearing corpse paint with the spiked armbands and inverted crosses commonly worn by black metal musicians
Corpse paint is a style of body painting, used mainly by black metal bands for concerts and band photos. The body painting is used to make the musicians appear inhuman, corpse-like, or demonic, and is perhaps "the most identifiable aspect of the black metal aesthetic."[1]
Corpse paint typically involves making the face and neck white (or pale), sometimes with red marks to signify blood or laceration, and making the area around the eyes and mouth black. Musicians will often have a trademark style. Other colors are seldom used, yet there are notable exceptions, such as Attila Csihar's use of neon colors and the bands Satyricon and Dødheimsgard experimenting with color as well.
Outside of black metal, black and white face painting has been used by a variety of other public figures such as shock rock artists (notably Arthur Brown, Alice Cooper, members of Kiss, and members of the Misfits) and professional wrestlers (e.g. Sting and Vampiro), as well as for the normal beautification or ornamentation denoted by cosmetics.
^Patterson, Dayal: Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult; 2013, Feral House, Port Townsend, Washington; p. 144.
Corpsepaint is a style of body painting, used mainly by black metal bands for concerts and band photos. The body painting is used to make the musicians...
song structures, and an emphasis on atmosphere. Artists often appear in corpsepaint and adopt pseudonyms. During the 1980s, several thrash metal and death...
and Satanic lyrics and imagery. Bands of the genre typically employ corpsepaint, which was adapted from black metal. The genre is commonly death metal...
and evil. They adopted pseudonyms and appeared in photographs wearing "corpsepaint" and wielding medieval weaponry. The scene was exclusive and created...
Corpse Bride (also known as Tim Burton's Corpse Bride) is a 2005 stop-motion animated musical fantasy film directed by Mike Johnson and Tim Burton from...
underground rap music Wearing face paint, generally those either like an evil clown or perhaps similar to corpsepaint Wearing Hatchet Gear or Chapter 17...
known to wear a durag as part of his onstage look, in contrast to the corpsepaint traditionally synonymous with black metal. In 1995, the National Football...
the use of attention-grabbing imagery such as costumes, masks, or face paint, or special effects such as pyrotechnics or fake blood. Shock rock also...
themes and images, contrary to traditional power metal music, as well as corpsepaint, gothic-tinged compositions and songs about werewolf and vampire legends...
and evil. They adopted pseudonyms and appeared in photographs wearing "corpsepaint" and wielding medieval weaponry. The scene was exclusive and created...
characteristics of it, such as the melody, the lyrics and the aesthetics (corpsepaint), whose artists either directly oppose the Satanism prevalent in most...
aesthetic style that would come to represent the black metal scene, wearing corpsepaint and working under pseudonyms. Gylve Nagell became "Fenriz", Ted Skjellum...
black metal. Blackened death metal bands are also more likely to wear corpsepaint and suits of armour, than bands from other styles of death metal. Lower...
and dead serious fashion style was also influential, including their corpsepaint face makeup. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked Morbid Tales as 28th on their...
Mudvayne, and Slipknot wear masks, jumpsuits, costumes, face paint, corpsepaint or body paint. A few nu metal bands, such as Coal Chamber, and Kittie are...
"Full Metal Band"—a group of live musicians dressed in white robes and corpsepaint. They have since been referred to by band members and fans as "Gods of...
Tour in 1973. His book Billion Dollar Baby, released in November 1974, painted a less-than-flattering picture of the band, showing a group in total disharmony...
(such as woad) and other Dark Ages themed battle gear.[citation needed] Corpsepaint is another style of black-and-white makeup, used mainly by black metal...
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