ABSTRACT
The masculine turns into a harmonious essence, an expression of eternal man. The masculine has lost both its sense of origin and its historical attributes. The meaning of the masculine make-up art is that experiences are written on the body in a style that opposes its symmetry. Women's make-up, on the contrary, is designed to conceal symmetrical flaws, that is, to even out all edges and surfaces into a smooth whole. By embodying masculine qualities, they give a concrete form to the idea of the masculine. Assuming that the masculine is an abstract term for real qualities in men, rather than seeking after a general meaning of the concept, one can uncover an empirical content by studying the exempla that carry the concept. Interpreted as an exemplum of virtus, it also turns out to be archaic, it transcends the contemporary, the individual, the particular by embodying and exemplifying masculine essence.
