Faceworld

We have long accepted the face as the most natural and self-evident thing, believing that in it we could read, as if on a screen, our emotions and our doubts, our anger and joy. We have decorated them, made them up, designed them, as if the face were the true calling card of our personality, the public manifestation of our inner being.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rather than a window opening onto our inner nature, the face has always been a technical artefact—a construction t...