Nowhere does the human being achieve a greater visual presence than in his face. That is why we have spent millennia trying to decipher it through images that, however, end up failing in their attempt to capture the living face.

This volume forms the first history on the subject, with a focus that brings together Art History, Anthropology, Psychology and Neuroscience, among other disciplines. A story that begins with the first masks of Prehistory and ends with the faces produced by digital media. In the theatrical masks and in the gestures of the actors, in the European portrait and in photography, in cinema and in current art, the reader will be able to discover the multiple attempts that have been made to take possession of that living face, as well as its permanent frustration, because in the end that life resists all norms of representation and interpretation. The only thing that the portraiture of the European Modern Age itself ended up producing were masks. Even cinema, which showed the face with an unparalleled degree of intimacy, came out badly in its attempt to capture human beings for the first time in a "real" image.

A fascinating exploration that reveals how images continually seek that living face and why they never reach their goal. A face that plays a crucial role in human communication, yet defies any attempt at visual representation.