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Abbath and Horgh of Immortal

Corpse paint (sometimes a single word, corpsepaint) is a style of black-and-white makeup used extensively by black metal bands during live concerts and photo shoots. The decoration is used to intensify the bands' imagery of foreboding evil, inhumanity, and corpse-like decay.

Most commonly, the musicians' faces are painted white, with areas such as lips and eyes painted black. Only rarely do musicians use other colors: Gorgoroth and Ragnarok use blood-colored paint, Attila Csihar of Mayhem and formerly of Tormentor uses neon colours, while the Norwegian band Dødheimsgard has experimented using other colours. Still, the clean two-tone style is the more common one.

Though corpse paint achieved widespread popularity with some rock and roll performers in the 1970s, there are some earlier precedents worth nothing.

Corpse paint might be traced back to Germanic folklore. Particularly striking are the similarities between modern black metal corpse paint and the ghoulish appearance of the members of the Oskorei, a legion of dead souls in Norse mythology. One can also note similarities between metal corpse paint and the makeup worn in expressionist films, such as worn by Conrad Veidt in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Interestingly, expressionist film flourished in Germany, raising the possibility that the makeup in expressionist films of the early 1900s was influenced by old Teutonic tales like the Oskorei.

But on early 70's Kiss and brazillian MPB band Secos & Molhados had a distress about the first one to use the make-up who's called corpsepaint, and the author of it. Dispise the mythical/hystorical approach of some try to give to the corpsepaint, it's not difficult to see Gene Simmons' make up as a influence to it, along with Alice Cooper's.

The earliest rock groups to decorate themselves with makeup similar to corpse paint included Arthur Brown in the 1960s, KISS and Alice Cooper in the 1970s, and, later that decade, punk rockers like The Misfits and singer Dave Vanian of The Damned. The look was also unintentionally popularized in 1977 through a series of McDonald's print advertisement campaign feature black-and-white photographs of company mascot Ronald McDonald. In the ads, Ronald's face paint looked very similar to corpse paint, causing fans of bands like KISS to collect and even steal copies of magazines with the ads.

Corpse paint on members of Gorgoroth.

Hellhammer and King Diamond of Mercyful Fate (who used corpse paint as early as 1978 in his band Black Rose) were perhaps the first death or black metal groups to use corpse paint in the early 1980s. Other groups soon followed suit, including Hellhammer's later incarnation Celtic Frost, and early Slayer. Brazilian band Sarcófago also pioneered the look, being dubbed by Metal Storm magazine as the first band with a "true" corpsepaint^[1]. Early corpse paint designs were intended simply to accent an individual's features and make them look "dead" (examples include early Slayer). Later designs typically incorporated more detailed patterns to improve a "demonic" look (most notably Immortal and King Diamond).

Norwegian black metal bands from the late 1980s and early '90s (such as Mayhem, Gorgoroth, Emperor, Immortal, Darkthrone, and Satyricon) are arguably responsible for maintaining the popularity of the corpse paint among today's black metal acts.

Cradle of Filth also have been known to wear face paint (as opposed to corpse paint) during their early career in albums The Principle of Evil Made Flesh' and 'Vempire (or Dark Fairytales in Phallustein).

In the fall of 1996, professional wrestler Sting began wearing corpse paint in a persona inspired by the Brandon Lee film The Crow.

The virtual metal band Dethklok from the TV show Metalocalypse also wears corpse paint when performing during the show.

• Rate My Corpse Paint Examples of different styles of corpse paint.