Does William Wallace's face paint in Braveheart have a special meaning?
The iconic picture of William Wallace with face painted for battle in the movie Braveheart (1995):
Does this design have any special meaning? There are others with face paint, and some resemble symbols:
I've always wondered whether these had special meaning, but most specifically the one on Wallace's face.
Best Answer
Short answer: No.
One of the most historically inaccurate movies of all time.
These were simply decorative for the movie. Most of the imagery can be taken with huge grains of salt.
Check out this fantastic breakdown by the History Buffs youtube guy:
Pictures about "Does William Wallace's face paint in Braveheart have a special meaning?"
Why did they paint the blue face in Braveheart?
' Mel Gibson's blue face paint in Braveheart is a nod to the Pictish tradition of body-paint - but the real Picts fought stark naked, and there are records of them doing so up until the 5th Century. The Roman name for the people - Picti - means 'painted people'.Did William Wallace paint his face blue?
Despite cinematic accounts, Wallace would have never worn blue face paint in battle. The blue face paint comes from the Pict people, who lived in...What does it mean to paint your face blue?
Symbolizing wisdom and confidence, blue represents wisdom. As a metaphor for the demise of a person, yellow color is used as the colour.Are the costumes in Braveheart historically accurate?
Its costumes are actually very accurate. The men characters wear the tunics with looser sleeves and fur-edged mantles commonly worn during the period. The women wear the fashions brought into style by Eleanor of Aquitaine in the latter part of the twelfth century, fashions that were also common a century before.William Wallace, the Scottish Hero, Explained in 10 Minutes
More answers regarding does William Wallace's face paint in Braveheart have a special meaning?
Answer 2
Here is also a list of Errors in Braveheart, but the painted blue faces are not entirely inaccurate, it's just it was not used for battle and out of practice by the time of Wallace, as the idea of it may stem Pict Tradition.
Error #4: The Scots didn’t paint their faces for battle
At least they no longer did by the time of Wallace. What Gibson was obviously alluding to is the Scottish Picts’ tradition of painting their faces blue to scare off those pansies, the Romans, from their lands. Of course, Emperor Adrian would have nothing of it and built a wall to keep those evil buggers from sacking the rest of Britain while the sandal-folk still ruled the scene.
The blue face-paint is so iconic, though, you couldn’t imagine BraveHeart without it. These days of course the tradition is to paint the flag of Scotland (a white X across with blue sides) for sporting events.
Q: Why do they wear blue or blue and white makeup?
If you didn’t know, these are the Scottish colors. You can see them on Scotland’s flag.
Q: What is that paint?
It’s called woad. It’s a plant and the blue dye is produced from the leaves.
Q: Did Braveheart really wear that paint into battle?
Probably not. Most historians think the paint was an earlier phenomenon (Wikipedia has a lengthy section on historical inaccuracies in the film). We also like the nit-picking produced on this blog’s Braveheart tag.
https://triviahappy.com/articles/5-questions-about-scottish-face-makeup-as-seen-in-braveheart
History of Picts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Sharon McCutcheon, Sharon McCutcheon, Fillipe Gomes, Bennie Lukas Bester