Monday 9 February 2009
The Somnambulists
I thought you might enjoy these photographs, especially since so many of you have been responding to the "shattered visage" of Ozymandias. These images are not broken statues, but neither are they very far removed from faces half-buried in the sand. I find them haunting and beautiful and deeply moving. They are the work of UK photographer Joanna Kane. In this particular series, called "Somnambulists," she photographs death masks and life masks from the nineteenth century and then slightly digitizes them to give them the appearance of having skin. The masks are real, though, and she leaves the plaster detail as part of the image. It is amazing how life-like they appear. Let me know what you think of them. You can read more about Kane's work on her website, http://www.joannakane.co.uk/.
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That is cool...but mildly creepy. I'm not sure how I feel about that.
ReplyDeleteI suppose these do shade toward the gothic side of Romanticism. And, of course, this is Kane's artistic interpretation of the masks, not just the masks themselves. I obviously can't speak for the dead poets, but I think they would have loved these. There is something strangely familiar about these faces, as if they belong to people I know. I suppose they do, in a way.
ReplyDeleteYour right they do seem familiar. I don't know if it's because we have been studying their works and trying to get inside their head, but I felt like I instinctively knew which face belonged to which poet without having to read the caption.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realize until just now, but I havn't really put a face to the words that we have been studying. That is peculiar for me because I usually try to find portraits of the writer that I'm studying.
ReplyDeleteSeeing these masks somehow made their words more real and in a way brings them to life.
I definately think the writers would have gotten a kick out of their own mask. I'm not a writer at all and I would like one of my own!
I think it's interesting how childlike Blake looks; if that's an even marginally accurate representation, it would certainly have been an appropriate look for someone whose work is so child-like (not childish).
ReplyDeleteI do think it's interesting that all of their eyes are closed; I'm sure that that's both part of the goal itself, as well as a limitation possibly imposed by the difficulty to recreate life-like eyes. Anyway, I think they're incredibly beautiful, and the Wordsworth one especially resonates.