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Sunday 1 May 2011

Unknown Face (Blake: Proverbs of Hell)


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Blake

William Blake, 1757-1827, life mask made in 1823: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)





He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.

William Blake: from Proverbs of Hell, c. 1789




Unknown Woman


Life [?] or death [?] mask of Unknown Woman: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

Keats

John Keats, 1795-1821, life mask: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

Princess

Life [?] or death [?] mask of Princess Tolstoya, 1800-1873: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

Wordsworth

William Wordsworth, 1770-1850, life mask made in 1815: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

Cautious Woman

[Life mask of] Unknown Woman, a "cautious type" i.e. possibly suicidal: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

Coleridge

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834, life mask: photo by Joanna Kane, from The Somnambulists, 2008 (via Creative Review)

6 comments:

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

The death masks are so evocative.

Is it me ... Wordworth and Coleridge seem so very similar?

Blake, just as imagined, and Keats, so at peace, at last.

TC said...

Don,

The masks of the poets are life-masks.

(Eyes closed to keep out the plaster.)

In the cases of two of the women, it's less certain that they are life-masks.

But yes, tranquillity.

Well... Blake, hmm.

(Phun with phrenology, Francis Bacon.)

Issa's Untidy Hut said...

Ah, life masks, thanks, Tom.

Very expressive.

ACravan said...

The first thing that comes to mind (and stays there like the visages in the masks) is that these are simply unbelievable to see. Curtis

Robb said...

Wow. Stunning.

This sort of seems appropriate-ish: "resine"

Robb said...

I forgot to hit "follow-up comments" per usual but that gave me the soiste I needed so it's all good.