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Neapolitan · 11-12-2020, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

My immediate respones to this pic was, "what a nice statue!". I didn't notice the detail of the book at first, but I noticed the period costume and the "frozen movement" that statues often try for.
To me, this memorial statue is doing its job well: it conjures up Jane Austen, and lets adults and children alike imagine her for a moment: that's how she probably dressed, she loved books, etc.

The statue looks like it could be any one of her characters (Emma, Fanny, or Marianne) out for a walk during a windy day.

Here is another statue I like. The dress looks futuristic. It'a like Marie Curie step through time presenting to us that she holds the mystery of the atom.

Monument to Maria Sklodowska-Curie

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

The MW memorial doesn't allow us that link or glimpse of the actual woman Mary Woolstonecraft. Instead, the sculptress has interjected her own ego between us and MW in order to make a statement of some kind: and what's the message of the MW memorial? One take on it is that women are immured in a bag of garbage, but if you look sexy enough, you will be able to rise up triumphantly above all those old, fat, ugly or non-caucasian losers, who the sculptress has represented here by an unflattering bag of spare parts.

Even though, as OH points out, MW is dead, it's a commonplace to make "would" statements as if the person lived on somewhere. It's consoling to people who've been shocked by a loss, and it's why we so often hear, at funerals, "He would've been so proud..." In that spirit, my suspicion is that MW would not be proud, but instead is turning in her grave, thinking, "WTF? Why couldn't they put up a nice statue of me in my best bonnet?"

I do not know enough about Mary Woolstonecraft to know for certain how she would feel. I'm just guessing: She might feel honored to see her name in print. However she would probably feel absolutely no connection to the nude figure atop the memorial, and perplexed about the whole thing together.

To me it looks a like a trophy with a marble base, abstract art as a riser, and female figure. The whole thing akin to an Oscar award. Between the figure and the base is a strange bit of abstract art that begs to be interpreted. Is it a burning bush with smoke rising? Perhaps a retelling of the Phoenix where the hatched egg burns and rising out of the smoke comes a female figure? Maybe it is suppose to represent an ovary and the figure stands atop a Fallopian tube? Who knows what was running through the mind of the artist when she made the statue.

The MW memorial figure departs from concepts found in classic art like e.g. Venus De Milo. The figure's hips are less curvaceous, the stance more rigid than Venus DM. There was this sense of combining sensuality and modesty in classic art. Statues and paintings of females usually present women partially bare, with either long hair or clothing obscuring the more revealing parts. The MW memorial is less sensual however more revealing - baring the woo woo for all to see. I guess that is most contravention part of the memorial. One thing to take into consideration is that third wave feminism (maybe not all but some do) take pride and see nudity (stripping, pole dancing etc) as empowering. There is a sort of an irony to that where first wave feminist fought not to be treated like a sex object. The whole things seems more like the artist's ode to feminism more than a memorial honouring MW.