Quote:
Originally Posted by Neapolitan
I like more classical styles in art and sculpture. It looks like someone cared enough to put a face mask on Jane. What I like about the statue is how Jane Austen is pressing a book close to her heart - such sweet sentiment.
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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 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?"
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