The Nude and the Dead
Created by Rachel Cockett
21 May 2009
I have got to know our preraphaelite collection through my work on this project. Some I love as images. Some I hate for what they represent. Some I have grown to love or hate in equal measure.
Detail
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I like it, it's funny, proved the preraphs had a sense of humour (in between the bouts of misogyny). -
Ghost ship? Or is it the Dawntreader?
I always expect to see Reepicheep scrambling over the side, he's probably just out of sight. -
Well, I tend to like the gothic. Is it wrong to like the romantic poets more for their decadent reputation than for their poetry? -
I saw this painting in the conservation studio, out of its frame, removed from its stretcher, in the middle of being relined, wax oozing from the frayed edges of the original canvas.
It is unusual, even if you work in a museum, to see a work so exposed and looking so vulnerable.
It made me view a painting I'd never really liked in a new light. Now I always see it as it was then - even though the frame is back on and the work of our conservator has preserved it for several more decades. -
You don't need a label to see that he drew this from a real corpse. Or to work out that he must have got quite personal with it to make it lie how he wanted. Committed... -
Everything I hate about the preraphaelites. Not the painting itself but its theme.
Pygmalion was apparently repulsed by the women he knew (too real) - so made his own perfect woman in marble - then (lucky him) - she comes to life and bears him a son (I hope it was someone else's).
The creation of an ideal that no real woman can ever hope to match is clearly an old problem. -
I have a large sample print of it on my office wall. Most visitors think it's The Last Supper - until they look again - I imagine there were more clothes involved at the Last Supper...
I have an alternative name for this painting but I'm not sure this is a suitable forum (feel free to guess)! -
My favourite drawing, the blue background is unique in the collection and that makes it stand out. It doesn't annoy me, or make me laugh, it just works on a purely visual level. -
Couldn't get more gothic...though I personally doubt the existence of such a flower...even Mabey's Flora Britannica does not reference it. -
He seems to be admiring himself in the mirror...and I'm not sure that armour will protect anyone...pretty though.
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