These dreamy photographs I recently discovered are exactly my cup of the tea. I have already written about the fascinating and macabre yet very popular motif in art, the Death and the Maiden, and these pictures seem to be continuing with the same theme. Something that always comes to mind in connection to young girl’s beauty and mortality is a short story “Edward Fane’s Rosebud” by Nathaniel Hawthorne where the beautiful young maiden Rose is faced with mortality for the first time and Hawthorne describes it very poetically:
“She shuddered at the fantasy, that, in grasping the child’s cold fingers, her virgin hand had exchanged a first greeting with mortality, and could never lose the earthly taint. How many a greeting since! But as yet, she was a fair young girl, with the dewdrops of fresh feeling in her bosom; and instead of Rose, which seemed too mature a name for her half-opened beauty, her lover called her Rosebud.”
The young, rosy-cheeked girl dressed in white and the skeleton lover who adores her; they are such a lovely couple, wouldn’t you concur? I must say that this skeleton looks more charming and … shall I say handsome than the ones painted by Hans Baldung Grien.
Pictures found here.
Byron's Muse 
These pictures with the girl and the skeleton are intriguing. Friends of classical music will probably think of Schubert’s stunning masterpiece: the string quartet « The Death and the maiden » (strongly recommended) but I’d like to go a step deeper. People who read my comments probably know that I’m currently writing sonnets to a young girl who died in 1977. Is there a big difference between the girl dancing with the skeleton and a man writing sonnets to a dead girl whom he never knew but who (in a very mysterious way) embodies for him what Rimbaud called « the true life »? I did never live that dead girl’s life but being connected to her means for me: being connected to the true life. Rimbaud said: « La vraie vie est absente » but we can connect to that « true/real life » by choosing what Kant called « a connecteur » (or « channel »). That girl on the pics found this « channel » in the skeleton and I found it in Babsi. The real life is not absent for me. It is incorporated in my mind like a Russian doll. The power of mind is immense!
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That’s such a beautiful comparison and provides food for thought for sure, really an inspiring topic all together. The power of daydreams is immense also.
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Not ” my cup of tea really ” but beautifully presented as usual.
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Your comment made me laugh, so thank you!
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