Why write about the new stuff only? I enjoy a hacked iPad as much the next lil' cyberpunker, but a stroll around the Getty Center is more my style. It was on one such stroll last week in the South Pavilion, armed with a sketchbook, and friends with high-powered digital cameras, that this side table caught my eye. Ecstatic, I grabbed JAC's arm and gestured wildly. She blanched, declaring that the heads looked creepy and decapitated. "I know!" I crowed. "Isn't it great?"
Done in the 18th century's High Baroque style, this table is heavy with scrolling, swirling gilted leaves, gargoyles...and maidenheads. The pictures do little to convey how creepy those heads are sunk into the shadowy recesses of the table. Indeed, due to the placement of the heads, each on their own midair shelf, it does give the impression of removal, of decapitation. Because all of the eyes are looking up (the assumption is that one would look down at the carvings, instead of crouching in front of the legs, trying to get a better shot), the effect is of being watched from underneath dozens of lids, and makes those gaping black smiles that much uneasier to bear.
It's a piece from an Angela Carter story, come to life. I'd be greatly surprised if it does not make an appearance in my own writing. Guaranteed, I'd put this in the entryway of a house.
All photos taken by my friend JAC, who can be visited here.
Oh, I love that! It's so beautifully overdone. It really should be a centerpiece in a delightfully creepy movie somewhere. Hmm, how does one film a scene where the most interesting piece is below waist level, I wonder.
ReplyDeleteIt sort of reminds me of the 1999 remake of The Haunting; the way the ghosts of the children would manifest in the carvings of mouldings and furniture. That film was such a disappointment and could have been really cool... The production design was pretty epic, though.
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