Saturday, October 21, 2006

La velata

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous4:27 PM

    Yes, that's what a veiled woman looks like, with her veil held back from her face. If instead she'd been wearing this kind of 'veil' -

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/6050392.stm

    - which is not in fact a veil, but a full-face, full-head, full-body mask (and entirely opaque), Raphael would not have had to concentrate so hard to record her physiognomy and her expression.

    Judging by the experiences of the last couple of weeks, some people will tell me that, in pointing this out, I'm expressing a wish to see women reduced to the status they enjoyed in 16th-century Florence. No, I'm merely pointing out that a veil is a veil and a mask is a mask.

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