Why Armand, this is not new. I've spoken of it before, and very approvingly. The sculpting is first rate, the woman though zaftig and well endowed does not have hip dysplasia, and has correct (if beefy) proportions, and the costume though bizarre is nothing you couldn't see in a Las Vegas Chorus line or strip act. Actually, with a skin-tight body suit she'd work as a Ziegeld Girl. A very good composition. Though I wonder what she's going to do with the "pollinators" in her hand but…
The eroticism of the figure is frank and forthright, and there is a grace and poise about her (note the ballet slippers and that she is obviously in the moment of dance.)
Notably and thankfully there are no oversized huge weapons dripping blood which sees derigeur in most "blood-rape" fantasy figures. Could very well be stylized "The Goddess Flora in spring dance" The natural luxuria of the female form is only tantalizingly hidden and accentuated by the foliage and the obvious subliminal messages of "fertility" is obvious.
As I said, look at it one way and it can be a tremendous allegorical piece, and another,-- as I said--- a member of a Vegas chorus line, but the pleasing effect is the same. For me there is no brutality in the figure, a trait (brutality) I find discordant with the idea of the female.
By the way the masque is important allegorically. If you take the composition as an allegory of "nature" or the floral part of nature, then as an element and attribute of nature, man is not mean't to peer into the face of nature and see into it's inner soul. That would be a grave sacrelige. Therefore the inner spirit of nature, and the face, must always remain hidden.
On the whole a solid "A"
photographs the same figure, with different cameras and equipment.
