Saving graces
Subtitle: images of women in European cemeteries
By: David Robinson ; foreword by Joyce Carol Oates.
Edition: 1st ed.
Publisher: W.W. Norton; W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 114
Subjects: Sepulchral monuments -- Europe.; Sculpture, European -- 19th century.; Women in art.; Symbolism in art -- Europe.
Description: Many cemeteries in Europe are highly maintained sculpture gardens strewn with shockingly sensual sculptures of women. They are perfect, idealized creations - young, gorgeous, elaborately posed, and beautifully sculpted. Often naked or barely clothed, and consumed with grief for the dead, they are both a stunning and a compelling presence among the other gravestones. David Robinson's exquisite photographs reveal the angelic beauty and mystery of these lifelike sculptures.

In her foreword, Joyce Carol Oates explores the many implications of these grief-stricken, extremely provocative female figures - our obsession with mortality, the rituals of mourning, the conflation of death and the erotic, the perfect female form as a male fantasy and a symbol of status.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.