January 11, 2010 12:37pm A certain scene from Sondheim's "Sweeney Todd" comes to mind ... The absence of the nightingale from the cage prompts the viewer's imagination to place the model in the role of the unseen, caged bird, transfiguring the image into an evocative symbol of the social confinement of Victorian women (emphasised by that very conspicuous, albeit very fetching corset). The tone and texture of the image also bring to mind the art of the later 19th and early 20th century, giving this shot a look more like an illustrated plate from some gothic novel of the period.
