I want to recreate the milais ophelia painting, but I want to make her look like an actual drowned corpse. no flowing golden locks, no redness in the cheeks, no pink lips and flower petals. I want to paint a corpse you don't want to stare at. I want to paint mottled, bloating flesh. wrinkled hands and decay as the worms set into her skin. I want to paint a dead girl who isn't aspirational- not youth and beauty frozen in time, but the natural progression of time onto a body.
or maybe instead, I want to paint ophelia as an old woman. She didn't get to be an old woman, but what would it look like, for an old woman to be face-up in the water in a pretty dress and covered in flowers? would you still say, "how beautiful?" would it still be tragic, if she had been able to live more of her life?
