"Essence of Caroline": The true picture

[iloveroyals]

This would be a thread on the pictures we think best capture the essence of Caroline, Caroline as we see her. There could be 3 categories : official events, paparazzi pictures, and artistic pictures. We could explain our choice ourselves: "This picture best represents Caroline because to me she is, etc, etc", or we could help others formulate why it represents her best and get their feedback in whether we guessed right or wrong, and get a discussion going that way.

This thread is inspired by the thread on "Pictures of Caroline in the 90's" and the ongoing dialogue about the artistic pictures of Caroline bald (thank you tbhrc!) and especially Lea's helping me put into words what she thinks I am feeling. I found that kind of feedback really valuable, and got me thinking all kinds of things about photographs of stars or royals in general. But that would be another thread, if anybody is interested in discussing what celebrity pictures mean to us.

I'd post my first pictures in each category but can't scan right now. I promise to do it soon.
I'll tell you already though that for me, the "Essence of Caroline: the true picture", in the artistic category, was a picture by Helmut Newton.

 

[iloveroyals]

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l5/louise_030/scan0001caronewton.jpg

 

[iloveroyals]

This is one of my 2 favorite portraits of Caroline by an artist photographer. I’ll post the other one another time.

The picture was taken by Helmut Newton, obviously while she was married to Stefano, since he is the other figure in the picture, but I don’t know the exact date. She was about 30 at that time.

Everything that follows is how I “see” the picture and how I think Helmut Newton successfully managed to convey one “essence” of Caroline. I’d say the keyword, here, is playfulness. Playfulness on the part of the photographer, his two models, and even us, voyeurs who for once are generously allowed to play our role shamelessly: it is all part of the fun.

It is a playful picture: Caroline is obviously posing as a dominatrix, which is how many people tend to see her, and she is playing it to the hilt: she completely dominates the picture. Everything around her is used as accessories, and the accessories are meant to convey her wealth and social status: the sea, the boat, her accessorized husband with his dark sunglasses, playing playboy, or gigolo, or Mafioso, to her “godmother” persona. She is not someone you want to mess with! In the background, the old, decadent looking villa seems to be sinking into the sea like a Venitian palazio. A simple and effective set to create a spell in which we are only too happy to revel in.

Being surrounded by accessories, she doesn’t need to wear any. She, always famous for her glamorous gala jewels or her summer shells, stones and pearls, wears nothing but her gold wedding band, as if flaunting a frugality and starkness everything else around her negates. She reminds me of Proust’s Duchesse de Guermantes whose simplicity of attire was applauded at the Opera, or Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina in her black ball gown, both women literary iconic figures of inherent feminine power that make the trappings of seductiveness unnecessary.

Other references may be classic Italian movies, such as La Dolce Vita, La Notte, L’Aventura, and 8 and a Half, filled with impossibly wealthy young women in impeccable black and white summer outfits, by the sea or other bodies of water: fountains or pools, a world of fantasy, femininity, magnificence, and decadence.

She stares at you unblinkingly, but her unsmiling face is hard and uninviting. There is room only for 2 people on the boat, and though the camera is close, and we observers (or voyeurs ?) are close, she is unapproachable. Her wealth and steely stare act as a barrier holding off any intruders. She looks at the camera with an indifference bordering on insolence. She is beyond arrogance into just staring you into insignificance, denying you any visibility. I wonder if Helmut Newton didn’t have the famous painting ‘Olympia’ by Manet in mind, in which the nude female model coldly stares back at the (presumably male) viewer in such a way as to redefine all the rules and norms of “who is looking at whom” and therefore who has the power. An eternal conundrum for Princess Caroline, both mistress and victim of the fascination she exerts.

She is not going for prettiness here, her eyes are too charcoal-rimmed. Nor is she going for sociability either, her wet hair hangs loosely over her shoulders like weeds or alga, as if she had just come back from a dive and a swim. The angles of her thighs and arms are too sharp for repose and serve to emphasize the athletic strength of this creature of the sea, down to the unattractive protruding veins on the hands and forearms. The tip of her foot rests on her husband’s chest. The gesture is delicate, the toes pointed in a ballerina pointe, and possessive, like a feline playing with its prey. Her eyes are challenging you to approach and rescue him. Are the eyes hidden behind the dark glasses pleading for help from the observer (since there are clearly observers as her gaze and his head are turned toward us), or concealing the enchantment of being trapped?

Who is in charge here? Is it the photographer who captures her as she is or as he wants her to be for the moment?.Or is it Caroline revealing the complexity of her character under his direction? The distinction is important. Helmut Newton playfully posed his models as dangerous women but they were just models. Caroline is a princess who would have the power to be destructive were there a dark side to her character.

 

[iloveroyals]

A psychoanalytic friend contributed his own interpretation. I hope it’s all right to post it here.

At first glance I knew this picture to be authored by Helmut Newton (I will justify the use of the word authored instead of photographed later). I had to be convinced that it was Princess Caroline. What was staring out of the picture in that dangerous and unabashed manner, was one of Helmut Newton’s women of the night. Pale faced, slinky haired, caught not reposed, but posed for action, the male in the picture passive, supine, gaze obscured by sunglasses, literally beneath her feet: subjugated.

Yet the woman in the picture was more than the usual Newton model. She had long superbly toned legs that signed athletic prowess as well as feminine beauty. Her hands, long fingered and graceful were complemented by the latticework of large veins at the wrist – another sign of power bonded to beauty. Her tanned athletic body, the sun of the Côte D’Azur, and the sparkling water of the Mediterranean made her a goddess of the day, but her wet hanging dark hair and her face, whitened by the trick of light, made her a deity of the night – the night that Helmut Newton built around his vampiric women.

If this picture is to reveal the essence of Caroline, that essence is complex and not all light. She combines both the light and dark power of body and mind, the changeable essence of the sea and the unchanging solidity of the temporal power of her royal line – symbolized here by the large villa in the background.

Did Helmut Newton invent a Caroline with this potential for light and dark, as an author creates a character, not in words but as a tableau vivant? Overexposed Caroline, posed and exposed as she is, remains a mystery. But is the mystery created or real ? Or did he reveal what was within her – beneath the façade of a ‘royal’?

 

[Grace]

The building in the background is the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco seen from the sea.

 

[cro girl]

The picture is absolutely beautiful. I love the pose and the shading in the pic and I don't think it would emphasize so many things if it were in colour.
And I also have to say that your ( iloveroyals )in deepth description of the pic is one of the best I've read in quite a long time, very detailed and very professional.

 

[iloveroyals]

Thank you both, Grace, for the information, cro girl, for your compliments. I agree with you that the picture would have lost much of its interest had it been in color.
It is a haunting picture, composed by a genius photographer. I tried to capture all the details, but I am sure I have forgotten some. I'd be curious to know how the picture was described by professional writers in the magazines in which it appeared.
The haunting question behind it too, is, "Who is Caroline,really ?" There are also similarities with Princess Diana in the "Catch me if you can" game with the press, as far as her image is concerned, which she seems to have resolved, on this occasion, by "playing the game", letting us on on it. More later !

 

[rosana]

What a nice thread iloveroyals, i like to read your posts!

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

The guy in the picture has to be Stefano right? That dimpled chin makes me think very much so.

 

[iloveroyals]

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l5/louise_030/scan0010dianaalone.jpg
http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l5/louise_030/scan0011dianaspringboard.jpg

I know, I am sorry, this is about Princess Diana, but I couldn't help making a "compare/contrast" kind of comment with the picture of Princess Caroline.

Besides, as grateful as I am for everybody who has responded, I am feeling a bit self-conscious about this thread, as if I am the only one who is interested in commenting on pictures. I don't want to be talking to myself ! I have other pictures of Caroline in store but dare not post them until someone else picks up the ball... Please somebody, post a picture and give your reaction ?

Anyway, moderators, if it doesn't belong here, move it (or erase it), although I think (self-servingly, obviously) that this thread has merit and could apply to any of the royals.

These pictures of Princess Diana have always held a special poignancy for me, partly because they were taken one week before her death. They are paparazzi pictures, so they are not in the same category as the one of Caroline above, but there are similar traits: the presence of the sea, for one. Here, though, the sea is immense, whereas in the Helmut Newton picture, it is more suggested than overwhelming. Here, it is so immense as to almost dwarf her, as if it could easily engulf her. She does not dominate her environment, her environment has a timeless quality which bespeaks both of peace and being suprahuman. And speaking of accessories, as I did in the previous post, the only prop here is the seagull. The overall impression is one of immense loneliness, with no human presence to give a sense of companionship. She seems lost in time and space, perched at the edge of her life, perched on the verge of an uncertain future and a melancholy past. She is already no longer human in the sense we sometimes give the word, associated with sociability, with associating with our fellow human beings, but instead, she is already a tragic heroine, or a heroine (usually a hero really) alone with the elements, usually water (Moby Dick and Poe novels come to mind), she is a part of the elements, by which I mean the greater nature: the immense sky, the immense sea.

It is too easy, knowing what was to happen a week later, to read all kinds of symbolic clues: Diana not looking forward but backward (at what or whom?), her face as if shrouded in darkness in this clear, almost cloudless bright summer day: only her blond hair, the top of her thighs and her left shoulder catch the light. It is clear that this woman is not "n'importe qui", not just anyone: even if we did not know it was Princess Diana, there is an aura about her: she is too gorgeous, too perfect. The pose, although listless, bespeaks power, as the strongly athletic woman always projected. The curve of her back is exquisite. But the repose does not speak of potential or actual energy, of someone getting ready to replenish her energy, there is a hint of depression in the hunched shoulders and the dowcast gaze.

This is not a black and white picture, and her one piece very simple bathing suit invests her with color, but it is a strange blend of the color of the sea, of the sky, making her even more one with the environment, outside of our world.

If an artist photographer had wanted to pose that picture, I bet he would have wanted to include the seagull, such a symbolic feature of life, but life of both the sea and the sky, flying toward her as if to come and get her.

Diana here has a purity (of form, of artlessness, although it is said that she knew she was being photographed and posed accordingly) that sums up one of the essences of who she was :so much above the fray of the average humanity, yet so vulnerable. Exquisitely feminine, seductive, but for whom ? To what purpose ? Any attempt at manipulation (of which she was so often accused of) seems irrelevant here, because there is no one to see her. Sure, there are us, but more so than in the picture with Princess Caroline, we are invisible, because she appears already to be beyond our world. This is not a creation, a construction or reconstruction, it is like the naked truth.

I hope my musings do not offend anyone. Again, I wish you would use this thread to let your imagination go as you look at pictures. I love reading how we see pictures !

 

[Tosca]

This Diana picture is oozing with a sense of solitude. IMO Diana was always alone although she was among crowds of acclaiming people.

Instead Caroline pictures never convey this kind of feeling, not even the ones of her attending the funeral of her mother first, and of Stefano later.
Not when, one day in Paris, in an attempt to escape from photographers she got into an old building hall and started to weep her heart out.

It's Caroline that bears you company, when you're looking at her pictures. that's the feeling to me.

 

[iloveroyals]

That's my feeling too, Tosca. This picture of Diana is one of extreme and sad isolation, which none of her fame, beauty, charm, and wealth seemed to be able to ward off.
Is it the Mediterranean temperament that provides an armor that Nordic people lack ? This is not a judgmental statement, it is meant to be literary in its questioning, that is, the literature, (or movies, for that matter, think of Bergman), of Mediterranean countries will of necessity be different from the literature of Nordic countries because people face different obstacles, or have different cultural responses to them.
Caroline did isolate herself in Saint-Remy de Provence after her husband's death, and reappeared, more vibrant than ever. Did Diana lack the ability to "resource herself" ("se ressourcer": go back to and drink from the spring) ? These are great mysteries. However, at least in that picture, I see her (Diana), as I said, as a tragic heroine. In spite of the hype surrounding all the miseries Caroline has had to endure, I have never seen her as a tragic heroine. She is a survivor. Again, please, nothing judgmental about these comments: it's hard sometimes to use adjectives totally devoid of connotations that might be miscontrued. I never mean to say "one is better than the other" or "one is more interesting than the other".

 

[Tosca]

Is it the Mediterranean temperament that provides an armor that Nordic people lack ? This is not a judgmental statement, it is meant to be literary in its questioning, that is, the literature, (or movies, for that matter, think of Bergman), of Mediterranean countries will of necessity be different from the literature of Nordic countries because people face different obstacles, or have different cultural responses to them.

I think what you say is true. Take Italy, for istance, where the number of people killing themselves is higher in the more modern and affluent regions up North ( paradoxically the most affluent of them all, the Veneto region has the highest number of suicides , than down South). I think it's a matter of stronger family ties, the Mediterranean people have.
Despite all the tragedies Caroline had to endure, she'd never been put aside by her own family, whilst Diana's relatives appeared to be distant from her (apart from her sons, of course), and popped out only after her death.

 

[lea]

Unfortunately my scanner is broken so I can't post photos, but if I could, the photo I would post would be of Princess Caroline after the death of her beloved Stefano, when she cut her hair short and wore no make-up to mask her suffering. In the years that followed we saw many photos of a young mother focused on raising her children and creating a real home for them despite the loss of their father, that to me is the real Caroline. She showed such strength and character during that period of time when some might have turned to other distractions to cope with the tragedy. She may have said "what will I do now" but she acted fearlessly, not hiding her grief but not hesitating to do what she needed to do for her children.

JMO.

 

[iloveroyals]

Unfortunately my scanner is broken so I can't post photos, but if I could, the photo I would post would be of Princess Caroline after the death of her beloved Stefano, when she cut her hair short and wore no make-up to mask her suffering. In the years that followed we saw many photos of a young mother focused on raising her children and creating a real home for them despite the loss of their father, that to me is the real Caroline. She showed such strength and character during that period of time when some might have turned to other distractions to cope with the tragedy. She may have said "what will I do now" but she acted fearlessly, not hiding her grief but not hesitating to do what she needed to do for her children.

JMO.

I was really interested in what you said about that aspect of Caroline, especially because I am reading books about the Kennedys, and there are pictures of Jackie Kennedy that very much evoke the same attitude and behavior Caroline exhibited almost three decades later. I wish I had the pictures, but I don't. I'll try to post one of Caroline with her children, hoping it is one of the ones you are thinking about. I also want to quote from the Bertrand Meyer-Stabley biography of Caroline, "Caroline de Monaco". As usual, it is a rough translation : "In a ritualistic gesture, she has cut her abundant hair, renounced all make-up, and dresses in an austere way, in total opposition to the flamboyance she exhibited in the past. (...) A psychoanalyst sees in this "the dual sign of mourning and mutilation. By losing her husband Stefano, Caroline reacted like a woman from the Mediterranean. Apart from wearing the color black, the black of the glasses, the complete absence of jewelry, except for her wedding band, she has, by cutting her hair short, put her grief in evidence. Her only desire is to be left alone. If she has chosen to be less seductive and adopted a hairstyle (which gives her a strong resemblance to her grand-mother Charlotte), it is because she is suffering. You must know, she seems to be saying, that I am deprived of an important part of my life. She displays herself as a widow, and makes it clear to others."

At any rate, she conducted herself with her usual dignity, and even a certain haughtiness and aloofness which suited her situation. It may callous to point this out, but had she been the young widow of an American president, she would forced the same admiration and fascination that Jackie Kennedy did.

It also always intrigues me how intuitively aware she is of signs. Cutting her hair, in my opinion, is not just a sign of mourning and mutilation, I see it as the sacrifice of her femiminity she lays on her husband's grave, so to speak, a sort of sign of her fidelity she dedicates to him beyond the grave, a gift of her life, and as the author said, of her abundance. Of course, such a gift is symbolic, she owes it to her children to return to life, but the very idea that she could make that symbolic gesture is a tribute to her intuitive emotional intelligence, and her roots, definitely Mediterranean.

I am now going to try to post the picture.

 

[iloveroyals]

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l5/louise_030/scan0042caroandreachar.jpg

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l5/louise_030/scan0042caroandreachar.jpg

I know it's off topic, but I have to say it: Charlotte was so adorable with bangs.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Caroline did isolate herself in Saint-Remy de Provence after her husband's death, and reappeared, more vibrant than ever. Did Diana lack the ability to "resource herself" ("se ressourcer": go back to and drink from the spring) ?

At the same time, though Caroline retreated to the farm in a sense, she was surrounded by these lively children and there was this feeling of community around her, as if her neighbors were rallying around to support her.
As Tosca said, Diana never seemed part of a community like that. Even with her kids, it was like everything was revolving around her, all the attention sucked into her, but never a feeling like with Caroline. Caroline gained strength from people around her.

 

[iloveroyals]

At the same time, though Caroline retreated to the farm in a sense, she was surrounded by these lively children and there was this feeling of community around her, as if her neighbors were rallying around to support her.
As Tosca said, Diana never seemed part of a community like that. Even with her kids, it was like everything was revolving around her, all the attention sucked into her, but never a feeling like with Caroline. Caroline gained strength from people around her.

It's interesting, because from all the biographies I have read about Diana, she seemed to have many friends, and to have a sort of addiction to them, calling them compulsively at all times of day and night. Again, I hate to make statements that sound like judgmental comparisons, but it seems that Caroline has always had a sense of balance about her, even in those few months when she took advantage of the Paris party life, as any young woman of her means would do. It may also be that her friends were of another caliber than Diana's friends, but that almost sounds like slandering, so, as they say in court, "Jury, ignore that statement". Also, Diana could have retreated to the country, to her own estate, but the countryside never seemed to have any healing effect on her. Finally, I think that Caroline, like Jackie, had an innate sense of decorum and duty that carried her through the intense period of grief. She must have instinctively known she needed the retreat, in order to come out of it with her mental and emotional health restored so she could resume her princely duties. She of course also had the support of Vincent Lindon through the darkest months when the children needed a father figure the most.
To summarize, I think Caroline has a good sense of what is healthy and what is not, and the good sense to take time off, to sign what she has become through a new appearance bound to inspire respect and a sense of distance, and how to sign her return to her worldly duties. And of course, her children were the rock that anchored her to a sense of the future and how to construct it. There is something very earthy about Caroline, and her Italian roots, that seem to show through again and again, really interest me.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

Diana, to me, epitimized that classic idea of the popular person surrounded by "friends" and admirers, but still lonely.
I like how iloveroyals puts it finally: Caroline has an earthy quality.

 

[Tosca]

Diana, to me, epitimized that classic idea of the popular person surrounded by "friends" and admirers, but still lonely.

I'm afraid this is what's going to happen if Charlene marries Albert. i don't know why by she riminds me more and more of Diana. It's not just a matter of blondiness.

 

[CasiraghiTrio]

I can see that, unfortunately, Tosca. I think it took Diana almost her entire lifetime to realize that one of the keys to a happy life is to be your own person. I obviously hope it doesn't take so long for Charlene to realize it, but already she seems surrounded by an awful lot of insincerity and she is not married yet.

 

[Vera Friedel]

Caroline had a strong family after her, helping her out over the sadness moments of her life, her father Rainier was like a father to her children.
Diana seemed not to have a family read yto help her out.
And last but not least, even if I hate to say that, having loads of money helps you even in the darkest times of your life.
Imagine a " normal" woman as a widow with 3 kids to raise and scarce means...........

 

[Ianna]

I'm afraid I wouldn't be so eloquent when describing following photo (iloveroyals, your in deepth description(s) is/are publish worth one(s)), but I'll try..

Princess Caroline by H.Newton (thanks K. for help)

From the moment I first saw it, it haunted me with its symbolic..Apart of so many details that can be described (body/hand position, black outfit, mountain scenery, etc.) helping to create 'puzzle-strong' story, it's that attached look towards 'sky', 'dare-look', & serenity of face, that reveal us woman of great inner strenght, great potential..For me, this photo captures the essence of Caroline.

 

[iloveroyals]

Ianna, I agree with your comments (aside from the fact it could be published, that's tongue-in-cheek, isn't? Publishing something like that requires hours of work, everything has to be perfect, and I am doing this for fun, almost in a stream-of-consciousness kind of way). But I think that photo represents only one aspect of her essence, that she has so many "essences", even if it sounds like a contradiction in terms. I am sure we could say the same about everybody, but how many of us get to have our multiple essences captured for posterity to dissect at will ?
I am now haunted by the picture of her as a young widow. For some reson, I feel she is looking out at sea, and is a higher-scale version of all the sailors's wives who always worry whether their husbands will come back to shore safely. At the same time, she is so well put together, even her flowing hair is in place somehow, that she is the port of safety. The photograph looks almost like a painting, or like a posed photograph, although I imagine it was taken by a paparazzi. I also remember a quote from a friend of hers (I'll have to find the exact quote), that Caroline has the quality of being "frighteningly focused". I think you see that in that picture : a sense of order, a sense of accepting one's destiny, a sense of however much things may seem confused or get out of control, she'll restore control and design. She is definitely the woman in charge. I am sure she learned some of that from her mother, who in a quote said that when things got out of hand for her emotionally, she reverted to her professional training and became an actress : the woman people wanted to see, the performance they expected, not the real woman who might be falling apart inwardly, adding that it was very therapeutic.

 

[Tosca]

I am sure she learned some of that from her mother, who in a quote said that when things got out of hand for her emotionally, she reverted to her professional training and became an actress : the woman people wanted to see, the performance they expected, not the real woman who might be falling apart inwardly, adding that it was very therapeutic.

When interviewed on his birthday, old journalist Enzo Biagi, recalled of the personalities he had interviewed in his long career, and among these he also mentined Princess Grace. So the interviewer asked him what had struck him about this woman: her stunning beauty, elegance, glamour. Unespectedly Biagi answered: "What struck me? Her total lack of sincerity!"

 

[iloveroyals]

I'm afraid I wouldn't be so eloquent when describing following photo (iloveroyals, your in deepth description(s) is/are publish worth one(s)), but I'll try..

Princess Caroline by H.Newton (thanks K. for help)

From the moment I first saw it, it haunted me with its symbolic..Apart of so many details that can be described (body/hand position, black outfit, mountain scenery, etc.) helping to create 'puzzle-strong' story, it's that attached look towards 'sky', 'dare-look', & serenity of face, that reveal us woman of great inner strenght, great potential..For me, this photo captures the essence of Caroline.

My apologies, Ianna, here I was carrying on with my own thoughts, and had not even realized you had posted a new picture. I'll give you my feedback as soon as I can. It's a great picture, one I had never seen.

 

[iloveroyals]

Ianna, this is truly a fascinating picture. The hand (or eye) of the genius photographer is at work again in this one. I find it so rich, so ambivalent, that I don't know where to start.

I don't know where the picture was taken, the caption says the south of France, but I don't know what they mean by that. But the rock behind her is highly significant. Caroline and Stephanie were always called "Les demoiselles du Rocher", "The young ladies of the Rock", so I think that's the immediate reference every viewer will make.

She seems to be praying, yet her hands are not in the usual position of hands in prayer. I would even say that it is the only thing in the whole picture that seems a little "out of joint" so to speak. Everything else is absolute purity. Can anyone imagine a more perfect profile than Caroline's ? She has the beauty of a woman in her thirties, you can see the lines beginning to sag ever so slightly, the cheeks are a bit hollow, she is no longer in the prime bloom of her beauty, but she has achieved another kind of beauty, whose purity gives it an ethereal quality. Is she a madona or is she a pilgrim who came to pray in a place where the Virgin appeared ? (Remember that she worked in Lourdes as a teenager, helping with the handicapped people, and Sainte-Bernadette must have made a deep impression on her in the austere, beautiful setting of the Pyrennes.)

She wears a pilgrim coat, or is it really a pilgrim coat or a princess's idea of what a pilgrim coat looks like? (Only teasing). It seems made of a rich, luxuriant fabric, velvet perhaps.

She is a great study of a combination of soft or perfect curves (look at her eyebrows, her forehead, so delicately delineated) and soft angles (her chin, her nose). Her usually sensuous mouth is downplayed and it is her gaze and serious expression that take center stage : she is in a state of "recueillement" (a word impossible to translate : spiritual and religious meditation and self-absorption come closest), distant from worldly matters. Helmut Newton used her well-known profound faith to represent her as one of us, one of the lowly who must, like everybody else pray to a greater entity. (This is to be taken metaphorically, I know many are atheists, but I think he might have wanted to "lower" her status, in order to exalt her all the more.)

Her profile is like the one that used to appear on coins, the profiles of the rulers of the world. Her head is turned upward, usually a sign of haughtiness, yet if she is praying, it is also a sign of supplication. What would she be asking for ? Her face is so composed, you can hardly believe she is pleading for some favor, rather communing completely with the sacred.

Her long neck is duplicated in a way by her long hair. The hair is also perfect, just brushed back, which gives her a timelessness (we can't date her by her hairstyle). The hair is not too long, which would emphasize sensuousness, but long enough to be feminine and luxuriantly healthy, and yes, rich.

The earrrings are interesting because a bit incongruous. Here she is, pared to the bone, so to speak, and the earrings remind us that she is Princess Caroline. Without getting into why Newton wanted them, let's assume for a minute it was Princess Caroline's idea : she is willing to be humbled in front of God's greatness (if she is really shown praying), but to have her worldly status visible as well. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's a power struggle, Caroline is much too devout for that, just a playful gesture perhaps reminiscent of the old monarchies where the king was just below God in power. So that would be a sort of historical reference, and we know Caroline is quite passionate about history, and the history of monarchies certainly.

The hands are a mystery to me for among all that serenity, that beautiful harmonious composition, they are jarring, a bit twisted, as if they, alone, expressed some anguish or torment, or questioning, or puzzlement, completely at odds with the composed face and body.

Thank you for sharing this picture with us, I have fallen in love with it and can't wait for other reactions !

 

[iloveroyals]

When interviewed on his birthday, old journalist Enzo Biagi, recalled of the personalities he had interviewed in his long career, and among these he also mentined Princess Grace. So the interviewer asked him what had struck him about this woman: her stunning beauty, elegance, glamour. Unespectedly Biagi answered: "What struck me? Her total lack of sincerity!"

It's a strange comment, isn't ? So, either when she is being interviewed, she gives the answers she thinks are expected of her but does it so badly that she comes across as insincere (making her a bad actress, which of course she wasn't), or she makes a point of coming across as insincere (making her a good actress), but to what point, for what effect? So everybody knows she is insincere ?

 

[Tosca]

It's a strange comment, isn't ? So, either when she is being interviewed, she gives the answers she thinks are expected of her but does it so badly that she comes across as insincere (making her a bad actress, which of course she wasn't), or she makes a point of coming across as insincere (making her a good actress), but to what point, for what effect? So everybody knows she is insincere ?

I guess we should ask Mr. Biagi!