It struck me then, as it does now, because of the way wild nature seems to be triumphing over human contrivance. The bramble appears to be swallowing this elegant woman whole, with no regard for the niceties of high society.
In person, it's easier to see the contrasting techniques the painter used in this piece. The figure of the woman is rendered in great and beautiful detail--very fine, flat work. But the foliage all around her was created by laying the pigment on in great, thick blobs.
The painting hooked me in part because of the discussion we'd been having in our Contemporary Paganism class about Bron Taylor's "Dark Green Religion" and what it has to say about the place of humans in the natural world.
We might try to conquer nature--and we humans are certainly capable of a lot of destruction--but in the end the dark green goddesses and gods will prevail for we are all born of the earth and to it we will all return.
