dyptique’s dangerous sleeping beauty
in the darker, more atavistic versions of Sleeping Beauty, the dormant castle is surrounded by an impenetrable wall of rose briars, with gigantic thorns that impale the hapless princes who try to push through to the interior in which the lovely princess lies in her enchanted coma. The princes’ bodies hang on that monstrous rose hedge, decomposing until they are naught but skeletons. This image haunted me when I was young, as it still does now, being one of the most disturbing of a a whole series of folktales which emphasize not only the rose’s beauty, but also its danger—for below the smooth silk-plush blossoms, like spikes and thorns, jagged leaves, and pain. This is one of the reasons I believe the rose makes such a perfect symbol for love—a thing of great beauty as well as undeniable pain. Dyptique’s l’ombre dans l’eau captures this dark green danger of the rose, I believe. It is not as menacing as a wall of gigantic malignant thorns, but it does explore the stems and leaves a...