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The Portrait (detail)

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Description

A detail from my upcoming project 'When Seraphin fall'.
Prologue: The Portrait by InkyRose


....'The old man smiles grimly and does not answer straight away, instead his eyes drift up to a portrait hanging above a fireplace beside them.

The woman in blue had not noticed it when she first entered the gloomy room, now she cannot stop herself from staring at it.

 

It is of a woman standing in a gothic ruin, a storm can be seen through an arched window and there is a table next to her, a brass vase filled with scandalously bright flowers rests on top. It seems oddly out of place until the viewer notices the red roses are dying, rotting, their red petals as gory as blood, falling to the silken tablecloth beneath. A crow stands beneath the bouquet, head bent, ready to peck at the soft, pulsing flesh of a petal as if it were a silver of heart.

But it is the woman who stands beside the vase who commands the most attention.

 

She wears a silver gown that would have been fashionable fifty years ago and her hair, despite the rings on her finger, is unbound as if she was still a spinster. It is the lustrous, wavy kind worshipped by the Pre-Raphaelites. But it is as thick as thunderclouds, as dark as shadows- dense enough to suffocate in.

Her hair, however, is nothing to her eyes- one a brilliant turquoise blue, the other a pale jade green.

They are mesmerising and terrifying, pinning voice to throat and air to lungs of all who look at her. The same sadness that is in the old man's eyes is painted in hers.....'



Background textures:
cracked paint and brick by oonerspism
Texture 32 by yana-stock
Crow:
Cut-out stock PNG 60 - eating crow by Momotte2stocks
Image size
833x1178px 500.45 KB
© 2016 - 2024 InkyRose
Comments50
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HelevornArt's avatar
Your descriptions are simply amazing. Even without seeing portrait, the reader can imagine the mysterious woman perfectly by the words of the narrator, and is transmitted the ominous feel that the story maintains throughout, especially by the use of metaphors like "pinning voice to throat and air to lungs". A great way to introduce the reader to the mystery of the story and to the Victorian Gothic atmosphere!