DEATH . . . . or not!

One of these pictures is the human remains of a famous mountain climber and one is the remains after many years washed by the sea of a fashion shop mannequin . . . . . . . . which is which?

I grant you I have a morbid fascination with the human figure in all its form and have drawn from the nude all my life and this includes the cadaver skeletons and skulls and life models, from college to university and to privately hired models at MOMA in Oxford under the sessions arranged by the wonderful teacher Ron Freeborn teasing me me back in the 'Life Room' after more than a decade. I would always attend a life class . . . . . the human clay, the corporeal always held me sway. The portrait in recent years and the self portrait as life models I can no longer afford means as artists have found immemorial that the first port of call is the mirror to capture the stuff of life, the human form.

Bodies, Lost & Found: A volunteer for Ocean hour in Florida was recently walking along the water at Perdido Key when she came across what she thought was a dead, decapitated body. After a closer look she realised it was a mannequin covered in years of shells and vegetation. The accidental marine sculpture has uncanny qualities resembling the mummified corpse of George Mallory, a mountain climber who disappeared on Mount Everest in 1924 and was rediscovered almost intact on the slopes of the mountain in 1999. (The Odd Side of Me)

I found these fascinating pictures on the wonderful blog site I follow by 'Haley the Hospice Nurse' who has the most brilliant site posting images I always find intriguing.

The answer of course is that the top picture is a mannequin from a store found washed up on the beach and the shot below is of George Mallory's remains found on Everest after 75 years.

I found other pictures of Mallory's remains and the proved just as fascinating. Something about the snow and freezing temperatures seems to have kept things if somewhat bleached really rather intact somehow . . . . . .