Bertha's eyes

One of my favourite subjects: reflections! Nowadays mannequins in shop windows are dismally boring.... No face worth the name, sometimes not even a head, it is just cut at the neck (doesn't it remind you of some old French tradition? Yes exactly the guillotine...).

To me, mannequins (when they have a real face and are not also somethings out of the early 70s and have knock marks all over and eyelashes that on their way done got stuck onto one cheek...) are fascinating! Like this one for instance you feel like she is actually breathing, thinking, probably of her lover or someone she'd love sometime ago.... I am struck by her beauty!

The title of this post is called Bertha's eyes because I wanted to find a poem about eyes (I don't think this mannequin is named Bertha...I doubt very much that she's got a name even as beautiful and human-like that she is...). The poem is by Charles Baudelaire (not his best work but as I said it was all about eyes):

Bertha’s Eyes

You can scorn more illustrious eyes,
sweet eyes of my child, through which there takes flight
something as good or as tender as night.
Turn to mine your charmed shadows, sweet eyes!
Great eyes of a child, adorable secrets,
you resemble those grottoes of magic
where, behind the dark and lethargic,
shine vague treasures the world forgets.
My child has veiled eyes, profound and vast,
and shining like you, Night, immense, above!
Their fires are of Trust, mixed with thoughts of Love,
that glitter in depths, voluptuous or chaste.

Charles Baudelaire

I hope you'll enjoy observing her features as much as I did....