AIBU - Princess Diana new statue

[ForeverAintEnough3]

She was a style icon yet she’s in one of those frumpy waist belts that were only in fashion briefly. The face does nothing to represent how beautiful she was. It’s too harsh.

Diana is the pied piper and the third child is calling his mates to come along too.

Hidden bairn looks like he's about to get a punch in the face with a closed fist from eyes closed for some reason girl in front... I can't see you so I didn't punch you on purpose.......

Oh sorry my brain switched the word order. Doh.

The ladygirl is about 600 years old and might be a vampire.

She is about to do a back wallop to the hidden bairn for getting too close to the wrist.

Check the fist …

It’s not great for reasons you say, but also I find one of the children looks older like an adult

The overall effect is a bit off

Sd

We are one 🤣

It's really just her face I don't like, it isn't like her enough. I think the children around her is a bit mawkish but she famously loved children and was very tactile so it suits her.

It’s just, if you’re the most privileged rich lady in the land, senior member of the ruling elite family, there isn’t a way of shepherding other people’s children that looks quite right. I think that’s the basic problem. Plus her blank face doesn’t help. You smile when you’re interacting with other people’s children, and you talk to them. She is just marching off somewhere with them.

The only way it reads well is as a representation of a teacher or children’s worker. Which takes me right back to my initial impression that they should have made it here at 20 with her little charges from the Pimlico kindergarten l.

@SheldonesqueTheBstard - reminds me of many family events with my sister......."but muuuuuummmmmm, I was trying to be a windmill and she just got in the way. It's not my fault.......she did it to herself......."

That's a lovely statue of Jamie Lee Curtis. Not sure about the girl with 3 arms though.

Let's be honest, it's okay but it could have been amazing. She's a great subject. A missed opportunity really.

lol at the boy pointing at the shoe thief :) I don’t know about white saviour but it is very odd with the kids having no shoes (or some of them at least). Why no shoes, is that supposed to represent playfulness?

Here’s an explosive comment…. I think a woman should have done the statue. This man-angel with waifs concept is peculiar and overly idealised, particularly when she DID do lots with kids and was so lively and animated around them. They could have used an actual real-life scenario. The white kids certainly look creepy AF. It is pied piper-like she’s leading them not protecting them, but her hard face makes her look sinister so leading to something a bit weird.

Saying that didn’t a woman do the tits statue for Wollstonecraft so who knows 🤷‍♀️

It looks more like Richard Madely than Princess Diana.It's so awful;she was very slim with delicate features this is so masculine.

Also bronze is just so tough looking!! Marble would have been really lovely

sd1978

Aye. Was on the receiving end of many a clatter

I should’ve been made from bronze…

It’s terrible. It looks really tacky.

My first thought (thanks to attending RC schools) was they made a Madonna

This was mine too. I think she looks quite scary, the chest is definitely all wrong and she looks sort of cross. Also it’s a bit Pied Piper ish

I thought it would be more like the Keats statue in Chichester

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.chichester.co.uk/arts-and-culture/take-seat-next-keats-841403%3famp

Or they could have been bolder like the Venus and cupid in Morecambe Bay

exploremorecambebay.org.uk/things-to-do/venus-and-cupid-sculpture/

I wouldn't say she had delicate features. Her nose was huge.

Does anyone know - will it weather and become shinier like other bronze statues? Or is this the colour it will be - it’s so leaden.

@C130

Some of these comments are so offensive. It did not take to long for the first offhand comment about the black child to start did it? What is wrong with some people?

Mumsnet has a massive problem with Covert and sometimes less convert racism.

thebigmove21

You miss my point severely.

I welcome statues of people of any colour- and in fact we are bereft of statues of non white people of note in general.
It is the stereotypical portrayal of black people as an underclass looking to white priviledged as saviours that I take issue with.
It is such lazy shorthand.

@speakout

thebigmove21

You miss my point severely.

I welcome statues of people of any colour- and in fact we are bereft of statues of non white people of note in general.
It is the stereotypical portrayal of black people as an underclass looking to white priviledged as saviours that I take issue with.
It is such lazy shorthand.

The point is that is your view that you are projecting on to this sculpture. Perhaps you need to look inwardly and re assess some of your assumptions.

I think statues of famous people in action are not a good idea. Many of our heroes have been captured in a formal pose - literally posing and being themselves. The sculptor has embued Nelson, etc., with the quality of solemnity and statespersonship, and they, it feels, are consciously giving their dignity to us - as a tribute to nationhood, or community.

If it's a generic figure representing flight, joy or dance, then movement, but I think famous people are better captured standing still and poised and being themselves. I don't think it's easy to tell a story in bronze, and keep it formal. ( Ok for 'thr lovers' etc but not for a very famous person whose statue will be standing there for centuries).

As a poster said, Diana had so many mannerisms, such as crouching down, and leaning forward to a person, and looking up through her fringe - head on one side, that it would have been good to choose such a moment, as long as it's a static one.