Movement three · twelve aureoles · leaf only where the light already is
Gilt Edge
A circle that means she matters.
Gold on a screen is not gold. Leaf works because it reflects — it turns when you turn, it catches the candle, it is the only thing in a dark church that looks back. A screen does the opposite: it emits, it is flat, it does not care where you stand. So none of these are filled with gold. The leaf is laid on one edge only, the edge the light in that photograph is already coming from, measured off the frame itself.
The widest brim in the series does the work a nimbus does.
34 · R01 · light from the right, 17 per cent brighter
A pleated turban that opens behind the head into a disc.
35 · R17 · light from the right, 12 per cent brighter
A woven straw disc, and a band of yellow where the eyes were.
36 · R24 · light from the right, 24 per cent brighter
Satin the weight of water, wrapped until it is an aureole.
37 · R29 · light from the left, 5 per cent brighter
Rayed in orange pleat, and a white bar across the eyes.
38 · R38 · light from neither side — 2 per cent apart
A bow the size of a halo, and crystal where she would look at you.
39 · R47 · light from the right, 21 per cent brighter
No headpiece at all — the disc is on the wall behind her.
40 · R11 · light from the left, 14 per cent brighter
A hat set with crystal, held level as a plate.
41 · R25 · light from neither side — 1 per cent apart
A pale brim, tilted, and nothing behind it but colour.
42 · R02 · light from the right, 37 per cent brighter
Brim, and a net across the whole face.
43 · R49 · light from the right, 9 per cent brighter
Crowned, and blinded.
44 · R44 · light from the right, 5 per cent brighter
The disc behind the head is not a hat. You met this one at the door, and it has been the same circle all along.
45 · R33 · the halt — a circle, and nothing else in the frame