Tales Most Disturbing

The Nightingale

Book Diorama (table top or wall mounted)

Paper Mache Assemblage

Book:8.5″H x 6.5″W x 2″D; Stand: 10″H x 8″W

This diorama is part of the Tales Most Disturbing series.

This fairytale-inspired series is hand painted and constructed to resemble an old treasured tome.

Displayed on their own stand… each little diorama book tells a tale not so happily ever after.   

The Nightingale…  In making this piece I was inspired to revisit one of my favorite tales, The Nightingale and the Rose, by Oscar Wilde.

a brutally tragic tale of self-sacrifice. In this story, the nightingale so loved the poet that she impaled herself on a white rose to produce the red rose that he confessed he wanted. 

The hand-painted, original poem inside the book reads:

“Found impaled among the thorns
She tells the tale of loss,
Her bleeding heart forever mourns the love
And what it cost…

There’s a hole in my heart where there used to be skin,
Yet despite all the warnings, I let you come in..
So now I am broken and that is my sin.
If my fate is to suffer, then let it begin.”

View the gallery pages of the other pieces in the Tales Most Disturbing Series: A Cautionary Tale, The Skeleton Woman, The Handless Maiden, The Witch of the Wood, Moonlit Vigil and Shadowlands.