"That pleasure which is at once the most pure, the most elevating and the most intense, is derived, I maintain, from the contemplation of the beautiful." ～Edgar Allan Poe / "Understood in its metaphysical sense, Beauty is one of the manifestations of the Absolute Being. Emanating from the harmonious rays of the Divine plan, it crosses the intellectual plane to shine once again across the natural plane, where it darkens into matter." ～Jean Delville
To feel most beautifully alive means to be reading something beautiful, ready always to apprehend in the flow of language the sudden flash of poetry.
～G. Bachelard
I would define the poetic effect as the capacity that a text displays for continuing to generate different readings, without ever being completely consumed.
～Umberto Eco
Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege.
～Thomas Mann
Stay, little ounce, here in/ Fleece and leaf with me, in the evermore/ Where swans trembled in the lake around our bed of hay and morning/ Came each morning like a felt cloak billowing/ Across the most pale day. It was the color of a steeple disappearing/ In an old Venetian sky. (...)
Would they take/ You now from me, like Leonardo's sleeve disappearing in/ The air. And when I woke I could not wake/ You, little sphinx, I could not keep you here with me./ Anywhere, I could not bear to let you go. Stay here/ In our clouded bed of wind and timothy with me./ Lie here with me in snow.
~For a Snow Leopard in October, Lucie Brock-Broido
Water Stains on the Wall is Mr. Lin Hwai-Min's fourth piece inspired by the aesthetics, spirit, beauty and philosophy behind the art of Chinese calligraphy and writing (after the breathtaking Cursive Trilogy: Cursive, Cursive II and Mad Cursive). Inhabiting a rather different sphere—"air" (clouds were his original source of inspiration in the creative process of Water Stains on the Wall, and images of clouds are used lavishly and beautifully in the stage design of this piece), for me, Water Stains on the Wall is perfection, transcendence, magnificence, the purest form of poetry and consciousness. I think I might be even more in love with it than with Moon Water, which, up until now, is my favourite piece in Mr. Lin Hwai-Min's oeuvre and what started my profound love affair with Cloud Gate Dance Theatre...
It was a magical evening, when I saw ethereal yet exquisitely powerful swans gliding in space with perfectly controlled 氣 ("chi" or "prana"). The dancers' breathing was as beautiful as a calligraphic work, as the movements and music themselves...
*Lucia Lacarra as Swanhilde in the ballet Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann (The Sandman), and Die Puppe (The Doll). The ballet premiered on 25 May 1870 at the Théâtre Impérial de l´Opéra, with Giuseppina Bozzacchi in the principal role of Swanhilde. Its first flush of success was interrupted by the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris, but eventually it became the most-performed ballet at the Opera Garnier. The team of Saint-Léon and Nuittier had a previous success with the ballet La Source (1860), for which Délibes had composed the music jointly with Ludwig Minkus.
Giuseppina Bozzacchi as Swanhilde in the Saint-Léon/Delibes "Coppélia," Act I, Scene 2. Paris, 1870.
The story of Coppélia concerns a mysterious and faintly diabolical inventor, Doctor Coppélius who has made a life-size dancing doll. It is so lifelike that Franz, a village swain, is infatuated with it, and sets aside his true heart's desire, Swanhilde, who in Act II shows him his folly by dressing as the doll and pretending to come to life. The festive wedding-day divertissements in the village square that occupy Act III are often deleted in modern danced versions, though one of the entrées was the first csárdás presented on a ballet stage. If Mary Shelley's Frankenstein represents the dark side of the theme of scientist as creator of life, then Coppélia is the light side. If Giselle is a tragedy set in a peasant village, then Coppélia is a comedy in the same setting.
Giuseppina Bozzacchi as Swanhilde in the Saint-Léon/Delibes "Coppélia," Act I, Scene 2. Paris, 1870.
*Also, from Takeshi "Beat" Kitano's ravishing and heartrending 2002 film Dolls... (I literally had to hold my tears while watching its premiere at the Renoir Cinema in London...)
Adolph de Meyer (American, born France, 1868–1949)
view through the window of a garden
in time of daffodils(who know the goal of living is to grow) forgetting why,remember how in time of lilacs who proclaim the aim of waking is to dream, remember so(forgetting seem) in time of roses(who amaze our now and here with paradise) forgetting if,remember yes in time of all sweet things beyond whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek(forgetting find)
and in a mystery to be (when time from time shall set us free) forgetting me,remember me
~ edward estlin cummings
*Thank you Alain, for this thoughtful and exquisite poem by e.e. cummings. Thank you M♥, for Harmonic Progression of My Sorrow. And thank you Couleurs, for the two beautiful Adolph de Meyer photographs.
Adolph de Meyer (American, born France, 1868–1949)
I offer every fruit and flower And every kind of healing medicine; And all the precious things the world affords, With all pure waters of refreshment; Every mountain, rich and filled with jewels; All sweet and lonely forest groves; The trees of heaven, garlanded with blossom, And branches heavy, laden with their fruit;
perhaps my favourite photo amongst everything I took during this trip to Bhutan — a local woman walking in the rice paddies we saw on our way to the Divine Madman's Temple in Punakha
a pink rose at the gate to the National Museum in Paro
at the Garden of Dreams, Kathmandu, Nepal (we flew to Bhutan via Kathmandu, a city I shall never return to)
The perfumed fragrance of the realms of gods and men; All incense, wish trees, and trees of gems; All crops that grow without the tiller’s care And every sumptuous object worthy to be offered; Lakes and meres adorned with lotuses, All plaintive with the sweet-voiced cries of water birds And lovely to the eyes, and all things wild and free, Stretching to the boundless limits of the sky;
fresh flower offerings (from the pink roses right outside the gate) at the entrance of Paro Dzong
following the monk's footsteps near Paro Dzong
I simply adore these divine Bhutanese mountains. They are even more beautiful than paintings...
I hold them all before my mind, and to the supreme Buddhas And their heirs will make a perfect gift of them. O, think of me with love, compassionate lords; Sacred objects of my prayers, accept these offerings.
Weaving/textile is the national art and treasure of Bhutan. Some of these extremely intricate "kira" (traditional Bhutanese costume for women) cloths require painful precision and tremendous patience. The finished textile features such delicate patterns that at first glance they resemble embroideries, and yet everything is woven and a tiny knot is tied at every single thread, every time... For an experienced weaver it can take 2 to 4 months to finish a single piece for the kira.
Punakha Dzong, with the magnificent view of the confluence of the bluish grey Mo Chhu (Mother River, left) and the white Po Chhu (Father River, right). Yin and Yang in perfect harmony. In wintertime the Mother River turns a deep sapphire whilst the Father River stays white. Taiwanese artist Prof. Dan-Fong Liang (梁丹丰) painted a watercolour of this heartbreakingly beautiful sight.
The temple inside Punakha Dzong. The ceremony to consecrate the festival starting next day was about to take place. We joined in, and it was surreal. My favourite was the Dance of Heroes performed by young monks (no filming/photography allowed) — the whole experience there with the lamas chanting, amazing music and stunning dance, followed by meditation, was mesmerising and hypnotic. It is something I will never forget.
I celebrated my 30th birthday in the magical mountain kingdom Bhutan, and had the most unforgettable and incredible time. It had always been a dream of mine to visit the Land of the Thunderdragon, and Bhutan turned out to be more stunning and magnificent than I could ever imagine. I will perhaps write more about this trip later, but at the moment I feel that the beauty and wonder of Bhutan are impossible to describe with words. There are so many stories to tell, so much beauty to share, and yet when encountered with such pure beauty I was left feeling speechless. I already started missing Bhutan at Paro Airport on the day we left, and now I miss it even more every single day. Bhutan is utterly unique. It is the most special and beautiful country I have ever seen. I cannot wait to be back...
simple life at the nunnery
the nuns (many of them extremely young), living high up in the mountain with clouds
gorgeous rainbow over the emerald valley of Paro
On our way to the Divine Madman's Temple. The landscapes and rice fields were so unimaginably beautiful that I felt as if I was walking inside Millet's painting "The Gleaners" (although Millet's painting depicts wheat fields)...
If you catch a fragrance of the unseen, like that, you will not be able to be contained. You will be out in empty sky. Any beauty the world has, any desire will easily be yours. As you live deeper in the heart, the mirror gets clearer and cleaner.
～Mevlâna Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks
flying prayer flags near Tiger's Nest (Taktsang Goemba)
young monks at Paro Dzong (where "Little Buddha" was filmed)
me in front of my favourite Punakha Dzong at the confluence of Mo Chhu and Po Chhu — a breathtaking sight to behold
*A compilation of super short videos we took in Bhutan (and last few in Nepal)... In addition to being quite fun to watch and wonderful to reminisce, videos do give you a very realistic sense of the space which is rather different from what may be conveyed in photographs.
*Undoubtedly, I took a tremendous amount of photographs in Bhutan. You can look at them in my online photo albums here, here and here.*
This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief. But there's a difference with this dream. Everything cruel and unconscious done in the illusion of the present world, all that does not fade away at the death-waking. It stays, and it must be interpreted. And this groggy time we live, this is what it's like: A man goes to sleep in the town where he has always lived and he dreams he's living in another town. In the dream, he doesn't remember the town he's sleeping in his bed in. He believes the reality of the dream town. The world is that kind of sleep. The dust of many crumbled cities settles over us like a forgetful doze, but we are older than those cities. We began as a mineral. We emerged into plant life and into the animal state, and then into being human, and always we have forgotten our former states, except in early spring when we slightly recall being green again. That's how a young person turns toward a teacher. That's how a baby leans toward the breast, without knowing the secret of its desire, yet turning instinctively. Humankind is being led along an evolving course, through this migration of intelligences, and though we seem to be sleeping, there is an inner wakefulness that directs the dream, and that will eventually startle us back to the truth of who we are.
~ Mevlana Rumi; translation by Coleman Barks
Bucheinband, 18th century book cover
Coloured Baroque so-called paper rose, embossed papers,with stencils and gold.
Although having always been attracted to ancient Chinese culture and artefacts, I only fell in love with Chinese bronzeware "properly" during the studies of Chinese art and archaeology in my first year of university. Amongst various beautiful objects, the mystical and highly aesthetic bronze mirrors are my favourite.
Bronzes (simplified Chinese: 青铜器; traditional Chinese: 青銅器; pinyin: qīng tóng qì; Wade-Giles: ch'ing t'ong ch'i) are some of the most important pieces of Chinese art, warranting an entire separate catalogue in the Imperial art collections. The Chinese Bronze Age began in the Xia Dynasty, and bronze ritual containers form the bulk of the collection of Chinese antiques, reaching its zenith during the Zhou Dynasty. The appreciation, creation and collection of Chinese bronzes as pieces of art and not as ritual items began in the Song Dynasty and reached its zenith in the Qing Dynasty in the reign of the Qianlong emperor, whose massive collection is recorded in the catalogues known as the Xiqing gujian (西清古鑑) and the Xiqing jijian (西清繼鑑). Within those two catalogues, the bronzeware is categorised according to use: Sacrificial vessels (祭器), Wine vessels (酒器), Food vessels (食器), Water vessels (水器), Musical instruments (樂器), Weapons (兵器), Measuring containers (量器), Ancient money (錢幣), and Miscellaneous (雜器).
The most highly prized are generally the sacrificial and wine vessels, which form the majority of most collections. Often these vessels are elaborately decorated with Taotie (饕餮) patterns.
Tang Dynasty bronze mirror, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
周 羽狀紋鏡 徑11.1X厚0.3
器形：鏡/ 功能：生活用具/ 技法：塊範法/ 紋飾：四葉捲草紋，瑞獸
臺灣國立歷史博物館
Zhou Dynasty bronze mirror, National History Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
In China, the greatest part of discovered and preserved bronze items were not forged to ploughs or swords but cast to sacrificial vessels. Even a great part of weapons had a sacrificial meaning like daggers and axes that symbolised the heavenly power of the ruler. The strong religious sense of bronze objects brought up a great number of vessel types and shapes which became so typical that they should be copied as archaic style receptacles with other materials like wood, jade, ivory or even gold until the 20th century.
The ritual books of old China minutely describe who was allowed to use what kinds of sacrificial vessels and how much. The king of Zhou was favoured to use 9 dings and 8 gui vessels, a duke was allowed to use 7 dings and 6 guis, a baron could use 5 dings and 3 guis, a nobleman was allowed to use 3 dings and 2 guis.
Western-Han Dynasty bronze mirror, National History Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
唐 玉匣鏡 直徑16.0公分
圓鏡，圓鈕、四葉紋鈕座。內區飾四獸紋與規矩紋，外區銘文帶二十字。
臺灣國立故宮博物院
Tang Dynasty bronze mirror, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
宋 謝少塘造青鏡 直徑11.3公分
圓鏡，橋鈕、圓鈕座。鏡背飾乳丁紋與雲紋。有銘二處各四字。
臺灣國立故宮博物院
Song Dynasty bronze mirror, National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan.
Bronze mirrors were produced in China from neolithic times until the Qing Dynasty, when western glass mirrors were brought to China. Bronze mirrors were usually circular, with one side polished bright, to give a reflection, and the reverse side with designs. They often had a knob in the center so that they could be attached to clothing. Some of the earliest examples of Chinese bronze mirrors belonged to the Neolithic Qijia culture from around 2000 BCE. However, until Warring States times, bronze mirrors were not common with approximately only twenty having been discovered. During the Warring States period, mirrors became particularly popular. It was during the Han Dynasty, and the introduction of the TLV mirror, that mirrors started to be mass-produced. Both Han and Tang mirrors are considered to be the most technically advanced. Bronze mirrors continued to remain popular up through the Song Dynasty, but then gradually lost their popularity and ceased to be produced after the arrival of Western mirrors during the Ming and Qing dynasties.
"It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony." — Benjamin Britten
Ysaÿe's hand
David Oistrakh plays Eugène Ysaÿe's Sonata for Solo Violin in D Minor, Op. 27, #3.
"Music, of all the arts, stands in a special region, unlit by any star but its own, and utterly without meaning ... except its own." — Leonard Bernstein, The Joy of Music
Selections from Eugène Ysaÿe's Six Sonatas for Solo Violin, Opus 27, performed by Ilya Kaler. (Thank you, GeorgeEnescu, for sharing such beauty.)
"... music, since it passes over the Ideas, is... quite independent of the phenomenal world, positively ignores it, and, to a certain extent, could still exist even if there were no world at all, which cannot be said of the other arts." — Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation
.jpg)
+1980%E5%B9%B4%E9%99%9C%E8%A5%BF%E6%BC%A2%E4%B8%AD%E5%9C%B0%E5%8D%80%E8%A5%BF%E9%84%89%E7%B8%A3%E5%87%BA%E5%9C%9F%EF%BC%8C%E7%9B%B4%E5%BE%9129%E9%87%90%E7%B1%B3%EF%BC%8C%E9%99%9C%E8%A5%BF%E6%AD%B7%E5%8F%B2%E5%8D%9A%E7%89%A9%E9%A4%A8%E8%97%8F%E3%80%82%E5%9C%93%E5%BD%A2%EF%BC%8C%E8%87%A5%E7%8D%B8%E9%88%95%EF%BC%8C%E9%8F%A1%E9%9D%A2%E5%88%86%E5%85%A9%E5%8D%80%E3%80%82%E5%85%A7%E5%8D%80%E9%A3%BE%E5%85%AD%E9%9A%BB%E7%91%9E%E7%8D%B8%E6%94%80%E6%8F%B4%E8%91%A1%E8%90%84%E6%9E%9D%E8%94%93%EF%BC%8C%E5%A4%96%E5%8D%80%E9%A3%9B%E7%A6%BD%E3%80%81%E7%95%B0%E7%8D%B8%E5%90%8C%E5%90%91%E7%A9%BF%E6%A2%AD%E4%BA%8E%E8%91%A1%E8%90%84%E6%9E%9D%E8%91%89%E4%B9%8B%E9%96%93%EF%BC%8C%E7%94%9F%E5%8B%95%E6%B4%BB%E6%BD%91%E3%80%82%E5%9C%96%E6%A1%88%E7%AB%8B%E9%AB%94%E6%84%9F%E6%A5%B5%E5%BC%B7%E3%80%82.jpg)
