Poetic Oneirism: 霓裳羽衣

“peut-être n’y a-t-il que le beau qui nous humanise”

～Alain, Propos sur l’esthétique, 1923

We live only to discover beauty. All else is a form of waiting.

There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing.

～Kahlil Gibran

昔者莊周夢為胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也。自喻適志與！不知周也。俄然覺，則蘧蘧然周也。不知周之夢為胡蝶與？胡蝶之夢為周與？周與胡蝶，則必有分矣。此之謂物化。

《莊周夢蝶》

Our hands imbibe like roots, so I place them on what is beautiful in this world. And I fold them in prayer, and they draw from the heavens, light.

～St. Francis of Assisi

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

Thursday, 13 May 2010

霓裳羽衣

I have a special affection for traditional costumes and textiles of the Orient - Chinese qipao (旗袍), Japanese kimono (著物), Korean hanbok (韓袍), Indian sari, and the exquisite beauty of silks, embroidery, tie-dyed Ikat and Batik, Japanese sarasa (和更紗)... The list goes on and on. At the moment, I am particularly smitten over the stunning beauty of Hanbok.

一場春夢, "Spring Reverie,"
photography by Gun-Ho Lee for Vogue Korea.