a-book-is-a-garden

[a-book-is-a-garden]

Details: The Backwater, Charles William Wyllie

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“Really, this world of ours, the scheme of things as they call it, is quite intolerable. That’s why I want the moon, or happiness, or eternal life — something, in fact, that may sound crazy, but which isn’t of this world.”

- Albert Camus, “Caligula”

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The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888 - oil on canvas. — Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch, 1836-1912)

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The Danaides by John William Waterhouse (1903)

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“Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him. And he must have a strong sense of the sardonic. This is what uncouples him from belief in his own pretensions. The sardonic is all that permits him to move within himself. Without this quality, even occasional greatness will destroy a man.”

— Frank Herbert, “Dune”

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Plein Soleil (1960)

“I am not a star. I am an actor. I have been fighting for years to make people forget that I am just a pretty boy with a beautiful face. It's a hard fight, but I will win it. I want the public to realize that above all I am an actor, a very professional one who loves every minute of being in front of the camera. But one who becomes very miserable the instant the director shouts, 'Cut!”

- Alain Delon

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“Beauty has as many meanings as man has moods. Beauty is the symbol of symbols. Beauty reveals everything, because it expresses nothing. When it shows us itself, it shows us the whole fiery-coloured world.”

- Oscar Wilde, “The Critic As Artist”

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The Death of Cleopatra, 1890

John Collier

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Sea Melodies by Herbert James Draper (1904)

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In spite of all the refinements of civilization that conspired to make art—the dizzying perfection of the string quartet or the sprawling grandeur of Frangonard’s canvases—beauty was savage. It was as dangerous and lawless as the earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.”

- Anne Rice, “The Vampire Lestat”

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Gene Tierney

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“And yet, […] if I was strong enough, and patient enough… […] …I know what kind of life I’d have. I wouldn’t make an experiment out of my life: I would be the experiment of my life. Yes, I know what passion would fill me with all its power. Before, I was too young. I got in the way. Now I know that acting and loving and suffering is living, of course, but it’s living only in so far as you can be transparent and accept your fate, like the unique reflection of a rainbow of joys and passions which is the me for everyone.”

- Albert Camus, “A Happy Death”

[a-book-is-a-garden]

The Roses of Heliogabalus, 1888 - oil on canvas. — Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (Dutch, 1836-1912)

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Hedy Lamarr, 1940s

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The Human Seasons

by John Keats Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;      There are four seasons in the mind of man: He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear      Takes in all beauty with an easy span: He has his Summer, when luxuriously      Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves To ruminate, and by such dreaming high      Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings      He furleth close; contented so to look On mists in idleness—to let fair things      Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook. He has his Winter too of pale misfeature, Or else he would forego his mortal nature.