where the pretty things go

lux

“Our mind is the canvas on which the artists lay their colour; their pigments are our emotions; their chiaroscuro the light of joy, the shadow of sadness. The masterpiece is of ourselves, as we are of the masterpiece.” — Okakura Kakuzō, The Illustrated Book of Tea

venus

“Venus herself, if she were bold, would not be Venus.”

— Apuleius, from Cupid and Psyche.

textures

“Imperfection is in some sort essential to all that we know of life. It is the sign of life in a mortal body. Nothing that lives is, or can be, ridgidly perfect; part of it is decaying, part nascent. ••• All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyse vitality.” — John Ruskin, from The Stones of Venice (1851–1853)

tiger light

“The sunlight fell in stripes, tiger-like, across the bed — wild and indifferent.”