Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace. Hermitage Museum, St.Petersbourg.
“I think in pictures. Poems help me with this. They are like buoys in the sea. I swim to them, from one to the other. In between, without them, I am lost. They are the handholds where something masses together in the infinite expanse.”
— Exhibition “Anselm Kiefer, for Velimir Khlebnikov”
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“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” - Audrey Hepburn
Exhibition Peter Paul Rubens and the Birth of Baroque - Milan, Royal Palace.
- Ganymede (1611-1612), oil on canvas;
- Saturn Devouring His Son (1636-1638) and The Death of Seneca (1612-1615), oil on canvas;
- The Circumcision of Christ (1605), oil on canvas;
- Lamentation over the Dead Christ (1613-1614) oil on canvas;
- Portrait of Clara Serena Rubens (1616), oil on canvas, detail.
Discourse on the Passion of Love.
“Beauty is divided in a thousand different ways. The most proper object to sustain it is a woman. When she has intellect, she enlivens it and sets it off marvellously. If a woman wishes to please, and possesses the advantages of beauty or a portion of them at least, she will succeed; and even though men take ever so little heed of it, although she does not strive for it, she will make herself loved. There is an accessible point in their hearts; she will take up her abode there. [..] The pleasure of loving without daring to tell it, has its pains, but it has its joys also. What transport do we not feel in moulding all our actions in view of pleasing the person whom we infinitely esteem! We study each day to find the means of revealing ourselves, and thus employ as much time as if we were holding converse with the one whom we love. The eyes kindle and grow dim at the same moment, and although we do not see plainly that the one who causes this disorder takes heed of it, we still have the satisfaction of feeling all these emotions for a person who deserves them so well. We would gladly have a hundred tongues to make it known; for as we cannot make use of words, we are obliged to confine ourselves to the eloquence of action. [..] In love, silence is of more avail than speech. It is good to be abashed; there is an eloquence in silence that penetrates more deeply than language can. How well a lover persuades his mistress when he is abashed before her, who elsewhere has so much presence of mind! Whatever vivacity we may have, it is well that in certain junctures it should be extinguished. All this takes place without rule or reflection, and when the mind acts, it is without thinking of it beforehand. This happens through necessity. We often adore one that is unconscious of it, and do not fail to preserve an inviolable fidelity, although its object knows nothing of it. But this love must be very refined or very pure.” Blaise Pascal. quotes 18, 34, 47.
Michelangelo’s David - Galleria dell’Accademia, Firenze (1502-1504).
“Beauty is the only thing that time cannot harm. Philosophies fall away like sand, and creeds follow one another like the withered leaves of autumn; but what is beautiful is a joy for all seasons and a possession for all eternity” - Oscar Wilde
Walking in my mind
“Beauty is not quality in things themselves: it exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.”- David Hume
Elke Krystufek: Size does not matter, age does matter (2006) Centre Pompidou - Paris