"I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom. I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients." Gustave Courbet

12 January 2017

Translucent.

Wyeth, Hoffman's Barn, 1959


Birches, snow, firewood, sky, road, fire, smoke, frost— I repeated the words that I remembered for only a slightly shorter time than I remembered myself. Birches, snow, firewood, sky, road, fire, smoke, frost— the words grew, as if they were material, had material energy; the words sounded symphonically, one through another, without blending, the frost was frosty, the fire fiery, the smoke smoky; the words became translucent, melting slightly, like pure flame, their phonetic casings lost their hardened precision, and the eye perceived the pure essence of meaning— like a bubble of air in a precious stone, refracting the light differently.

Sergei Lebedev

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