carlb, perhaps you’ll like this Singer Sargent painting: The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit. Tintern Abbey is a great example of medieval architecture.
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To add a different kind of beauty, perhaps the most eloquent speech ever made in English:
*Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.*
Composed by Rachmaninoff exactly 100 years ago, set to
Hubble imagery.
The Lion of Lucerne by Bertel Thorvaldsen. Mark Twain praised the sculpture of a mortally-wounded lion as “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”
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Only some abstract painting speaks to me. I recently discovered Tableau Vert by Ellsworth Kelly and find it mesmerizing, and if I ever get to Chicago again will make sure I see it in person.
I’m very arbophilic and when I was living briefly in a treeless region, a poster of Eliot Porter’s “Path in the Woods” sustained me.
Likewise this tumblr post collection of a few images of forest tunnels formed by trees is lovely.
This twitter feed has some lovely images: https://twitter.com/MicroscopePics
Sigur Rós - Ára Bátur
Carl Sagan - The Pale Blue Dot
Those were absolutely gorgeous!
Beauty in every day life…
Full disclosure: I am not claiming this as my work. I snarfed it from a railroad related board to use as computer wallpaper.
The Song of Purple Summer, from the musical Spring Awakening
The first of those reminds me of Spirited Away (can’t remember if there’s a scene like that or not, but it feels right), and several of the others call up Lord of the Rings.
I saw this live - it brought tears to my eyes.
(I have no idea what’s being said, but it must be about unrequited or lost love judging by the emotion)
Renoir’s use of black and white are unparalleled.
I apologize if double posts are not cool but I forgot about this video and song. It’s a compilation of young people dancing the same dance to the same song. It just rains sunshine on my heart and gives me the feels.