on sublimity

Several years ago we embarked on a tour of the Continent for our (long delayed) honeymoon. The wife being the wife, we shlepped through nearly every notable museum in Holland and Paris (save the Musée Rodin) and even took an art excursion in Düsseldorf.

After returning home the question arose- what was the most amazing thing we saw on our trip? We both named this painting by Leonardo Da Vinci:




It's about the size of a salad plate, painted on a plank of not particularly fine grained wood. Reproductions never do paintings justice but this one is particularly ill served, a 40 watt bulb playing at being the sun. 'Luminous' is one of the most gratuitously abused descriptors of the past decade, but wholly appropriate here. Her face hangs shining in space, untethered from this mortal coil by the profound insight of artistic genius.


Apropos of the above paragraphs, I give you The Fuss in repose.