worth noting


"But when we gaze at a still life, when--even though we did not pursue it--we delight in its beauty, a beauty borne away by the magnified and immobile figuration of things, we find pleasure in the fact that there was no need for longing, we may contemplate something we need not want, cherish something we need not desire. So this still life, because it embodies a beauty that speaks to our desires but was given birth by someone else's desires, because  is cossets our pleasure without in any way being part of our projects, because it is offered to us without requiring the effort of desiring on our part: this still life incarnates the quintessence of Art, the certainty of  timelessness. In the scene before our eyes--silent, without life or motion--a time exempt of projects is incarnated, perfection purloined from duration and its weary greed--pleasure without desire, existence without duration, beauty without will. For art is emotion without desire."

(Muriel Barbery, The Elegance of the Hedgehog)

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Some past thoughts on that moment when winter is almost over, and the sun simply takes over, here.  

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