Paintings of Caspar David Friedrich

The wanderer above the sea of fog

Chalk Cliffs on Rügen

Winter landscape with church

Mountain Landscape with Rainbow

Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840) is among the greatest artists in history, his paintings show the power of Romantic art to evoke grandeur and awe by attesting to the sheer beauty and vastitude of nature.

Quotable

"Amongst all possessions knowledge appears pre-eminent. The wise call it supreme riches, because it can never be lost, has no price, and can at no time be destroyed." - Hitopadesa

Literature Pick #14

The Thirty-Nine Steps
By John Buchan
First published in 1915, this is a masterful spy adventure thriller set right before the breakout of World War I. This is the first of five novels featuring the heroic protagonist Richard Hannay, a man with a certain knack for stumbling into trouble and then miraculously escaping it. I also recommend Alfred Hitchcock's 1935 movie version, even though it does differ significantly from the book.

Quotable

"One of the deepest and strangest of all human moods is the mood which will suddenly strike us perhaps in a garden at night, or deep in sloping meadows, the feeling that every flower and leaf has just uttered something stupendously direct and important, and that we have by a prodigy of imbecility not heard or understood it. There is a certain poetic value, and that a genuine one, in this sense of having missed the full meaning of things. There is beauty, not only in wisdom, but in this dazed and dramatic ignorance." - G. K. Chesterton

Paintings of William Stanley Haseltine

Arco Naturale, Capri

Morning LIght, Roman Campagna

William Stanley Haseltine (1835-1900)
Haseltine was one of the best American artists, he was a master of landscape art and is one of the legends of the Hudson River School style of art.

Santa Maria della Salute, Sunset

Mt. Aetna from Taormina

Quotable

"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
Edgar Allan Poe - Eleonora (1841)

Orion the Hunter

Orion the Hunter

from Leiden Aratea
by an unknown artist

Leiden Aratea is a 9th century AD illuminated copy of an astronomical treatise by Germanicus, who based his work on Phaenomena, an ancient Greek poem about the constellations written by Aratus, who himself based his work on a lost work by Eudoxus of Cnidus, a student of Plato.

Literature Pick #13

The Sky Trap

by Frank Belknap Long (1901-1994)

From the July 1941 issue of Comet, this is a wonderfully imaginative and exciting work of science fiction.

Favorite Actress Showcase #3: Danielle Fishel

Danielle Fishel played Topanga Lawrence on Boy Meets World, one of the greatest television shows ever made. More recently she has been the host of The Dish on the Style network, a channel I don't even have, luckily there're clips of the show on Youtube. The show is like The Soup but with a much hotter host. Danielle is stunningly beautiful and should be getting way better acting roles.

Deer Among Red-leaved Maple Trees

Deer Among Red-leaved Maple Trees
by an unknown artist
10th century Chinese painting - ink and colors on silk.

Jean-Honoré Fragonard art

Rinaldo in the garden of Armida

by Jean-Honoré Fragonard

This painting is based on Torquato Tasso's epic poem Jerusalem Delivered. Fragonard (1732-1806) was a French Rococo artist, he painted this work circa 1763.

Literature Pick #12

The Talkative Tree 

by Horace Brown Fyfe
From the January 1962 issue of Worlds of If, this is an imaginative science fiction story.

Literature Pick #11

The Delegate from Venus

by Henry Slesar

A brilliant science fiction short story first published in the October 1958 issue of Amazing Science Fiction Stories.

Mountain landscape by Paul Bril

Mountain landscape by Paul Bril

Bril was born in Antwerp in 1554 and was a noted painter of landscapes and Capriccio art (works depicting fantastical architectural scenes). His brother Matthijs was also a well-known artist. This work is oil on copper and painted in the 1590's, the size is 4.6 × 6.9 inches.

Literature Pick #10

The Attendant's Confession

by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), from Brazilian Tales

A masterful short story written by one of Brazil's greatest literary masters.