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You Who Never Arrived

Rainer Maria Rilke


You who never arrived 
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost 
from the start, 
I don't even know what songs 
would please you. I have given up trying 
to recognize you in the surging wave of 
the next moment. All the immense 
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt 
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and 
unsuspected turns in the path, 
and those powerful lands that were once 
pulsing with the life of the gods-- 
all rise within me to mean 
you, who forever elude me. 

You, Beloved, who are all 
the gardens I have ever gazed at, 
longing. An open window 
in a country house-- , and you almost 
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,-- 
you had just walked down them and vanished. 
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors 
were still dizzy with your presence and, 
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same 
bird echoed through both of us 
yesterday, separate, in the evening... 

where the soul returns to itself

Henri Le Sidaner

you know, that lovely region where the soul returns 

to itself and  enjoys sweet repose;

Claude Monet

where everything exudes peace and tranquillity;

Johannes Weissenbruch

 where the soul, in the presence of God’s immaculate creation, 

shakes off the yoke of convention, forgets society and frees itself 

from its bonds with the vigour of returning youth; 

Robert Julian Onderdonk 

where every thought takes on the form of prayer;  




Claude Monet




Henri Lebasque


Henri Matisse,Tea




harold harvey 

John Henri Twachtma

Stormy Sea, Brighton (Detail) - John Constable

where the heart is emptied of everything that is not 

in harmony with the freshness and freedom of nature.

Judith Bridgland

Oh, there the weary soul finds calm; there, 
the exhausted man regains a youthful strength. 


Pierre Bonnard


Alfred Sisley


Theo Kurpershoek


Claude Monet

James Durden



Richard Edward or Emil Miller 

Elin Kleopatra Danielson Gambogi

 days of ineffable joy for my soul: smiling at the sun 

when, in all its majesty, it casts its first rays over 

the horizon; watching the countryside awaken and 

catching the first notes of the glorious hymn it 

addresses to heaven; roaming heaths and forests

Henri Martin 

questioning my soul — and thinking — scrutinizing 
and admiring the life of plants and animals, taking 
deep breaths of the pure air, stopping, going on, 
turning back, and talking out loud in the solitude; 
dreaming of splendid things: of God, of the future, 
of our dear Flanders, of peace and love. 

Claude Monet




title and all lines from Henri Conscience's Le conscrit (The conscript)

the littleness of life that art exaggerates

Patrick Palme


Pratt Talent,'Woman Hanging Clothes'





Algernon Cecil Newton, 'The Backs of Houses, Harley Street, London'





Giorgio Morandi, 'Courtyard on the Via Fondazza' 


Anthony Green, 'The Dinner Party'


Bruno Vekemans


Hyuro


Nese Erdok


 Stanley Reed


Sandra Flood


David Levine


Roger Fry


Lucian Freud, 'Girl in a Dark Jacket'


Walt Kuhn, 'Dreaming Girl'


Helene Delmaire


Jan van der Kooi


Sarah Gillespie




Clifton Pugh

"To become imperceptible oneself, to have dismantled love 
in order to become capable of loving. To have dismantled 
one's self in order finally to be alone and meet the true double 
at the other end of the line. A clandestine passenger on a motionless 
voyage. To become like everybody else; but this, precisely, 
is a becoming only for one who knows how to be nobody, 
to no longer be anybody. To paint oneself gray on gray.”


Marie Laurencin - Self portrait


Natalie Dower



'Toeschouwer' 




Jan Vanriet, 'The Visitor'

   
  Yves Velter

Euan Uglow

title and last line - Julian Barnes
1. line - Donald Revell
2. quote - Charlotte Eriksson
3. &4. quote -  Gilles Deluze