Dark Charms by V.

"The clear water we drank as thirsty children / still runs through our veins. Stars we saw then / we still see now, only fewer, dimmer, less often. / The old tunes play and continue to move us / in spite of our learning, the wraith of romance, / lost innocence, literature, the death of the poets." - Dorianne Laux, "Dark Charms"

[petaltexturedskies]

So many tender and painful, sweet and bitter, emotions crowd in my soul—

Fyodor Dostoevsky, from a letter to Mikhail Dostoevsky, wr. c. October 1832

[petaltexturedskies]

I trust this sweet May morning

Emily Dickinson, from a letter to C.H. Clark, wr. c. May 1883

[enchantedbook]

Illustration by Léon Carré 📍From the story of Badr al-Din Hasan Éditions d’Art H. Piazza, (1926–1932)

[gothredy]

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Mother of Stars, oil on wooden panel — Annie Stegg Gerard (American, b.1982)

[karrova]

Female Saint Holding a Book (detail) by Amico Aspertini

[aqua-regia009]

The Harpy, oil on wooden panel — Annie Stegg Gerard (American, b.1982)

[muddyswirls]

[lqpiine]

𝓵𝓸𝓸𝓴𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓶𝔂𝓼𝓮𝓵𝓯

[astriloquum]

[muddyswirls]

[bhloomest]

[artfoli]

Details in Red

Portrait of Isabelle Antoinette Barones Sloet van Toutenburg, 1852, by Nicaise de Keyser.

Patricipance of Venice, 1881, by Alexandre Cabanel.

A Young Lady Aged 21, Possibly Helena Snakenborg, 1569, by an unknown artist.

Portrait de la comédienne Marie-Anne de Châteauneuf, 1712, by  Nicolas de Largillière.

Mrs. Hugh Hammersley, c. 1893, by John Singer Sargent .

Louise, Queen of the Belgians, 1841, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

Sabina Seupham Spalding, c. 1846, by Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz. 

Elizabeth I, the “Pelican” portrait, c. 1572, by Nicholas Hilliard.

Portrait of Mary Louise of Orleans, Queen of Spain, c. 1679, by José García Hidalgo.

Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, 1729, by Nicolas de Largillière.

[prunelya]

[english-idylls]

From Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1856).

[mournfulroses]

Gaius Valerius Catullus, translated by Matthew Nisinson, from "Burning All Through,"

[mournfulroses]

Charlotte Brontë, from her novel titled "Jane Eyre," originally published in 1847