Oh, Inverted World

Kate. This blog is nothing more than a mismatched and muddled representation of my mind.

[aleyma]

Camille Pissarro, Snowy Landscape at Eragny with an Apple Tree, 1895 (source).

[femme-de-lettres]

Large (Wikimedia)

The Execution of Lady Jane Grey, an 1833 painting by Paul Delaroche, depicts Lady Jane Grey—”nominal queen of England for just nine days in 1553, as part of an unsuccessful bid to prevent the accession of the Catholic Mary Tudor,” according to the BBC—just before the execution that closely followed the end of that nine-day reign. (Though “reign” suggests a greater legitimacy to her title than most would grant.)

There is something quite stagy about the setting; the heavy architecture in the background feels peculiarly close to the black-cloth-draped platform, which is itself quite shallow.

The attendants’ palpable anguish, the executioner’s quiet sympathy (the National Gallery calls him “impassive,” but the tilt of his head, the looseness of his grip on the axe, and the shift of his weight slightly towards her—as though he were moments from dropping his weapon and coming to her aid—look to me more like restrained sorrow), and Sir John Brydges’ gentle guidance all have the careful composition of stage blocking, as well.

Yet Lady Jane Grey’s meek hesitancy feels strangely plausible. Paired with her shiningly white undergarments—which, though devoid of sleeve supports and crinolines, could more easily pass for modern than the detailed historical dress of those surrounding her (or even than her own outer dress, now discarded in the arms of the woman behind her)—that plausibility passes into a sort of transcendent timelessness.

She is a grand historical figure, the nine-day queen, on a stage to suit—and yet she is also just a scared sixteen year old, moments from her untimely death.

[fassyy-blog]

Just get through the goddamn day.

[jacobvanloon]

Cavern | Schaeffer Jacob van Loon

[athenaria]

the metropolitan museum - impressionism & post {x}

[nevver]

Knock loud, I’m home.

[sheswanderlost]

[shakti-lady]

Oh how id love to wake up to that lil guy outside my window

[formesdelabeaute]

[journaldelamode]

Sasha Pivovarova by Olaf Wipperfurth (Hello Sasha - Sure Korea March 2011) 4.png

[2headedsnake]

[owls-love-tea]

Tino Rodriguez - ‘Eternal Lovers’

[psych-facts]

If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life

Charles Bukowski (via blue-voids)

[the-myriad-things-deactivated20]

[luxuria-vice-blog]

La Liberte by James Broadhurst & Lydia-Jane Saunders for Fashionising.com

[ibkodfashion]

Jessica Stam by Jacques Olivar, Hacid

[devoutfashion-deactivated201906]

Andrea Thomas

[supermodelgif-deactivated201409]

Angela Lindvall photographed by Mario Sorrenti for The Face, April 1999 

[todaysdocument]

"Reckon I been in mill 2 years. Don’t remember."

Springstein Mill. John Lewis (boy with hat), 12 years old, 1 year in mill. Weaver — 4 looms. 40 [cents] a day to start, 60 [cents] a day now. Brother and mother in mill. Morris Small (boy with cap), “Reckon I been in mill 2 years. Don’t remember.” Chester, S.C., 11/28/1908

Series: National Child Labor Committee Photographs taken by Lewis Hine, ca. 1912

[theliteraryathenaeum-deactivate]

Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

Percy Bysshe Shelley 

Mary Shelley (née Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818). She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was the philosopher and feminist Mary Wollstonecraft.