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The colour yellow
The colour yellow She picked a few little yellow flowers and, in a playful burst of joy, stuck them in her pierced earlobe.The little flowers glisten brightly against her tanned skin. She notices my surprised, admiring gaze and smiles. Photo of the week: Orchha, M.P., India 2009
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Bed of flowers
Bed of flowers The person for whom the bed is made is not lying on it but under it. Maybe these were his favorite flowers, maybe he was green-fingered. He would certainly be pleased to see the yellow flowerbed above his head, a little island shining between dry red earth, pebbles and dead leaves. Photo…
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He who laughs last, laughs best
He who laughs last, laughs best “There was a time when the staging of skeletons of the saints, installed in astonishing postures, was intended to defy death and to show victorious martyrs, therefore to vivify the faith of believers. Each parish had to have a recumbent figure, or at least relics of saints, often taken…
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Sainte Quintienne
Sainte Quintienne The nuns of Montorge didn’t make only wax heads of angels (see last week’s post), also of saints, preferably saints that had come to a violent end while defending their Faith. The nuns would meticulously carve and paint the wounds on the pale faces of the martyrs, showing the suffering they had gone…
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Wax twosome
Wax twosome Two women’s wax heads waiting to be completed with a wealth of hair and a long dress. And then to become flying angels or maybe even the Virgin Mary. But that was in the 18th or 19th century when they were fabricated by the nuns of Montorge. With their wry mouths, I wouldn’t…
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Double twosome
Double twosome After years of worship venerated objects can become pretty messy. The heads of the divine couple on the left have been smeared with coloured paste day after day till their faces got completely covered. The girls (goddesses?) on the torn and faded poster have also had their share, not on but above their…
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Alluring twosome
Alluring twosome Through their gestures these heavenly nymphs draw our attention straight away to their heavy rounded breasts. The sculptor may have exaggerated a bit in his striving to let them meet the ideal of feminine beauty, but nonetheless the nymphs seem to be content with the outcome of his work. Photo of the week:…
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Flat twosome
Flat twosome Like ancient Egyptian reliefs – see for example the reliefs inside Ramose’s tomb in Thebe – Assyrian reliefs too stand out by their flatness and beauty. They are hardly three-dimensional but the subtle curves of head and hair are delicately shaped and bring the face to life. When the relief shows two partly…
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Migrating birds
Migrating birds The play of reeds, water and light in last week’s photo pleased me because of its abstract nature. In the same way Devrim Erbil must have been pleased by the sight of a chaotic swarm of migrating birds and took it up as the subject of his painting. Abstraction inspired by nature. Photo…
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Reading reeds
Reading reeds A delightful tangle of lines, open triangles and dense clusters: broken reeds in the sunlit water at the end of the day. Nature’s playfulness verging on abstraction. Photo of the week: Manipur, India 2014
καιρός remembered
… the right moment, position chosen, shoot …
καιρός remembered 