XIX

Model of the Mount Saint-Michel

By unereverence | On 20/06/2016 | In Museums and exhibits | Comments (0)

Dream Love

By unereverence | On 02/12/2015 | In Art & Literature | Comments (0)

Dream love

Illustration by Emma Florence Harrison

Young Love lies sleeping
In May-time of the year,
Among the lilies,
Lapped in the tender light:
White lambs come grazing,
White doves come building there:
And round about him
The May-bushes are white.

Gustave Doré in BnF (National French Library)

By unereverence | On 22/02/2014 | In Museums and exhibits | Comments (0)

Click on the picture (only in French)

Jean-Léon Gérôme, Anacreon, Bacchus et Cupid (Art & literature)

By unereverence | On 14/02/2014 | Comments (0)

Poet of her face divine,
Curb this over-zeal of thine!
Doves wing frighted from the ground
At a step's too sudden sound,
And her passion is a dove,
Frighted by too bold a love.
Mute as marble Hermes wait
By the blooming hawthorn-gate.
Thou shalt see her wings expand,
She shall flutter to thy hand.
On thy forehead thou shalt know
Something like a breath of snow,
Or of pinions pure that beat
In a whirl of whiteness sweet.
And the dove, grown venturesome,
Shall upon thy shoulder come,
And its rosy beak shall sip
From the nectar of thy lip.

Théophile Gautier, "Odelet, after Anacreon", in Enamels & Cameos, from The Project Gutenberg

Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Prisoner (Art & literature)

By unereverence | On 05/02/2014 | In Art & Literature | Comments (0)

A Gérôme. (No available translation)

Là-bas, les muezzins ont cessé leurs clameurs.
Le ciel vert, au couchant, de pourpre et d'or se frange ;
Le crocodile plonge et cherche un lit de fange,
Et le grand fleuve endort ses dernières rumeurs.

Assis, jambes en croix, comme il sied aux fumeurs,
Le Chef rêvait, bercé par le haschisch étrange,
Tandis qu'avec effort faisant mouvoir la cange,
Deux nègres se courbaient, nus, au banc des rameurs.

A l'arrière, joyeux et l'insulte à la bouche,
Grattant l'aigre guzla qui rhythme un air farouche,
Se penchait un Arnaute à l'oeil féroce et vil ;

Car lié sur la barque et saignant sous l'entrave,
Un vieux Scheikh regardait d'un air stupide et grave
Les minarets pointus qui tremblent dans le Nil.