stuffing my eyes full of pretty

The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty are the only hours we live.
- Richard Jefferies, The Life in the Fields, 1884
That's a quote I scribbled in my Moleskine last week, a quote prominently displayed on the wall of the Cult of Beauty exhibition at the Palace of Legion of Honor in San Francisco. The timing of seeing that show with its reverence for capital-B Beauty couldn't have been better for me. How wonderful that in Week 4 of my convalescence, I was witness to so much gorgeousness, gorgeousness I would surely have missed had I been on my regular schedule, too busy with regular chores to take a time out for a saunter through a museum. The orange in the painting above when you see it in real life, with nothing between you and the canvas, is truly not to be believed -- the most remarkable marigold hue. I stood in front of it a long time, in awe.


