“It needs more light on the front to make it shiny. I keep adding white and yellow, but that only washes everything out.
'You need to add a bit of shadow back here.' Miss Moore dips a brush in sepia and paints a curve along the outside edge of my apple. Immediately, the shine on the apple is apparent, and it looks much better.
'The Italians call this chiaroscuro. It means the play of light and dark within a picture.'
'Why couldn’t Gemma simply add the white to make the apple shine?' Pippa asks.
'Because you don’t notice the light without a bit of shadow. Everything has both dark and light. You have to play with it till you get it exactly right.'
–Art class conversation between Miss Moore and the First Class, page 266, A Great and Terrible Beauty
Showing posts with label Cool words. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cool words. Show all posts
Monday, December 17, 2012
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Indecorous
"Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent posture. It is most indecorous."
These are lines spoken by the character of Lady Bracknell in scene 1 of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Lady Bracknell is shocked and disturbed to find Mr. Worthing in the throes of a less than perfect marriage proposal to Gwendolyn; and Gwendolyn, perhaps, is enjoying the guilty pleasure of pushing the boundaries of social decorum.
Jasmine recently played the role of Lady Bracknell in her high school's performance of the play; so I had the occasion to read the play, and then enjoy the performance. The scene is hilarious, but the word, "Indecorous" is a perfect reflection of Lady Bracknells character... slightly obscure, so as to mark the speaker as educated and articulate; defining fashion and style, so as to define the speaker as superficial and pretentious; and percussively stacatto, so as to hammer home the character's lack of diplomacy.
Words, like 'indecorous', are beautiful things; filled with subtle meanings, found in nostalgic contexts, and sometimes used again, like lethal weapons. I think that everyone out there has there own arsenal of unusual words, sometimes associated with a certain memory or experience, captured forever in their conscious or sub-conscious mind. If we could distill their thoughts, or disect their speech; we would probably find an utterly unique list of unfamiliar words befitting that person alone. 'Logical'...'Arrhythmia'...'Callipygian'...'Reckon'...'Iatrogenic'...'Identical'....
From time to time, I'll post a blog entry regarding a word that I find to be particularly lively or poignant, maybe even personal.
Etymologically yours,
Steve
These are lines spoken by the character of Lady Bracknell in scene 1 of 'The Importance of Being Earnest'. Lady Bracknell is shocked and disturbed to find Mr. Worthing in the throes of a less than perfect marriage proposal to Gwendolyn; and Gwendolyn, perhaps, is enjoying the guilty pleasure of pushing the boundaries of social decorum.
Jasmine recently played the role of Lady Bracknell in her high school's performance of the play; so I had the occasion to read the play, and then enjoy the performance. The scene is hilarious, but the word, "Indecorous" is a perfect reflection of Lady Bracknells character... slightly obscure, so as to mark the speaker as educated and articulate; defining fashion and style, so as to define the speaker as superficial and pretentious; and percussively stacatto, so as to hammer home the character's lack of diplomacy.
Words, like 'indecorous', are beautiful things; filled with subtle meanings, found in nostalgic contexts, and sometimes used again, like lethal weapons. I think that everyone out there has there own arsenal of unusual words, sometimes associated with a certain memory or experience, captured forever in their conscious or sub-conscious mind. If we could distill their thoughts, or disect their speech; we would probably find an utterly unique list of unfamiliar words befitting that person alone. 'Logical'...'Arrhythmia'...'Callipygian'...'Reckon'...'Iatrogenic'...'Identical'....
From time to time, I'll post a blog entry regarding a word that I find to be particularly lively or poignant, maybe even personal.
Etymologically yours,
Steve
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