What I’m saying ought to be read fast, like when you’re looking.
Different stages of undress.
Waterfalls.
Saunas, whirlpools, aluminium wheels.
Tempo with grace.
Not too sweet, not too dry.
Twilight, movement, tension, symmetry, adornment.
There’s something about this oppressive feeling that I actually like.
They favored what they used to call honest materials: stone, wood, sisal, felt, burlap, raw cotton. Surely, those honest materials reminded them of that blatant dishonesty of plastic. Lycra, imitation leather, acrylates, all the things their suburban neighbors used to construct their dreamt-up lives.
Ethnically, baroque symbolized degeneration of purity, simplicity, and transparency of medieval art: rejection of original spirituality by religious institution that had allowed itself to grow corrupt, the end of that ascetic ideal of turning inwards, toward contemplation.
Yet the baroque had completely abandoned the sublime half-light of stained glass windows – the ostentatious furnishings of their churches, with such opulent polychromy of altars and sculptures, gilded stucco, those imitation marble walls, all wanting more light for themselves. That is why windows were widened whenever a gothic cathedral was being rebuilt during that era. The stained glass, of course, had to go, too, discarded in favor of transparent clarity, supplied by ordinary glass and arranged in geometric patterns.
