“The picture, divested of the ideas which accompany it, and considered only in its ultimate nature, is but a succession or variety of stronger lights thrown upon one part of the paper, and deeper shadows on another. Now Light, where it exists, can exert an action, and, in certain circumstances, does exert one sufficient to cause changes in material bodies”
William Henry Fox Talbot, “The Pencil of Nature”
There is a moment in a Sufjan Stevens song, which I will not quote here because copyright says reproducing it (unlike William Henry Fox Talbot reproducing nature’s paintings) might be illegal, where he sings that what keeps him alive, literally what keeps him from killing himself, are things like a “water stain writing the wall.” Small bits of beauty where none ought to be. Light and shadow, playing out in a stairwell, on a sidewalk, in a gas station. The world we live in, always abundant in beauty.
A crack in everything. Light and life, leaking in. Leaking out.
We treat beauty like its fragile, like if we don’t work very, very hard it will be snuffed out. Like if Great Genius does not bless us with it we will be doomed to a grey world of sadness.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Beauty is resilient, it is everywhere light is.
It was here before us. It will be here when we are gone.
