Dernière sortie
Imaginary Portraits
Four invented lives, each a study in what a mind does with beauty: a Watteau seen through a girl's diary, a Dutch philosopher, a German prince, a young Frenchman. Pater's conclusion to The Renaissance - that we should burn with a hard, gemlike flame - became the motto of the aesthetes and frightened him so much he withdrew it; these 1887 pieces are that argument made into people.
