Eilidh

Vilhelm Hammershøi, “Interior, Strandgade 30” (1901), oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm.

That's a proper Hero Quest door that is.

There are certain queer times in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke

I feel so much of this. The experience of renting in your 40s makes you feel like an alien on some strange planet where everyone else somehow deserves a place to live except you. It's like having to both justify and apologise for your very existence on a daily basis.

"Farewell" by Remedios Varo explores themes of separation and introspection, depicted through a labyrinthine passage where figures silently part ways. The vivid use of reds and shadows, typical of Varo's surrealist style, evokes a dreamlike ambiance that encourages reflection on the complexity of human relationships.

Farewell
https://botfrens.com/collections/69/contents/19486

I prefer Nina Conti 😅

This is visceral. Great work as ever. 😍

Today, I feel like I have lots of ideas spinning round in my head but can't quite catch any of them long enough to get them down on paper. It's exhilarating and maddening at the same time.

People have struggled for millennia to hold on to their humanity, even through the most dark and terrible times. To see some now giving it up so freely and casually is terrifying.

The Pale Blue Dot is a photograph of Earth taken Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles (6 billion kilometres) from the Sun. The image inspired the title of scientist Carl Sagan's book, "Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space," in which he wrote: "Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us." The above image, “Pale Blue Dot Revisited,” was created in 2020 for the 30th anniversary of the iconic picture. NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Happy Pale Blue Dot Day to all who celebrate 😀 #Astronomy #Space

Two witches on broomsticks in flights over houses beneath moon, their black cats ride with them. Painting.

'What greater gift than the love of a cat.' ~ Dickens.
#BookWormSat #Caturday
🖼️ Terri Foss

Bruxelles, 1932

Willy Kessels

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976 © 2016 Estate of Yves Tanguy/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

The Sun in Its Jewel Case by Yves Tanguy, 1937
https://botfrens.com/collections/212/contents/137872

I urge you to make your day brighter by watching this! 🐧

Painting of snow scene in wood with tree heavily laden with snow so that it has bent a branch, sun shining in through branches.

The Bent Branch, Walter Launt Palmer.

Jacques Tati et Marlon Brando, 1961

"Le monde des naïfs". Max Ernst. 1965.

Vivian Maier (1926-2009), “Self-Portrait, Chicago” (February 1976).

Derelict Ship concept art (1977-78) for Alien by Jean ‘Moebius’ Giraud

Art by Moebius for “Les Robinsons du Cosmos” (1970) by Francis Carsac.

'Snow Tracks (to a Winter Horizon)'
Charcoal & Oil Paint Sketch

Sabine Weiss, 1957

'Fertile Earth (waiting for a plough)'
Ink

Grey and white cat sleeping in chicken position portrait painted from the side on table against brown background.

Sunday plans:
🖼️ School of Ivan Pavlovich Pokhitonov, Cat, Late C19th.

A black-and-white drawing of a moth reading a book many times its size. The flame of the candle resembles a skull, and the twirling smoke looks like a hand reaching towards the moth.

Reading Moth by Candlelight

Fritz Schwimbeck (1889 - 1972)

'The Sleeping Earth' by Catherine Hyde depicts a badger in its set beneath a frosted landscape bathed in silver moonlight.

'The Sleeping Earth', Catherine Hyde

George Perec, the genius author of Life A User's Manual, with a black cat, who is trying to use her tail to give George an extra beard

In trying to answer the question, "What is your favourite photo of a novelist with a cat?" I have probably forgotten some absolute crackers but right now the one that immediately comes to mind is this one of Georges Perec and Duchat, taken by Anne de Brunhoff in 1978.

It's got to the point where I've had to trade in my long spoon for an adblocker.

Call me a luddite but I kind of prefer the old version of the Devil who used to put a murrain on crops and command his demon dogs to terrorise church congregations to the new one who insists on having an app for everything and gets rich by designing clever ways of capitalising on people's fatigue.