Walt Whitman's view of love was expansive and inclusive, encompassing not just romantic love but also love for humanity, comradeship, and the natural world. He explored the depths of both joyous and painful experiences of love, emphasizing its transformative power and its connection to human identity and connection. His exploration of love is a testament to the power of human connection and the enduring quest for intimacy, belonging, and self-discovery
@Thinkerbell Ah yes, that's the primary choice of Highet & Glück too, although it doesn't fit well the actual depiction of the bride. If she's the Virgin Mary, well, I'd rather think that Joseph was more mature in every sense of the word.
@Thinkerbell Wasn't the chosen picture now rather from the hand of John Girtin out of his 'Seventy-five portraits of celebrated painters' from 1817? That's again some centuries later.
I'm just mentioning it because the picture doesn't make him to be in the true Flemish character. What painter who had already some money on the bank would chose to paint ordinary life of quite ordinary people... or is there more?
Behind every picture there's a story could be very much the description of both some Flemish and Dutch paintings from that period. Perhaps a sign of the struggles going on in the Thirty Years War and such? Rubens was painting during a period of relative peace when an archducal couple were governors for so-called Flanders-Brabant. Breughel painted in a period of much more termoil before that. The Low Countries, including Flanders, were experiencing significant religious and political unrest, with the Dutch Revolt and the Spanish Inquisition casting a shadow over the region.
In 1569 when Brueghel died there was the burning at the stake of Joos van Beke, an Anabaptist, in Antwerp, etc.
I've always found the last verse of Leaves of Grass likewise so very powerful, but my own favourite quote is: "Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.”
@therighttothink50 The pleasure of living is the pleasure of the moment. No, not of the past nor of the future. Just the present. Wake up to that, my lovely stranger
