come down from the mountain, you have been gone too long

I'm just back from spending six weeks living and working on the Isle of Canna. It has a population of fourteen adults and has no shops, no pubs, no cinemas, no hotel bars, no streetlights and for a long time I had no internet or tv. It was quite intense.

hello internet

This summer I went to Istanbul, where the stray cats have no fear

parks and recreation

top: a present from Alice, shorts: butchered topshop jeans

I hold grudges and don't forget things easily, so it's taken me a while to get over winter and finally admit it's spring and get my legs out.

head, shoulders, knees and toes

Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun - Marie-Antoinette de Lorraine-Habsbourg, Queen of France, and her children (Versailles)



Jacques Louis David - Bonaparte Crossing the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass, 20 May 1800 (Versailles)



Caravaggio - Medusa (Uffizi Gallery)



Sandro Botticelli - The Birth of Venus (Uffizi Gallery)



Hans Holbein the Younger - Sir Thomas More (The Frick Collection)



Thomas Gainsborough - The Mall in St. James's Park (The Frick Collection)



James McNeil Whistler - The Princess from the land of Porcelain (Smithsonian)



Sir John Everett Millais - Ophelia (Tate Britain)



Sir John Everett Millais - Hearts are Trumps (Tate Britain)



Marcus Gheehaerts II - Portrait of Captain Thomas Lee (Tate Britain)



David Des Granges - The Saltonstall Family (Tate Britain)



Francis Danby - The Deluge (Tate Britain)



British School 17th Century - The Cholmondeley Ladies (Tate Britain)



British School, 16th Century - A Young Lady Aged 21 (Tate Britain)



John Bettes - A man in a Black Cap (Tate Britain)



Hans Holbein the Younger - A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (National Gallery)



Lucas Cranach the Elder - Portrait of a Woman (National Gallery)




Hans Holbein the Younger - The Ambassadors (National Gallery)



Boris Kustodiyev - Pancake Week (The State Tretyakov Gallery)




Vincent Van Gogh - The Starry Night (MOMA)



Hans Holbein the Younger - The Merchant Georg Gisze (Gemäldegalerie)

I've had way too much fun with Google's Art Project and I've had to stop myself from screencapping every single ruff and beard. As part of my Archive Management Course I've been studying digitisation and thinking about whether or not a high quality digital image can be a substitute for an 'authentic' experience. I think the benefits of being able to view paintings I'd never see in real life anyway can only be a good thing? Especially when you can zoom in on every nook and cranny. And I've realised I seem to have a bit of an obsession with hands.