Edwardian Beauties and Rose-Tinted Visions of the Past

What is more beautiful, ethereal and delicate than a photo of an Edwardian lady in her flimsy dress of lace and silk, with a large hat and roses in her hand, her smile captured for eternity?

Studio Portrait by Henri Manuel of Paris, 1900s

Lately, I’ve been admiring these hand-tinted photos from the early twentieth century and I spent many moments being lost in the all the dreamy details; their dresses, their faces, their flowers. Some feature a more daring, oriental-inspired fashions with long veils, jewellery and more skin exposed because in the early 1910s with Ballets Russes and the ballet “Scheherazade” there was a craze for all things exotic. I don’t have much to say today – I’ll let the beauty of the pictures speak for themselves.

Still, I would like to take a moment to say something I rarely do. My dear readers, old and new, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading my musings! I am amazed to see the growing number of people who read my blog, but at the same time, without superficial modesty, I am surprised that someone actually enjoys it. I never thought that my sharing of beauty and fragments of my inner world would attract so many readers. Here is a quote by Anais Nin which perfectly explains the point of writing:

Why one writes is a question I can answer easily, having so often asked it of myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me — the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own, like a climate, a country, an atmosphere in which I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That, I believe, is the reason for every work of art.

I wholeheartedly agree with Anais Nin: I can’t live in the world offered to me, the 21st century world with its shallowness and stupidity, and I write; this blog, my poetry and my stories, my daydreams and my journal, to wrap myself in a cocoon of beauty and dreams; I hope writing protects me from the sharp arrows of reality. I strive to be perpetually dreamy even when everything around me is grey, to turn sadness to beauty, and then, share some of it with the world. I write, as Anais Nin continues in the same quote, to “lure and enchant and console others”, and I hope I’ve achieved that. I hope you are enchanted, lured and consoled!

In dreariness of November, one has to find a shelter in the world of beauty, and I can tell you that next post will be very special and dreamy.

The gorgeous Lillian Gish above!

 

Photos found here.