arty words

Folio from the Koran
ca.12th century
Ink, opaque watercolor and gold on paper
Iran

“By the twelfth century a number of regional kufic styles, each with its own distinct ornamental features, developed throughout the Islamic world. This folio from a Koran is written in the “eastern” kufic script favored in Iran and Central Asia. Slender, elongated letters with certain flourishes predominate, and the vertical strokes often terminate in “barbed” heads. The development of this elegant and fluid script coincided with the widespread use of paper, which allowed for a greater degree of experimentation with size, format, and calligraphic styles.
The text is from the seventy-seventh chapter, entitled “Those Sent Forth” (Al-Mursalat), which describes the horrors of the hereafter for those who reject the truth.”

- Smithsonian’s Museums of Asian Art

vintagecoolillustrated:

I mustn’t think!

(Source: , via highgatedreams)

creaturesofcomfort:

Anjelica Huston and Liza Minnelli, 1975

workman:

likeafieldmouse:

Cy Twombly - Letter of Resignation (1959-67)

Twombly began all of his Letters with his signature in pencil, then layered them with house paint and crayon.

“The dialogue played out on these sheets is one wrought with obsessiveness, an obsession with dreams, history, poetry and the seductive temptation of writing. Each drawing contains one particular line of Twombly’s inner dialogue, and in his desire to create a new form of expression, systems are built and simultaneously destroyed.”

(via fewergestures)