Printable Vintage Art: Flower Still Life by Gustave Max Stevens

Flower Still Life, c1914
by Gustave Max Stevens (1871–1946)

She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her... I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her...
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty.
― David Hume, Of the Standard of Taste and Other Essays

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 10" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: After Sunset by Kitty Lange Kielland

After Sunset, 1886
by Kitty Lange Kielland (1843–1914)

Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

The pale stars were sliding into their places. The whispering of the leaves was almost hushed. All about them it was still and shadowy and sweet. It was that wonderful moment when, for lack of a visible horizon, the not yet darkened world seems infinitely greater—a moment when anything can happen, anything be believed in.
― Olivia Howard Dunbar, The Shell of Sense

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 11.5" x 8" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustration: Escaping the Wildfire, 1883

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
― e.e. cummings

Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.
― Gerard Way

We all have heard about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations. They act courageously or responsibly, and their efforts are described as if they opted to act that way on the spur of the moment... I believe many people in those situations actually have made descisions years before.
― Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters

Antique illustration of four children escaping from a raging wildfire, 1883. From my own collection. 5" x 7" @ 300 ppi JPEG without a watermark here. Larger size image available for licensing. Please inquire.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Vintage Art Appreciation: Donkey with Cart by Hanns Bolz

Donkey with Cart, 1903
by Hanns Bolz (1885-1918)

Being faithful in the smallest things is the way to gain, maintain, and demonstrate the strength needed to accomplish something great.
― Alex Harris

We have to recognise that there cannot be relationships unless there is commitment, unless there is loyalty, unless there is love, patience, persistence.
― Cornel West, Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life

The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet it is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: Small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.
― J.R.R. Tolkien


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Interior from Paris by Harriet Backer

Interior from Paris, 1886
by Harriet Backer (1845–1932)

It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet.
― Dodie Smith

I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.
― Tahereh Mafi, Shatter Me

Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 8" x 10" @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.