The Marginalian
The Marginalian

Page 12

Turning Loss and Loneliness into Wonder: How the Victorian Visionary Marianne North Revolutionized Art and Science with Her Botanical Paintings
Turning Loss and Loneliness into Wonder: How the Victorian Visionary Marianne North Revolutionized Art and Science with Her Botanical Paintings

A vibrant foray into “a perfect world of wonders” fueled by the bittersweet dimension of life.

read article

Against the Cult of Originality: Emerson on the True Nature of Genius
Against the Cult of Originality: Emerson on the True Nature of Genius

“Great genial power… consists… in being altogether receptive.”

read article

Rootedness and Reclaiming God
Rootedness and Reclaiming God

“Everything we do matters, and matters wondrously.”

read article

The Unphotographable: The Moon, the Tide, and the Living Shore
The Unphotographable: The Moon, the Tide, and the Living Shore

Sometimes, a painting in words is worth a thousand pictures. I think about this more and more, in our compulsively visual culture, which increasingly reduces what we think and feel and see — who and what we are — to what can be photographed. I think of Susan Sontag, who called it “aesthetic consumerism” half a century before Instagram. In a small act of resistance, I offer The Unphotographable — Saturdays, a lovely image in words drawn from centuries of literature: passages transcendent and transportive, depicting landscapes and experiences radiant with beauty and feeling beyond what a visual image could convey.

read article

View Full Site

The Marginalian participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn commissions by linking to Amazon. In more human terms, this means that whenever you buy a book on Amazon from any link on here, I receive a small percentage of its price, which goes straight back into my own colossal biblioexpenses. Privacy policy. (TLDR: You're safe — there are no nefarious "third parties" lurking on my watch or shedding crumbs of the "cookies" the rest of the internet uses.)