This is not a photograph, and it's not an oil painting. It might be the most unbelievable watercolor ever made...
It's called Sommarnöje, which means something like Summer Delight, and Anders Zorn painted it in 1886. Look at the water, the gentle ripples, the reflections, the wet sheen of it, and then look at the two people, the fine detail of the wooden rowboat, the woman's white dress, the light on her face.
It has the near-photographic realism of an oil painting, and it was done in watercolor, a medium so unforgiving that a single wrong stroke ruins the entire piece.
Zorn painted this in the first summer of his marriage: the woman in white waiting on the pier is his new wife, Emma, whom he had married only months before. They had just come back from their honeymoon and were staying with her family at Dalarö near Stockholm, still looking for the home where they would spend their life. The man rowing toward her is their friend Carl Gustav Dahlström. It is a real moment from the happiest season of a young couple's life, caught and held forever.
In 2010 this single sheet of watercolor sold for twenty-six million Swedish kronor, over three million dollars, the highest price ever paid for a Swedish painting.
In his own lifetime, Zorn was celebrated above all for two things: his handling of light, and his ability to paint water. Sommarnöje is where you see exactly why...
Every machine in a Hospital that diagnoses your body without cutting you open is based on a principle of Physics, discovered by a Physicist who had no interest in Medicine. If you think the world doesn’t need Basic Science, or that somehow Science has failed you, think again.
Staying on X is like Dr Evil has taken over the town newspaper and controls all the editorials and articles, but we're using the classified ads to send messages to each other.
I’m reminded of how we’ve been here before. @jenni3973
My generation grew up on a week of televised hype about astronauts going to space—only to watch, live in school, as The Challenger exploded before our eyes.
I was five. I peeked into a kitchen area in Free to Be Me and saw it happen.
No one talked to us afterward. No crisis team. No counseling to process the shock. Everyone just moved on.
As a nation—and as a world—we watched the same tragedy unfold at the onset of the pandemic. Day after day. And it’s still playing out. The pandemic. The unprocessed grief. The trauma. Data and emotions, buried.
The Challenger was an omen for our generation. Exploded hopes and dreams—and no one will care or save you.
You’re expected to move on in this dysfunctional society while planes keep crashing, brains keep burning up, and people keep succumbing to illness.
You’re expected not to question things. Not to expect more from life and society. Because ���That’s just the way it is. Everyone’s doing the best they can.”
Yeah, no. F that.
We CAN do better.
We CAN demand better.
For our planet.
For our country.
For our community.
For our loved ones.
For ourselves.
And when horrible shit happens? Stop lying to each other about the reality of the situation.
A biohazard was released upon the world. It has made our lives miserable and will continue to do so.
But we can’t move on—because it’s not moving on.
Hell, it’s not even leaving our bodies. It’s a persistent infection.
Your endothelial cells are doing their best impression of The Challenger every single day.
And you’re the teachers, wheeling the TV cart away… saying nothing. Doing nothing.