New Old World

with one image he would make that beauty explode into me. PROUST

I asked world traveller, photographer Miguel Flores -Vianna to gather his favorite instagram photographs for little augury. The photographs he sent are varied-on instagram his followers get to live vicariously through Miguel's schooled eye.
Nothing seems to get past him-at least not the most evocative.  His blog's title -which he's less inclined to update- MFV'S NEW OLD WORLD-seems to have aptly captured his moods, and on instagram, Miguel's my star.

 Miguel's Diaries

I follow other people on instagram too, but rarely post my own photos because I've consciously limited them to my house & garden, nor do I think people are too much interested in what I eat-there's lots of that sort of stuff to be had there. But Miguel's photographs stand out from all the rest quite brilliantly- while yes-he is a noted photographer,there's such joy and consistency to his pictures! Sometimes he adds descriptions-but on instagram it seems less important-so here I've intentionally omitted any descriptions- letting his photographs, along with my selection of quotations move you through-
Proust said, Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.”


I've selected my favorites from Miguel's work-while his countless instagram photographs are varied-these are in perfect accord.

The wise man goes back to the origins of ancient time. Honore de Balzac

The seeming simplicity of a masterpiece is sure proof of its grace. Chanel

If one could stretch out a hand into the strip of light that falls on the floor, one could feel its warmth. These watercolors so accurately preserve the taste of that age that you would almost say the doors and windows depicted in them have never been opened since then, and that we breathe the spirit still enclosed there like—the comparison is perhaps overworked, but it is certainly appropriate here—the scent of perfume that lingers in an ancient phial. MARIO PRAZ-The House of Life

The memory is a living thing—it too is in transit, but during its moment all that is remembered joins and lives—the old and the young, the past and the present, the living and the dead. Eudora Welty

The want of logic annoys. Too much logic bores. Life eludes logic, and everything that logic alone constructs remains artificial and forced. Andre Gide

The contemplation of truth and beauty is the proper object for which we were created, which calls forth the most intense desires of the soul, and of which it never tires. William Hazlitt

Miguel's work can be found in Elle Decor, The World of Interiors, Veranda, and at T Magazine. Always he can be found HERE, and on instagram HERE.

 

 

 

 all photographs are from and used with permission by Miguel Flores-Vianna