» John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836 - 1893)

dark academia tips:

reading Byron with the glass of red wine

staying up all night listening to Chopin and Vivaldi

having a big library and borrowing your favourite books to your friends

laying on the grass and looking at the stars at midnight

spending a lot of money on fashionable clothes

having dates in theatres

rewatching old movies

attending museums and exhibitions

drinking champagne with your friends while reading poems

how to stop endlessly analyzing your own behavior as if you were a scientific experiment

We live in a world filled with old books, cups of tea sipped over conversations with a friend, music waiting to be heard, and endless questions longing to be answered. There are so many marvelous things around us all the time, and it can be so pleasant to slow down for a moment to take them all in.

from a 19th century bookplate..

dark academia is:

the secrets of life hidden in the vastness of the universe

finding the special moments amongst the silence in the library and in the velvet pressed against your cheek

feel the blood course through your veins

carrying adrenaline with every turn of events

empty mugs of better black coffee

cutting their hair and painting angels during their free time

androgynous scholars with a fascination for the mystic and philosophers from ancient times

“I love you. You’re deliciously uncotemporary; you belong to a mystical past and also to a very remote future. For you, time isn’t money, it’s a precious essence, delicate, full of mystery. Just to breathe with someone like you does me good.”

— Nikos Kazantzakis, tr. by Richard Howard, from “The Rock Garden,”

Medusa in culture

(Medusa c. 1618 Peter Paul Rubens, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon - Stephen Wilk, Medusa On Her Throne Reza Sedhi, Female Rage: Unlocking Its Secrets, Claiming Its Power - Mary Valentis and Anne Devane, Medusa c. 1640 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The Laugh of the Medusa - Helene Cixous, Medusa Robin Isley)

the dark academia girl

her body is always slightly bent to the side from being used to carry her leather satchel, heavy with books and notes

passes notes to her friends in latin during class to avoid being caught by the teacher

spends her evenings wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket drinking chamomile tea and reading ancient greek philosophy

can recite stabat mater by heart

quotes philosophers in her essays without actually specifying it's a quote

sneaks red wine in a thermos at school

has lent tsh to all her friends, encouraging them to annotate it

has engraved "pulvis et umbra sumus" on the stone of her school building

is excited beyond reason for duolingo latin

has named her roomba "alyosha"

wears very low heels/flats but can and will run after her bus in stilletos if need be

has pierced ears but rarely ever wears earrings

collects old books

is a grandma in terms of operating electronic devices

uses old books as a means of holding coffee/tea cups

The Painted Hall, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London SE10, England,

©Will Pryce / Country Life

sorry i can’t hang out today, i read a richard siken poem so now i have to cry for ten hours