Hawthorn blossom
The Proustian variety.
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I shall not find a painting more beautiful because the artist has painted a hawthorn in the foreground, though I know of nothing more beautiful than the hawthorn, for I wish to remain sincere and because I know that the beauty of a painting does not depend on the things represented in it. I shall not collect images of hawthorn. I do not venerate hawthorn, I go to see and smell it.
[Marcel Proust - preface (1910) to The Bible of Amiens by John Ruskin, translated by Proust (1904)]
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I shall not find a painting more beautiful because the artist has painted a hawthorn in the foreground, though I know of nothing more beautiful than the hawthorn, for I wish to remain sincere and because I know that the beauty of a painting does not depend on the things represented in it. I shall not collect images of hawthorn. I do not venerate hawthorn, I go to see and smell it.
[Marcel Proust - preface (1910) to The Bible of Amiens by John Ruskin, translated by Proust (1904)]
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