Illustrating the Illusion.

Not one of my pictures this time, but something of genuine quality. It’s a detail from a postcard sent to me by my Czech friend Pavli, and I wanted to post it for its atmospheric value.

A lot of traditional cultures interest me, and one of them is the culture of old Eastern Europe. As dark and rich as Turkish coffee, there’s also something dissolute about it that sharpens the blood as it sucks you into the chiaroscuro world of its night time alleyways. It’s a world of samovars and Kafka, of paltry markets, and of men in fustian overcoats languishing in doorways while the lurid glow from a gas lamp reveals nothing but a suspicious eye.

And it’s probably all in my imagination, but I like it anyway. And this picture of Prague, for all its visual expansiveness, somehow speaks of it.