What is the difference between light and lighting? There is an etching called The Three Crosses by Rembrandt. It is a picture of the earth and the sky and Calvary. A moment rains down on them, the plate grows darker. Darker. Rembrandt wakens you just in time to see matter stumble out of its forms.
“A great empire cannot bring freedom by its own decay to those corners in it where a subject people are prevented from discussing the fundamentals of life. The people feel like children turned adrift to fend for themselves when the imperial routine breaks down; and they wander to and fro, given up to instinctive fears and antagonisms and exaltation until reason dares to take control. I had come to Yugoslavia to see what history meant in flesh and blood. I learned now that it might follow, because an empire passed, that a world full of strong men and women and rich food and heady wine might nevertheless seem like a shadow-show: that a man of every excellence might sit by a fire warming his hands in the vain hope of casting out a chill that lived not in the flesh.”
Rebecca West | Black Lamb and Grey Falcon