Thomas Kinkade Sunrise Chapel

Thomas Kinkade Sunrise Chapel
being lugged into position, and various clankings and swearwords.'All right, come on in.'The clown led
Thomas Kinkade Streams of Living Water
overweight. A pair of rubber braces, so that his trousers bounced up and down when he walked, were a further component in the overall picture of a complete and utter twerp.'Yes,' said Colon. 'There is.''Sure?''Positive.''Sorry about that,' said the clown. 'It's stupid, I know, but kind of traditional. Wait a moment.'There were sounds
Thomas Kinkade Spirit of Christmas
'There seems to be a bucket of whitewash over the door,' he said.
'Is there?' said the . He wasn't fat, but a sort of hoop in his trousers was supposed to make him look amusingly of a stepladder the way through the gatehouse. There was no sound but the flop-flop of his boots on the cobbles. Then an idea seemed to occur to him.
'It's a long shot, I know, but I suppose neither of you gentlemen'd like a sniff of my buttonhole?'
'No.'
'No.'

Lorenzo Lotto Nativity

Lorenzo Lotto NativityLorenzo Lotto Madonna and Child with SaintsCamille Pissarro Place du Theatre FrancaisCamille Pissarro Landscape at Chaponval
out across rolling vistas without getting cattle and inconvenient poor people wandering across the lawns. Under Bloody Stupid's errant pencil it was dug fifty feet deep and had claimed three gardeners already.
The maze was so small that people got lost looking for it.
But the PatricianI didn't make any noise . . .
'Ah, Havelock—' he began.
'You have something to tell me, doctor?'
'It's been . . . mislaid.'
'Yes. And no doubt you are anxiously seeking it. Very well. Good day.'
The Patrician hadn't moved his head the whole time. He hadn't even bothered to ask what It was. He bloody well knows, thought Cruces. How is it you can never tell him anything he doesn't rather liked the gardens, in a quiet kind of way. He had certain views about the mentality of most of mankind, and the gardens made him feel fully justified.Piles of paper were stacked on the lawn around the chair. Clerks renewed them or took them away periodically. They were different clerks. All sorts and types of information flowed into the Palace, but there was only one place where it all came together, very much like strands of gossamer coming together in the centre of a web.A great many rulers, good and bad and quite often dead, know what happened; a rare few actually manage, by dint of much effort, to know what's happening. Lord Vetinari considered both types to lack ambition.'Yes, Dr Cruces,' he said, without looking up.How the hell does he do it? Cruces wondered. I know

Mark Spain Cordoba

Mark Spain CordobaMark Spain ContemplationMark Spain CastillaMark Spain CarmenMark Spain Burning Desire
Will you look at the size of the horn on that thing?”
“I can see clear enough,” said Granny calmly.
The unicorn lowered its head and charged. Nanny Ogg reached the nearest tree with low branches and leapt upward. ..
Granny Weatherwax folded her arms.
“Come on, Esme!”
“No. I ain’t been 306
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because wishing was soppy, but she felt a tiny regret that she’d never be able to meet them.
Perhaps some were going to die, now, here on this path. Everything thinking clear enough, but I am now.There’s some things I don’t have to run from.”The white shape bulleted down the avenue of trees, a thousand pounds of muscle behind twelve inches of glisten-ing hom. Steam swirled behind it.“Esme!”Circle time was ending. Besides, she knew now why her mind had felt so unravelled, and that was a help. She couldn’t hear the ghostly thoughts of all the other Esme Weatherwaxes anymore.Perhaps some lived in a world ruled by elves. Or haddied long ago. Or were living what they thought were happylives. Granny Weatherwax seldom wished for anything,

Paul Gauguin The Yellow Christ

Paul Gauguin The Yellow ChristPaul Gauguin The Vision After the SermonPaul Gauguin Spirit of the Dead Watching
“That’s settled, then,” she said.“Hold on, I’m not sure—““Yes, Mr. Quamey?”“Oh . . . well...”“Good, Terry Pratchett
make out one or two stones by the flickering light, lying on their side or rolled down the slope of the hill.
The hill itself glowed. Something was wrong with the landscape. It curved where it shouldn’t curve. Distances weren’t right. Magrat remembered a woodcut shoved in as a place marker in one of her old books. It showed the face of an old crone but, if you stared at it, you saw it was also the head of a young woman; a nose became a neck, an eyebrow became a necklace. The images seesawed back and forth. And like everyone else, she’d squinted herself silly trying to see them both at the same time.
The landscape was doing pretty much the same thing. What was a hill was also at the same time a vast snowbound panorama. Lancre and the land of the elves were trying to occupy the same space.
The intrusive country wasn’t having it all its own way.good,” said Nanny, as Shawn reappeared. “They was just saying, our Shawn, how they was swayed by your speech. Really pussiked up.”“Cor!”“They’re ready to follow you into the jaws of hell itself, Iexpect,” said Nanny.Someone put up their hand.“Are you coming too, Mrs. Ogg?”

Titian The Fall of Man

Titian The Fall of ManTheodore Chasseriau Apollo and DaphneEmile Munier Cupid Disarmed
chain-mail, Shawn,” she said.
“What, miss?” He glanced at the open door again.
“That’s terrible. You must take it off, Shawn. How can
you hear with all that stuff around your ears?”
Shawn was aware ofDiamanda was smiling at him in a funny way.
He ran.
Somehow, the woods had changed. Ridcully was certain that in his youth they’d been full of bluebells and primroses and—and bluebells and whatnot and so on. Not bloody great briars all over the place. They snagged at the empty space behind him. Buthe daren’t look around.“I can hear fine, miss,” he said, trying to ease himself around so that his back was against a wall.“But you can’t hear truly,” said Diamanda, drifting for-ward. “The iron makes you deaf.”Shawn was not yet used to thinly clad young women approaching him with a dreamy look on their faces. He fer-vently wished he could take the Path of the Retreating Back.205Terry PratehettHe glanced sideways.There was a tall skinny shape outlined in the open cell doorway. It was standing very carefully, as if it wanted to keep as far away from its surroundings as possible.

Paul Gauguin The Loss of Virginity

Paul Gauguin The Loss of VirginityPaul Gauguin Tahitian WomanPaul Gauguin JoyousnessThomas Kinkade country living
the king!” hissed Shawn. “And me without my trumpet!”
“Urn,” said Verence. “Post been yet, Shawn?”
“Oh, yes, sire!” said Shawn, almost as flustered as the king. “Got it right here. Don’t you worry about it! I’ll open it all up and have it on your desk right away, sire!”
“Urn...”
“Something the matter, sire?”
“Um ... I think perhaps ...”
Shawn was , and turned a few pages.
“Hey, look at this one! He’s doing it with his feet! I didn’t know you could do it with your feet!” He nudged Ponder Stibbons. “Look, sir!”
Ridcully peered at the king.already tearing at the wrappers.“Here’s that book on etiquette you’ve been waiting for, sire, and the pig stockbook, and ... what’s this one ... ?”Verence made a grab for it. Shawn automatically tried to hang on to it. The wrapping split, and the large bulky book thumped on to the cobbles. Its fluttering pages played their woodcuts to the breeze.They looked down.“Wow!” said Shawn.“My word,” said Ridcully.“Um,” said the king.“Oook?”Shawn picked up the book very, very carefully
“You all right, your majesty?” he said.
Verence squirmed.

Leroy Neiman 16th at Augusta

Leroy Neiman 16th at AugustaSalvador Dali Manhattan SkylineMartin Johnson Heade Cattleya Orchid and Three Brazilian HummingbirdsCaravaggio The Raising of Lazarus
what I mean.”
Nanny Ogg looked worried.
“Supposing Magrat’d been here,” said Granny. “She’d see me being daft.”
“Well, she’s safe in the castle,” said Nanny. “Learning how to be queen.”
“At least the thing about queening,” said Granny, “is that no one notices if you’re doing it wrong. It has to be right ‘cos it’s you doing it.”
“S’funny, royalty,” said Nanny. “It’s like magic. You take some girl with a bum like two pigs in a blanket and a head full of air and then she marries a king or a prince or some-one and suddenly she’s this radiant right royal princess. It’s a funny old world.”
“I ain’t going to kowtow to her, mind,” said Granny.
“You never “Her mother was a Keeble, wasn’t she? Fine woman, as I recall.”
“Yeah, but when she died the old man sent her off to Sto Lat to school.”
57
Terry Pratchett
“Don’t hold with schools,” said Granny Weatherwaxkowtow to anyone anyway,” said Nanny Ogg patiently. “You never bowed to the old king. You barely gives young Verence a nod. You never kowtows to anyone ever, anyway.”“That’s right!” said Granny. “That’s part of being a witch, that is.”Nanny relaxed a bit. Granny being an old woman made her uneasy. Granny in her normal state of barely controlled anger was far more her old self.Granny stood up.“Old Toekley’s girl, eh?”“That’s right.”

Mark Spain Sevilla

Mark Spain SevillaMark Spain ReflectionMark Spain Pure Elegance
him an ant once, for a joke, and he’d sat up all
Terry Pratchett
night with a magnifying glass and an anvil made out of the head of a pin. The ant was still around, somewhere—some-times he could hear it clatter across the floor.
But tonight. . . well, tonight, in some way, he was going to pay the rent. Of course, he owned the forge. It had been passed down The wind rose, and somewhere there was the creak of a tree going over.
The latch rattled.
Then there was a knock at the door. Once. Twice.
Jason Ogg picked up his blindfold and put it on. That was important, his dad had said. It saved you getting dis-tracted.
He undid the door.for generations. But there was more to a forge than bricks and mortar and iron. He couldn’t put a name to it, but it was there. It was the difference between being a master farrier and just someone who bent iron in complicated ways for a living. And it had something to do with iron. And something to do with being allowed to be very good at his job. Some kind of rent.One day his dad had taken him aside and explained what he had to do, on nights like this.There’d be times, he said, there’d be times—and he’d know when they were without being told—there’d be times when someone would come with a horse to shoe. Make them welcome. Shoe the horse. Don’t let your mind wander. And try not to think about anything except horseshoes.He’d got quite used to it now.

Thomas Kinkade Evening on the Avenue

Thomas Kinkade Evening on the AvenueThomas Kinkade Cobblestone ChristmasThomas Kinkade Cobblestone Brooke
fighting was over in Ephebe. It hadn't lasted long, especially when the slaves joined in. There were too many narrow streets, too many ambushes and, above all, too much terrible determination. It's generally held that free men will always triumph over slaves, but perhaps it all depends on your point of view.
Besides, the Ephebian garrison commander had declared somewhat nervously that slavery would henceforth be abolished, which infuriated the slaves. What would be the point of saving up to become free if you couldn't own slaves afterwards? Snakes wriggled into cracks in the stone.
You could live in the desert. Or at least survive . . .
Getting back to Omnia could only be a matter of time. One more day . . .
Vorbis trooped along a little behind him. He said nothing and, when spoken to, gave no sign that he had understood what had been said to him.Besides, how'd they eat?The Omnians couldn't understand, and uncertain people fight badly. And Vorbis had gone. Certainties seemed less certain when those eyes were elsewhere.The Tyrant was released from his prison. He spent his first day of freedom carefully composing messages to the other small countries along the coast.It was time to do something about Omnia. Brutha sang.His voice echoed off the rocks. Flocks of scalbies shook off their lazy pedestrian habits and took off frantically, leaving feathers behind in their rush to get airborne.

George Inness Delaware Water Gap

George Inness Delaware Water GapLorenzo Lotto NativityLorenzo Lotto Madonna and Child with Saints
took a deep breath and then pushed himself forward.
It was quite a steep flight of steps. He felt every one as he bumped down, but at least he was upright at the bottom.
He was lost, but being lost in Ephebe was preferable to being lost in the Citadel. At least there were no obvious cellars.
Library, library, library . . .
There was a library in the Citadel, Brutha had said. He'd described it, so Om had some idea of what he was looking for.
There would of the Empire."
"Yes," said the Tyrant. "We believe they are. But we like to remember them as they were. Before you sent them your letters, that put the minds of men in chains."
"That set the feet of men on the right road," said Vorbis.
"Chain letters," said the Tyrant. "The Chain Letter to the Ephebians. Forget Your Gods. Be Subjugated. Learn to Fear. Do not break the chain-the last people who did woke up one morning to find fiftybe a book in it. Peace negotiations were not going well."You attacked us!" said Vorbis."I would call it preemptive defense," said the Tyrant. "We saw what happened to Istanzia and Betrek and Ushistan.""They saw the truth of Om!""Yes," said the Tyrant. "We believe they did, eventually.""And they are now proud members

Piet Mondrian Composition with Red Yellow and Blue

Piet Mondrian Composition with Red Yellow and BluePiet Mondrian Composition 2Steve Thoms PoppiesEdvard Munch Puberty 1894
the part of his mind not occupied with thoughts of heat, he could feel Brutha's terror and bewilder­ment. He shouldn't have done that to the boy. Of course he hadn't been watching him. What god did that? Who cared what people did? some kin f divine providence, except that you were divine providence . . . and on your back, getting hotter, preparing to die . . .
That man who'd turned him over. That expression on that mild face. He'd remember that. That expres­sion, not of cruelty, but of some different level of be­ing. That expression of terrible peace . . .
A shadow crossed the sun. Om squinted up into the face of Lu-Tze, who gazed at him with gentle, upside­down compassion. And then turned him the right way up. And then picked
Heighton After Hours
Belief was the thing. He'd just picked the memory out of the boy's mind, to impress, like a conjuror removing an egg from someone's ear.I'm on my back, and getting hotter, and I'm going to die . . .And yet . . . and yet . . . that bloody eagle had dropped him on a compost heap. Some kind of clown, that eagle. A whole place built of rocks on a rock in a rocky place, and he landed on the one thing that'd break his fall without breaking him as well. And really close to a believer.Odd, that. Made you wonder if it wasn't

Marc Chagall La Mariee

Marc Chagall La MarieePaul Gauguin Yellow ChristPaul Gauguin Where Do We Come From
,' said Coin.
He watched the Librarian shuffle around and head back for the Tower of Art, and a desperate loneliness overcame him.
'I saymean, I could help people. I'm sure you’d like to be human again, wouldn't you?'
The Librarian's everlasting smile hoisted itself a little further up his face, just enough to reveal his teeth.
'Okay, perhaps not,' said Coin hurriedly, 'but there's other things I could do, isn't there?'
The Librarian gazed at him for some time, then dropped his eyes to the boy's hand. Coin gave !' he yelled.'Gook?''What should I do now?''Gook?'Coin waved vaguely at the desolation.'You know, perhaps I could do something about all this?', he said in a voice tilting on the edge of terror. 'Do you think that would be a good idea? I

Bernhard Gutmann Nude with Drapery

Bernhard Gutmann Nude with DraperyPaul Klee The Rose GardenPaul Klee Red BallonPaul Klee Park of Idols
wizards who got along with one another about as easily as cats in a sack, and now the gloves were off anyone who tried to interfere was going to end up severely scratched. This wasn't the old, gentle, rather silly magic that the Dischaze high in the air.
'It's raw magic settling out of the atmosphere,' he said. 'It's saturated.'
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twen-­
'Surely there's-’ Conina began.
'There isn't,' said Rincewind flatly, but with just the faintest twinge of satisfaction. 'The wizards will fight each other until there's one victor. There isn't anything anyone else was used to; this was magic war, white-hot and searing.Rincewind wasn't very good at precognition; in fact he could barely see into the present. But he knew with weary certainty that at some point in the very near future, like thirty seconds or so, someone would say: 'Surely there's something we could do?'The desert passed below them, lit by the low rays of the setting sun.'There don't seem to be many stars,' said Nijel. 'Perhaps they're scared to come out.'Rincewind looked up. There was a silver

Caravaggio Beheading of Saint John the Baptist

Caravaggio Beheading of Saint John the BaptistJohannes Vermeer Woman with a Pearl NecklaceJohannes Vermeer Saint Praxidis
Rincewind, of course, couldn't smell any of this. Adaptation is a wonderful thing, and most Morporkians would be hard put to smell a burning feather mattress at five feet.
'Where to next?' he said. 'Somewhere out of the wind?'
'My father said. 'After you said we should be attacked I seemed to hear a ranging in my ears.'
'Well, we want to meet the criminal element, don't we?'
'Not exactly want,' said Rincewind. 'That wasn't the phrase I would have chosen.'
'How would you put it, then?'
'Er. I think the phrase "not want" sums it up pretty spent some time in Khali when he was hunting for the Lost City of Ee,' said Conina. 'And I seem to remember he spoke very highly of the soak. It's a kind of bazaar.''I suppose we just go and look for the second-hand hat stalls,' said Rincewind. 'Because the whole idea is totally-’'What I was hoping was that maybe we could be attacked. That seems the most sensible idea. My father said that very few strangers who entered the soak ever came out again. Some very murderous types hang out there, he said.'Rincewind gave this due consideration.'Just run that by me again, will you?' he

Titian The Three Ages of Man

Titian The Three Ages of ManLorenzo Lotto Lotto ArchitectTitian Venus with Organist and Cupid
'Come on, I said!'
'Oook.'
'I'll buy you a drink,' said Rincewind desperately.
The But it wasn't the sight of the cockroaches that was so upsetting. It was the fact that they were marching in step, a hundred abreast. Of course, like all the informal inhabitants of the University the roaches were a little unusual, but there was something particularly unpleasant about the sound of billions of very small feet hitting the stones in perfect time.Librarian unfolded like a four-legged spider. 'Oook?'Rincewind half-dragged the ape from his nest and out through the door. He didn't head for the main gates but for an otherwise undistinguished area of wall where a few loose stones had, for two thousand years, offered students an unobtrusive way in after lights-out. Then he stopped so suddenly that the Librarian cannoned into him and the Luggage ran into both of them.'Oook!''Oh, gods,' he said. 'Look at that!''Oook?'There was a shiny black tide flowing out of a grating near the kitchens. Early evening starlight glinted off millions of little black backs.

Robert Duval Emotional Dance

Robert Duval Emotional DanceSteve Thoms Field of Red and GoldPedro Alvarez Tango Argentino
MISS FLITWORTH? RENATA?
‘I - I didn’t know what to do and you said it wasn’t difficult and -‘ Death walked into the barn. When he came out, he was wearing his black robe.
She was still standing there.
‘I . ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ said Windle. They reached the moving stairs. He looked up. Trolleys clustered around the top of the upward stair, but the way to the floor below looked clear.
‘Perhaps we could find another way up?’ said Ludmilla hopefully. They shuffled on to the moving stair. Behind them, the trolleys moved in to block their return.
The wizards were on the floor below. They weredidn’t know what to do,’ she repeated, possibly not to him.’What happened? Is it all over?’Death looked around. The grey shapes were pouring into the yard. POSSIBLY NOT, he said.More trolleys appeared behind the row of soldiers. They looked like the small silvery workers with the occasional pale golden gleam of a warrior. ‘We should retreat back to the stairs,’ said Doreen.‘I think that’s where they want us to go,’ said Windle. ‘Then that’s fine by me. Anyway, I vouldn’t think those wheels could manage steps, could they?’‘And you can’t exactly fight to the death,’ said Ludmilla. Lupine was keeping close to her, yellow eyes fixed on the slowly advancing wheels

Paul Klee Fish Magic

Paul Klee Fish MagicPaul Klee Around the FishPaul Klee Ancient Sound
Bill Door glanced at the rimward horizon and then, speculatively, at the little hill behind the house.
He jerked forward, legs clicking over the ground.
The new interface between night and day. If one of them had been carried thousands of miles inland on the dawn. he might have seen, as the light thundered over the high plains, a stick figure toiling up a low hill in the path of the morning. It reached the top a moment before the light arrived, took a breath, and then spun around in a crouch, grinning.
It held a long blade upright between extended arms.daylight sloshed on to the world. Discworld light is old, slow and heavy; it roared across the landscape like a cavalry charge. The occasional valley slowed it for a moment and. here and there, a mountain range banked it up until it poured over the top and down the far slope. It moved across a sea, surged up the beach and accelerated over the plains, driven by the lash of the sun.On the fabled hidden continent of Xxxx, somewhere near the rim, there is a lost colony of wizards who wear corks around their pointy hats and live on nothing but prawns. There, the light is still wild and fresh as it rolls in from space, and the~~urf on the boiling

Pierre Auguste Renoir The Umbrellas

Pierre Auguste Renoir The UmbrellasPierre Auguste Renoir Les baigneusesPierre Auguste Renoir By the Seashore
was told, We apologise for the recent lapse in standards. ‘Lapse?’ said the Archchancellor, now totally mystified.’Well, uh. I’m not sure there’s been a . . . I mean, of course the fella was always knockin’ around, but most of the time we hardly . . .’
He was told, life effects. The figure wavered and began to fade.
The Archchancellor waved his hands desperately.
‘Wait!’ he said.’You can’t just go like that! I command you to stay! What service? What does it all mean? Who are you?’
The hood turned back towards him and said, We are nothing.
‘That’s no help! What is your name?’
We are oblivion.
The figure vanished.It has all been most irregular.‘It has? Has it? Oh, well, can’t have irregularity,’said the Archchancellor.He was told, It must have been terrible.‘Well, I . . . that is . . . I suppose we . . . I’m not sure . . . must it?’ He was told, But now the burden is removed. Rejoice. That is all. There will be a short transitional period before a suitable candidate presents itself, and then normal service will be resumed. In the meantime, we apologise for any unavoidable inconvenience caused by superfluous

Amedeo Modigliani Landscape

Amedeo Modigliani LandscapeAlphonse Maria Mucha The Judgement of ParisAlphonse Maria Mucha Savonnerie de BagnoletAlphonse Maria Mucha North StarAlphonse Maria Mucha Moet and Chandon White Star
on all the time, ‘ said Ridcully, ignoring him.
?Most? of things die all the time. Even vegetables.’
?You? won’told ones?’ said Ridcully, interested despite himself.
‘Dunno. They just float around in the air, I suppose, until they get attached to someone else.’
The Archchancellor looked affronted.
‘What, even wizards?’
‘Oh, yes. Everyone. It’s part of the miracle of existence.’ ‘Is it? Sounds like bad hygiene to me,’ said the Archchancellor.’I suppose there’s no way of stopping ?it? think Death ever came for a potato,’ ?said? Dean doubtfully.‘Death comes for everything,’ said the Archchancellor, firmly. The wizards nodded sagely.After a while the Senior Wrangler said, ‘Do you know, I read the other day that every atom in your body is changed every seven years? New ones keep getting attached and old ones keep on dropping off. It goes on all the time. Marvellous, really.’ ?e_? The Senior Wrangler could do to a conversation ?that? it takes quite thick treacle to do to the pedals of a precision watch. ‘Yes? What happens to the