31 December

Born in 1869 – Henri Matisse, French artist.

Above: Les poissons rouges, 1914

Also, born in 1830, Scottish poet and critic Alexander Smith.

Consider, then, how the sense of impermanence brightens beauty and elevates happiness. Melancholy is always attendant on beauty, and that melancholy brings out its keenness as the dark green corrugated leaf brings out the wan loveliness of the primrose. The spectator enjoys the beauty, but his knowledge that it is fleeting, and that he fleeting, adds a pathetic something to it; and by that something the beautiful object and the gazer are alike raised.

—from the essay “Of death and the fear of dying”