Oscar Wilde
1897
Millions of years of salt
water and calcification
processes have created
a national treasure.
The Cliffs of Dover are part of the English coastline, facing south–southeast towards
the Strait of Dover and France. They are part of the North Downs formation,
and reach up to 110 metres. The cliffs stretch for 13 kilometres along
the coast, east and west from the town of Dover in the county of Kent.
The cliffs were formed around the same time as the Strait of Dover,
and are composed largely of soft white chalk, with some flint and quartz.
The chalk was formed in the Cretaceous period and consists of coccoliths, plates
of calcium carbonate formed by coccolithophores, single-celled planktonic algae whose
skeletal remains sank to the bottom of the ocean during the Cretaceous
and, together with the remains of bottom-living creatures, formed sediments.
While bathing, Antinous was seen by Minerva, who was so enamoured
of his beauty that, all armed as she happened to be, she descended
from Olympus to woo him; but, unluckily displaying her shield, with
the head of Medusa on it, she had the unhappiness to see the
beautiful mortal turn to stone from catching a glimpse of it. She
straightway ascended to ask Jove to restore him; but before this
could be done a Sculptor and a Critic passed that way and espied him.
“This is a very bad Apollo,” said the Sculptor: “the chest is too
narrow, and one arm is at least a half-inch shorter than the other.
The attitude is unnatural, and I may say impossible. Ah! my
friend, you should see my statue of Antinous.”
“In my judgment, the figure,” said the Critic, “is tolerably good,
though rather Etrurian, but the expression of the face is decidedly
Tuscan, and therefore false to nature. By the way, have you read
my work on ‘The Fallaciousness of the Aspectual in Art’?”
Dover Display: a new Caslon for the modern age. Dover Display: a fully-matched serif and sans pairing. Dover Display: undoubtedly English. Dover Display: when you need to say it big. Dover Display: best used big ☛☞
Monumental Grotesk: it’s finally here, revived from stone. Stone lettering? Is that a thing? It’s not a carving. A weird Dutch geometric typeface. Soft shapes in a hard material.