The shadows of a former age echo from the contrasting lines and purposefully human brush strokes; an age of refined etiquette, of pristine table ware and crystal decanters glistening under the pale light of oil lamps.

Their familiar charm making up for their lack of warmth, they cast elongated shadows over intricately papered walls flanked by patiently waiting service men

Who wield high collars, cufflinks and identical fawning expressions
as their dreams stand in line, awaiting a chance for fruition and vindication in a room filled with people who show nothing but haughty disdain for the common working man.

Each canvass is like skin stretching over brittle bones that hold together such structures:
the working wonder of the human spirit at its most distracted and vulnerable, frozen in time, recalling memories of a lifetime long fallen into the disrepair of so called technological progress.

It is the colors that first draw my attention,

The warm hues accentuating the faceless patrons, eating their meals, carefully planned by the most masterful of chefs, as the lines begin and end at mutually amiable and conflicting angles, creating the illusion that this world of color is both infinite and limited.

Everything is so bright.

The glare of the street lanterns in mists of light, romantic rain seems to make the scene opaque, almost luminescent, as if the city of love is compensating for its apparent lack of celestial accommodations.

There are no emotions in the body languages of the seated or wandering figures, no cares or worries among their ranks.

They neither seem to care that everything from their food to their world is artfully blurred, nor that they themselves will never know what it is to experience either of these things.

They seem content to remain as they are: frozen in the stillness of this scene in a city of gold, where the sun never shines, but the beauty never ceases.