4 p.m. 7) The Big Picture Get back to town before the New Bedford Free Public Library (613 Pleasant Street, 508-991-6275) closes at 5 p.m. and ask the friendly curator, Paul Cyr, to unlock the art room, where there are a handful of luminous works by a local boy named Albert Bierstadt and a massive George Washington portrait that may or may not have been painted by Gilbert Stuart.
Some afternoons, it appears as a river, stealing through the bridge toward the Berkeley Hills in a steadily moving column made luminous by the pink sun.
Namwali Serpell has become the first Zambian writer to win the prestigious Caine prize for African writing, for a short story described as "truly luminous" by judges.
Olsen thinks the infalling gas hit 30 Doradus, causing it to grow large and luminous by fueling the formation of new stars.
The governess hides behind heavy curtains and in catching her breath finds herself looking out into the garden made luminous by the moon.
Whether plotting a jailbreak, arguing dialectics or making love with her comrade Andi (Harald Schrott), she seems possessed by a luminous fervor, an utter seriousness of purpose that is also a form of joy.
Elsewhere a gorgeous painting of floating, fuzzy-edged rectangles in red and blue by Mark Rothko is paired with a similarly luminous landscape by Pierre Bonnard, and a vividly optical grid painting in blues and greens by Ad Reinhardt converses with grid paintings in black, white and primary hues by Piet Mondrian.
From Homer and Eakins we walk into a party in progress of John Singer Sargent's Belle Époque portraits, presided over by the luminous Madame Pierre Gautreau, a k a Madame X, a hothouse being who, with her lavender skin and scant attire, cannot and will not meet our gaze.
Associate film curator at BAMPFA, Kate MacKay chooses to start the lecture with Luminous (2001), by Alexi Manis, a short film portraying a collection of images reflecting on a projection room.
What is a fiction-lover to do?One solution is "Luminous Airplanes" by Paul La Farge, a novel of modest length about a sluggish computer-programmer tasked with clearing out five generations of junk from his deceased grandparents' home.
