The ornate effigy that became his public identity so early in his life was, in a sense, like that blue china: ridiculously rarefied, exquisite, perfectly self-contained.
Its program, in the intimate concert room at the Frick Collection on Sunday afternoon, was exquisite: precise, perfectly balanced, interpretively fresh performances, couched in consistently warm hues.
Personally, I think it's perfectly possible that this exquisite comic book will convert you overnight to the cause of the yellow jersey.
On the surface it looks unfeasibly exquisite, its perfectly sculpted images bathed in golden light and washed by the gentle harmonies of Joby Talbot's score.
But Krymov does not come across as some postmodern guru, hiding behind wilful obfuscation: each theme and idea is intended as a perfectly engineered droplet of exquisite visual meaning.
Among these are exquisite, near perfectly preserved geometric villa floorings from the age of the emperor Augustus; fifth-century figurative mosaics of soldiers; a scene of the presentation of arms to the Greek hero Achilles, from nearby Faenza; and rare fragments of the floors from the Palace of Theodoric, the Ostrogoth king of Ravenna.
The IPRC, which is based at the University of Hawaii, was already studying debris paths in the Pacific at the time of the tsunami, and was perfectly placed to produce exquisite forecasts of where the Japanese material was likely to spread.
Flowers, with their vibrant appearance and brief lifespan, perfectly embody the intense, exquisite and all too transitory nature of our mortal life.
He captured perfectly the doomed romanticism and exquisite narcissism of this falling star.
