They could see a luminous gray smoothness between the boughs and leaves which might have been the silky surface of the sea itself, or the lagoon, or the sky — it was difficult to tell.
In the exhibition's catalog, "Pearls: A Natural History" (Harry N. Abrams), the curators wrote: "Undoubtedly, pearls are prized as intrinsically beautiful objects because of their luster, color, shape and silky surface.
Andsnes is a fine match for the magisterial grandeur of the sonatas (D Major, D. 850, and A Major, D. 959): the silky surface of his sounds, the astonishing evenness of his touch, and the implacable forward thrust of his tempos highlight, rather than diminish, the extreme emotional contrasts within these pieces.
The works of his early maturity, such as The Elevation of the Cross (1610), show evidence of careful study of the Italian masters Michelangelo, Tintoretto, and Caravaggio, but these works also have a rippling, silky surface and an animal vitality wholly Flemish in character.
The silky surface of Andsnes's piano and the implacable forward thrust of his tempos heighten the extreme emotional contrasts of the Sonata in D Major, D. 850; Bostridge, in a smartly fashioned set of lieder, exhibits both a light and lovely voice and an extraordinary sensitivity to text.
The stem surface of young specimens are pruinose appearing to be coated with a minute layer of fine white particles; this eventually is sloughed off, leaving a smooth or silky surface.
The greyish-brownish peridium of H. arenarius is never found in specimens of H. niveus, which display a typical "snow-white" smooth and silky surface of the fruiting body.
At an extreme level of magnification, the silky smooth surface of the record reveals jagged braids of cut vinyl.
A thousand crushed diamonds twinkle through the silky-smooth surface of the Rolls-Royce in front of me at the Geneva Motor Show.
Its surface looks silky smooth, but its texture is unpleasantly gritty and coarse, because the sugar crystals, while few, have grown large.
