Although it was produced entirely on computers, like nearly all modern anime, Shinkai and his team seem to have synthesized the best parts of both worlds: the characters emote with a warmth reminiscent of traditional hand-drawn animation.
In these paintings there is a flexibility of the subject, combined with a warmth and liveliness of expression and a genuinely artistic technique, that Dürer otherwise rarely attained.
But on the album's more traditional numbers her voice is pleasant, with a warmth that speaks of Christmas afternoons drinking mulled wine, playing Scrabble with a squiffy aunt while the Antiques Roadshow whirrs on TV.
Shaun of the Dead, his zombie movie parody, has the shape of a romantic comedy, with a warmth and a degree of seriousness.
But it compensates with a warmth, compassion and authority of its own.
While there are more dazzling pianists on the scene, Fialkowska plays Chopin with a warmth, poetry, and detail of phrasing that is disappointingly rare today; she places her gifts at the composer's feet.
J. Barrie Jones suggests that "amongst the works that Chopin intended for concert use, the four ballades and four scherzos stand supreme", and adds that "the Barcarolle Op. 60 stands apart as an example of Chopin's rich harmonic palette coupled with an Italianate warmth of melody".
To remark that the ensuing 600 years were a grim time for Western civilization is like saying that the tundra is a comfortable place with the warmth of a good cardigan.
An effort to find out how many e-mail messages are going to North -pole.co.uk, a leading Santa site based in Scotland, evoked a reply with all the warmth of a mass mailing.
But I believe that everyone in the world wants to be with someone else tonight, together in the dark, with the sweet warmth of a hip or a foot or a bare expanse of shoulder within reach.
