Editor’s Post: “The City is a Visual Feast”

The city is a visual feast, with one of the most fundamental parts of this feast being the people themselves. Humanity itself is beautiful, and its interaction with the city fascinating. There is a diversity in dress and style, and all people add to a mosaic that would be incomplete without their contribution to the whole. 

Art adds to a space’s beauty, and it thrives in cities in a variety of venues. Those living in or visiting a city are privy not only to art in museums and exhibits, but also to the variety of street art found in cities. Oftentimes, artists will create landscapes or portraits for a small cost. Even the subways of cities are filled with art. Intricate and colorful collages, like the mosaic below, can be found in city subways.

Cities are luminescent and are made beautiful by the light which emanates from a variety spaces found within, including billboards, store fronts, street lamps, and shimmering water. The prevalence of piercing light was present in every city, which I’ve ever visited. Istanbul is a great example of a city bathed in light. No matter where I went in Istanbul, whether it was the bazars, churches or mosques, light surrounded me at every turn. 

Walk into a city, and you will be overwhelmed by the beauty found within, so much so that you’ll never truly forget a city once you visit it. A city will imprint itself permanently into the constellations of your mind and will become forever available for recall in all its splendor and magnificence.

Ayesha F. Hamid is the founder and editor in chief at The City Key.  Ayesha has an MFA in Creative Writing and MA in Publishing from Rosemont College and an MA in Sociology from Brooklyn College. Her poetry and prose has appeared in Big Easy Review Philly Flash Inferno and Rathalla Review. Ayesha is a lover of cities, big and small.