Word: sumptuously
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...decorative arts: hard-stone (pietre dure) inlays, gems, tapestries. The tapestries in particular were a way of extracting the maximum visual punch from skilled labor: not only could they reproduce great designs at a fraction of the cost of painting, but they could also cover enormous surfaces with sumptuous effects. Monarchs loved them, setting up weaving factories in the Netherlands, France, Naples and Madrid. Naturally, the Medici had to have their own. Most elaborate of all were the pietre dure designs--fantastically elaborate inlays of jasper, lapis lazuli, serpentine and all manner of semiprecious stones, sawed into thin sheets...
...decorative arts: hard-stone (pietre dure) inlays, gems, tapestries. The tapestries in particular were a way of extracting the maximum visual punch from skilled labor: not only could they reproduce great designs at a fraction of the cost of painting, but they could also cover enormous surfaces with sumptuous effects. Monarchs loved them, setting up weaving factories in the Netherlands, France, Naples and Madrid. Naturally, the Medici had to have their own. Most elaborate of all were the pietre dure designs - fantastically elaborate inlays of jasper, lapis lazuli, serpentine and all manner of semiprecious stones, sawed into thin sheets...
...costumers could contrive, though they worked on budgets a fraction of Hollywood's. The wide-screen format, even on a TV screen, restores each film to its original epic dimensions. We are reminded that Chang Cheh's macho melodramas were not just an anthology of fight scenes; they were sumptuous slices of Chinese history, rendered in loving period detail...
...actress finds Blanche's seductiveness in her musical voice, the practiced irony of her inflections, the remembered gentilities of a Southern belle long since cracked, her light-footed stroll through the huge, moving set in Nunn's sumptuous, pristine production (in the auditorium next to the one holding "The Coast of Utopia" at the National). Nunn is to stage-direction what Sinatra was to lyric-singing: He's a great reader, finding the undertone in every phrase and pause in the text, and translating that understanding into space, time and gesture. Because Essie Davis impresses more as Blanche's sister...
...With this second time around, the ensemble has grown and learned along with the kids—now taller, bulkier and with noticeably deeper voices—and rectified many of the problems with the first year’s installment, with seamless special effects, superlative performances and staggeringly sumptuous visuals. Columbus glosses over exposition in Chamber—making the first film necessary viewing—and so is able to put more meat into each frame now that he’s afforded the luxury of focusing solely on plot. Virtually every major event makes it from page...