Sunday, April 26, 2026

Signals - I

Matthias Gerung
Monument to Melancholy in the Garden of Love
1558
tempera and oil on panel
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Paul Gervais
The Folly of Titania
1897
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Salomon Gessner
Buying a Cupid
ca. 1802-1803
etching
(posthumously printed)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Angelica Kauffmann
Cupid and Youth lighting Torches
ca. 1770
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Wilhelm Böttner
Young Woman hiding her Love
1788
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Marco Dente after Giulio Romano
Venus and Adonis
ca. 1516
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giulio Romano
Venus and Adonis
1516
drawing
(study for fresco)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Domenico del Frate
Neoclassical Statue Group - Venus and Adonis
before 1821
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giovanni Maria Benzoni
Cupid and Psyche
after 1845
marble
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Johann Helferich Cramer
Sculpture of Cupid and Psyche as Children
ca. 1750
oil on canvas
(grisaille, made in Rome)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Theodor Friedl
Cupid and Psyche
ca. 1890
marble
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Gaspare Diziani
Cupid and Psyche
before 1767
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Josef Abel
Cupid aiming Arrow
ca. 1810
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jean Duvet
Allegory on the Power of Love
1528
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jan Gossaert
Portrait of a Man with a Love Motto
ca. 1530
oil on panel
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Hans Schäufelein
The Triple Heart
1517
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

On a Statue of Heracles – Heracles, where is thy great club, where thy Nemean cloak and thy quiver full of arrows, where is thy stern glower?  Why did Lysippus mould thee thus with dejected visage and alloy the bronze with pain?  Thou art in distress, stripped of thy arms.  Who was it that laid thee low?  Winged Love, of a truth one of thy heavy labours. 

On a Statue of Theseus and the Bull of Marathon – Marvelous is the art of the bull and man; he, the man, his limbs all tense, forces down by his might the savage beast.  To bend back the sinews of its neck he grasps with his left hand its nostrils, with his right its horn and shakes up the neck-bones.  The beast, its neck subdued by his strong hands, sinks down on its hindquarters.  One may fancy that in this bronze Art makes the beast breathe and bathes the man in sweat. 

On a Statue of Capaneus – Had Capaneus been like this when he furiously attacked the towers of Thebes, contriving to mount through the air on a ladder, he would have taken the city by force in Fate's despite; for even the bolt of Zeus would have deemed it shame to slay such a champion. 

On a Picture of Telephus Wounded – This, the irresistible chieftain of Teuthrania; this Telephus who once bathed in blood the terrible host of the Greeks when he filled Mysian Caycus to overflowing with slaughter; this, the champion who faced the spear of Peleus, now bearing hidden deep in his thigh a heavy and deadly wound, wastes away as if his life were leaving him, dragging himself along with his living flesh.  Even though he be sore hurt the Greeks tremble at him, and depart in disorder from the Teuthranian shore. 

On Hippolytus conversing with Phaedra's Nurse – Hippolytus speaks into the old wife's ear pitiless words, but we cannot hear them.  But as far as we can understand from the fury in his eyes, he enjoins her not to say again unlawful words. 
 
On a Bronze Statue of Icarus which stood in a Bath – Icarus, wax caused thy death, and now by wax the worker in bronze has restored thee to thy shape.  But beat not thy wings in the air, lest thou fall from the sky and give thy name to the bath.*

– from Book XVI (Epigrams of the Planudean Anthology) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)

*as he gave his name to the Icarian Sea