Monday, July 31, 2017

Faces and Figures 1620s

Dirck van Baburen
Young Man Singing
1622
oil on canvas
Städelsches Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt

Dirck van Baburen
Youth with Jew's Harp
1621
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Dirck van Baburen
Lute Player
1622
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

My lute, be as thou wast when thou didst grow
With thy green mother in some shady grove,
When immelodious winds but made thee move,
And birds on thee their ramage did bestow.
Sith that dear voice which did thy sounds approve,
Which used in such harmonious strains to flow,
Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above,
What art thou but a harbinger of woe?
Thy pleasing notes be pleasing notes no more,
But orphan wailings to the fainting ear.
Each stop a sigh, each sound draws forth a tear:
Be therefore silent as in woods before;
     Or if that any hand to touch thee deign,
     Like widowed turtle, still her loss complain.

– sonnet by William Drummond of Hawthornden (ca. 1614)

Abraham Bloemaert
Flute Player
1621
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Frans Hals
Singing Boy with Flute
ca. 1623
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Hendrick ter Brugghen
Bagpipe Player
1624
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

Frans Hals
St John the Evangelist
ca. 1625-28
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

This life which seems so fair
Is like a bubble blown up in the air
By sporting children's breath,
Who chase it everywhere,
And strive who can most motion it bequeath:
And though it sometime seem of its own might,
Like to an eye of gold, to be fixed there,
And firm to hover in that empty height,
That only is because it is so light.
But in that pomp it doth not long appear;
     For even when most admired, it in a thought,
     As swelled from nothing, doth dissolve in nought.

– madrigal by William Drummond of Hawthornden (ca. 1614)

Gerrit van Honthorst
The Procuress
1625
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Thomas de Keyser
Syndics of the Amsterdam Goldsmiths' Guild
1627
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Hendrick ter Brugghen
Rich Man and Poor Lazarus
1625
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Hendrick ter Brugghen
Calling of St Matthew
1620
oil on canvas
Musée d'art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre

Hendrick ter Brugghen
Calling of St Matthew
1621
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Valentin de Boulogne
Christ and the woman taken in adultery
1620s
oil on canvas
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Pieter Lastman
Jonah and the Whale
1621
oil on panel
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Of Many Worlds in This World

Just like unto a nest of boxes round,
Degrees of sizes within each box are found,
So in this world may many worlds more be,
Thinner, and less, and less still by degree;
Although they are not subject to our sense,
A world may be no bigger than twopence.
Nature is curious, and such work may make
That our dull sense can never find, but scape.
For creatures small as atoms may be there,
If every atom a creature's figure bear.
If four atoms a world can make, then see
What several worlds might in an ear-ring be.
For millions of these atoms may be in
The head of one small, little, single pin.
And if thus small, then ladies well may wear
A world of worlds as pendents in each ear.

– Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle (1653)