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| Osias Beert Still Life with Cherries before 1623 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Johannes Bosschaert Still Life with Tulips before 1629 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Balthasar van der Ast Still Life with Basket of Flowers ca. 1630-35 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| attributed to Pietro Paolo Bonzi Still Life with Iris and Plums before 1636 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jan Fyt Still Life with Flowers and Overturned Jug ca. 1659 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jan Davidsz de Heem Vanitas Still Life with Skull, Book and Roses ca. 1630 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
Flowering Death
Ahead, starting from the far north, it wanders.
Its radish-strong gasoline fumes have probably been
Locked into your sinuses while you were away.
You will have to deliver it.
The flowers exist on the edge of breath, loose,
Having been laid there.
One gives pause to the other,
Or there will be a symmetry about their movements
Through which each is also an individual.
It is their collective blankness, however,
That betrays the notion of a thing not to be destroyed.
In this, how many facts we have fallen through
And still the old façade glimmers there,
A mirage, but permanent. We must first trick the idea
Into being, then dismantle it,
Scattering the pieces on the wind,
So that the old joy, modest as cake, as wine and friendship,
Will stay with us at the last, backed by the night
Whose ruse gave it our final meaning.
– John Ashbery, from As We Know (Viking, 1979)
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| Willem van Aelst Still Life with Peaches and Grapes before 1682 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-Baptiste Oudry Still Life with Dead Game and Silver Tureen on Turkish Carpet 1738 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Anne Vallayer-Coster Still Life with Brioche, Fruit and Vegetables 1775 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin Rabbit and Copper Pot before 1779 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Theodor Lundh Still Life with Birds 1864 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Hugo Salmson City View with Still Life before 1894 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Anna Munthe-Norstedt Still Life 1899 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Paul Cézanne Still Life with Plaster Cupid ca. 1890-1900 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
For the Grave of Posterity
This stone that is
not here and bears no writing commemorates
the emptiness at the end of
history listen you without vision you can still
hear it there is
nothing it is the voice with the praises
that never changed that called to the unsatisfied
as long as there was
time
whatever it could have said of you is already forgotten
– W.S. Merwin, from The Moving Target (Atheneum, 1963)