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| Valentin de Boulogne Lute Player ca. 1625-26 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Francesco Cairo Herodias before 1635 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Pictures of the People in the War
Later I'll pull down the shade
And let this fluid draw life out of the paper.
Telling how. Except instead
Of showing you equipment I would first off share
My vision of the thing: the angle of that head
Submerged in fixer there, the bare
Soul in its set; you see, it's done with speed
And lighting but my point is that one never
Gets so close to anyone within experience. I took
These pictures of the people in the war
About a year ago – their hands were opening to me like
Language; tanks and dwellings meanwhile misty in the rear.
– Louise Glück, from Firstborn (New American Library, 1968)
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| Carlo Dolci David with the Head of Goliath 1680 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Luigi Primo Portrait of Baldassare Vandergoes before the port of Ancona ca. 1655-60 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Philippe de Champaigne Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Colbert 1655 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Salvator Rosa Bandits on a Rocky Coast ca. 1655-60 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Luca Giordano Apollo in his Chariot ca. 1685 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Guido Reni Penitent Magdalen ca. 1635 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Domenico Fetti Penitent Magdalen ca. 1615 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Henri Mauperché Classical Landscape with Figures before 1686 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
The Fire
Had you died when we were together
I would have wanted nothing of you.
Now I think of you as dead, it is better.
Often, in the cool early evenings of the spring
when, with the first leaves,
all that is deadly enters the world,
I build a fire for us of pine and apple wood;
repeatedly
the flames flare and diminish
as the night comes on in which
we see one another so clearly –
And in the days we are contented
as formerly
in the long grass,
in the woods' green doors and shadows.
And you never say
Leave me
since the dead do not like being alone.
– Louise Glück, from The House on Marshland (Ecco Press, 1975)
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| Sébastien Bourdon Baptism of Christ ca. 1650 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Cesare Dandini Charity ca. 1657 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Luca Giordano Communion of the Apostles ca. 1680 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Anonymous French painter Still Life with Strawberries 17th century oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |