 |
| Ottavio Vannini St Sebastian before 1644 oil on canvas Museo di San Marco, Florence |
 |
| Bernardo Cavallino Adoration of the Magi ca. 1630-56 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
 |
| Guido Cagnacci Penitent Magdalen 1658 oil on canvas Portsmouth Museums (Hampshire) |
 |
| Salvator Rosa Madonna del Suffragio 1661-62 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
"Earlier in the century, it was the most responsive writers who might begin their setting of the encounter with a much admired body of pictures to words by paying tribute to painting as a form of the unsayable. As Paul Valéry wrote in 1932 (it's the first sentence of "About Corot"): "One must always apologize for talking about painting." From the summoning of each art to what its means only could enact, it follows that nothing can be paraphrased or transposed into another medium. Painting, like music and dance, does not signify in the verbal sense; what you see is what you get. "A work of art, if it does not leave us mute, is of little value" (Valéry again). Of course, we don't stay mute."
– Susan Sontag, from About Hodgkin (1995)
 |
| Matteo Ponzoni Judith with the Head of Holofernes before 1663 oil on canvas Victoria & Albert Museum |
 |
| Carlo Maratti Alpheus and Arethusa ca. 1650-90 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Guillaume Courtois (Il Borgognone) and Abraham Brueghel Woman with Roses ca. 1665-75 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Francesco Allegrini Triumph of David before 1679 oil on canvas Palazzo Ducale, Gubbio |
 |
| Francesco Allegrini Fall of Icarus before 1679 oil on paper, mounted on panel Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
 |
| Pietro Montanini St Martin dividing his Cloak with a Beggar before 1689 oil on canvas National Museum of Art of Romania, Bucharest |
 |
| Francesco Solimena Hagar and the Angel ca. 1690 oil on canvas Banco Commerciale Italiana, Naples |
 |
| Francesco Solimena Joseph and Potiphar's Wife ca. 1690 oil on canvas private collection |
 |
| Sebastiano Ricci Martyrdom of St Erasmus ca. 1694-97 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |
 |
| Stefano Maria Legnani Self-portrait 1692 oil on canvas Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan |