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| Hans von Aachen Bacchus, Ceres and Amor ca. 1595-1605 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Anthony van Dyck Paris ca. 1628 oil on canvas Wallace Collection, London |
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| Jacob Jordaens Offering to Ceres ca. 1619 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Erasmus Quellinus Sleeping Cupid ca. 1636-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Erasmus Quellinus Abduction of Europa ca. 1636-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Erasmus Quellinus Bacchus and Ariadne ca. 1636-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Erasmus Quellinus Sons of Boreas (Zetes and Quellinus) driving away the Harpies ca. 1636-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
from Ode on the Poetical Character
The band, as fairy legends say,
Was wove on that creating day,
When He, who call'd with thought to birth
Yon tented sky, this laughing earth,
And dress'd with springs, and forests tall,
And pour'd the main engirting all,
Long by the lov'd enthusiast woo'd,
Himself in some diviner mood,
Retiring, sate with her alone,
And plac'd her on his sapphire throne,
The whiles, the vaulted shrine around,
Seraphic wires were heard to sound,
Now sublimest triumph swelling,
Now on love and mercy dwelling;
And she, from out the veiling cloud,
Breath'd her magic notes aloud:
And thou, thou rich-hair'd youth of morn,
And all thy subject life was born!
The dang'rous Passions kept aloof,
Far from the sainted growing woof:
But near it sate ecstatic Wonder
List'ning the deep applauding thunder:
And Truth, in sunny vest array'd,
By whose the tarsel's eyes were made
All the shad'wy tribes of mind,
In braided dance their murmurs join'd,
And all the bright uncounted Pow'rs
Who feed on Heav'n's ambrosial flow'rs.
Where is the bard, whose soul can now
Its high presuming hopes avow?
Where he who thinks, with rapture blind,
This hallow'd work for him design'd?
– William Collins (1747)
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| Erasmus Quellinus Death of Eurydice ca. 1636-38 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Jacob Jordaens Offering to Ceres ca, 1619 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Anonymous Italian Painter Priam and Hecuba ca. 1400-1425 tempera on panel Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Luca Giordano Battle between Lapiths and Centaurs ca. 1685-90 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Gaspard Duchange after Peter Paul Rubens Battle of the Amazons ca. 1778-82 porcelain plaque Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Peter Paul Rubens Birth of Diana and Apollo ca. 1625 watercolor and gouache on paper Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Robert Fagan Female Figure representing Autumn, with Hercules carrying the Cretan Bull ca. 1793-95 oil on canvas (grisaille) National Trust, Attingham Park, Shropshire |