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| Rogier van der Weyden Descent from the Cross ca. 1435 oil on panel Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Filippo Lippi St Jerome in the Wilderness with St John the Baptist and St Ansanus ca. 1455 tempera on panel Harvard Art Museums |
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| Antonello da Messina Crucifixion with the Virgin and St John the Evangelist 1475 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Jean Pénicaud the Younger Plaque with Personification of Temperance ca. 1540-45 enamel on copper Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
from September, 1819
Yet will I temperately rejoice,
Wide is the range, and free the choice
Of undiscordant themes,
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize
Not less than vernal ecstasies,
And passion's feverish dreams.
– William Wordsworth (1819)
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| Maarten van Heemskerck The Lamentation 1566 oil on panel Museum Prinsenhof, Delft |
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| Isaac Moillon Sophonisba drinking Poison 1653 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Christian Striep Herbs, Butterflies and Serpent before 1673 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Nicolaes Berchem Milking Time before 1683 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Hugo Salmson City View with Still-Life before 1894 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Niclas Lafrensen Ladies and Gentlemen making Music in the Open Air ca. 1780 gouache on paper Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
from Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle . . .
Ah! then, if mine had been the Painter's hand,
To express what then I saw, and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream,
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile,
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years, a chronicle of heaven,
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife,
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,
Such Picture would I at that time have made:
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
– William Wordsworth (1806)
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| François Boucher Cupid wounding Psyche 1741 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Giambattista Tiepolo Glorification of the Barbaro Family ca. 1750 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Johann Bardou Portrait of an Elderly Lady 1785 pastel Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| William Jacob Baer Nymph 1898 watercolor on ivory Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |