Saturday, October 5, 2019

Relief-Work in Limestone, Bronze and Wax (Vienna)

Galeazzo Mondella (called Moderno)
Apollo
ca. 1512
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

from Syringa

Orpheus liked the glad personal quality
Of the things beneath the sky. Of course, Eurydice was a part
Of this. Then one day, everything changed. He rends
Rocks into fissures with lament. Gullies, hummocks
Can't withstand it. The sky shudders from one horizon
To the other, almost ready to give up wholeness.
Then Apollo quietly told him: "Leave it all on earth.
Your lute, what point? Why pick at a dull pavan few care to
Follow, except a few birds of dusty feather,
Not vivid performances of the past." But why not?
All other things must change too.
The seasons are no longer what they once were,
But it is the nature of things to be seen only once,
As they happen along, bumping into other things, getting along
Somehow. That's where Orpheus made his mistake.
Of course Eurydice vanished into the shade;
She would have even if he hadn't turned around.
No use standing there like a gray stone toga as the whole wheel
Of recorded history flashes past, struck dumb, unable to utter an intelligent
Comment on the most thought-provoking element in its train.
Only love stays on the brain, and something these people,
These other ones, call life. Singing accurately
So that the notes mount straight up out of the well of
Dim noon and rival the tiny, sparkling yellow flowers
Growing around the brink of the quarry, encapsulates
The different weights of the things.

– John Ashbery (1977)

Hans Daucher
Annunciation
1518
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Peter Flötner
Allegory of Justice
(goldsmith's model)
ca. 1540-46
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Georg Schweigger
Susanna and the Elders
1641
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Georg Schweigger
St John the Baptist preaching
1645
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Georg Schweigger
Annunciation to Zacharias
1645
limestone relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Leone Leoni
Portrait of Emperor Charles V
ca. 1555
bronze relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giambologna
Allegory of Francesco I de' Medici
ca. 1561
bronze relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Artist working in Rome
Portrait of Pope Paul V Borghese
ca. 1640
bronze relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Artist working in Rome
Portrait of Pope Urban VIII Barberini
ca. 1650-1700
bronze relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Segala
Leda and the Swan
before 1597
colored wax relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Francesco Segala
Bust of a Young Knight
before 1597
colored wax relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Daniel Neuberger
Death of Emperor Ferdinand III as symbolizing Transience
ca. 1660
colored wax relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Caspar Bernhard Hardy
Artemisia mourning over her Husband's Remains
ca. 1775-1800
colored wax relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna