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| Frédéric Bazille Landscape at Chailly 1865 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Frédéric Bazille Self Portrait 1865-66 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Eugène Boudin Approaching Storm 1864 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Wounded Eurydice ca. 1868-70 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Arleux-Palluel, The Bridge of Trysts ca. 1871-72 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
Obsession
Grands bois, vous m'effrayez comme des cathédrales;
Vous hurlez comme l'orgue; et dans nos cœurs maudits,
Chambres d'éternel deuil où vibrent de vieux râles,
Répondent les échos de vos De profundis.
Je te hais, Océan! tes bonds et tes tumultes,
Mon esprit les retrouve en lui; ce rire amer
De l'homme vaincu, plein de sanglots et d'insultes,
Je l'entends dans le rire énorme de la mer.
Comme la neige immense un corps pris de roideur;
Dont la lumière parle un langage connu!
Car je cherche le vide, et le noir, et le nu!
Mais les ténèbres sont elles-mêmes des toiles
Où vivent, jaillissant de mon œil par milliers,
Des êtres disparus aux regards familiers.
– Charles Baudelaire (1857)
Forest, I fear you! in my ruined heart
your roaring wakens the same agony
as in cathedrals when the organ moans
and from the depths I hear that I am damned.
Ocean, I hate you! for I recognize
the sobs and insults of my own despair,
the bitter laughter of a beaten man
repeated in the sea's huge gaiety.
Night! you'd please me more without these stars
which speak a language I know all too well –
I long for darkness, silence, nothing there . . .
Yet even shadows have their shapes which live
where I imagine them to be, the hordes
of vanished souls whose eyes acknowledge mine.
– translation by Richard Howard (1982)
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| Paul Cézanne Madame Cézanne in Yellow Chair ca. 1888-90 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Paul Cézanne Bathers ca. 1890-94 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Edgar Degas Four Studies of a Jockey 1866 oil and gouache on paper Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Gustave Courbet Rêverie (Portrait of Gabrielle Borreau) 1862 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Gustave Courbet The Rock of Hautepierre ca. 1869 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Jean-Léon Gérôme Portrait of a Woman 1851 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Henri Fantin-Latour The Corner of the Table 1872 oil on canvas Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Camille Pissarro Haymaking at Éragny 1892 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Camille Pissarro Woman and Child at the Well 1882 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Ernest Meissonier L'Endymien before 1891 watercolor Art Institute of Chicago |