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| Marco Ricci Capriccio with Horses watering in a River outside a Walled Town ca. 1720 gouache on leather Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Gabriel de Saint-Aubin The Entrance to the Academy of Architecture at the Louvre 1779 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| attributed to Jean-Charles Delafosse Ornamental Bulls' Heads before 1789 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Giovanni Battista Piranesi Veduta della Piazza del Popolo, Roma 1750 etching Yale University Art Gallery |
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| attributed to Francesco Galli-Bibiena Estudio de arquitectura fantástica before 1739 drawing Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| attributed to Francesco Galli-Bibiena Estudio de interior arquitectónico before 1739 drawing Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Francesco Galli-Bibiena Escenografía teatral before 1739 drawing Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Sebastiano Ricci The Continence of Scipio ca. 1706 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Franz Anton Maulbertsch Theater Design before 1796 gouache Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Gaetano Gandolfi Three Female Heads late 18th century drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
from East Coker
So here I am, in the middle way, having had twenty years –
Twenty years largely wasted, the years of l'entre deux guerres –
Trying to learn to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion. And what there is to conquer
By strength and submission, has already been discovered
Once or twice, or several times, by men whom one cannot hope
To emulate – but there is no competition –
There is only the fight to recover what has been lost
And found and lost again and again: and now, under conditions
That seem unpropitious. But perhaps neither gain nor loss.
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.
– T.S. Eliot (1939-40)
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| Giovanni Antonio Guardi The Good Samaritan before 1766 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| John Flaxman Othus and Ephialtes holding Orestes captive (illustration for Pope's Iliad) ca. 1790-93 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Nicolas Bertin Christ Washing the Feet of His Disciples ca. 1720-30 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Giovanni Giuseppe Jarmorini Ceiling Design ca. 1785 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Louis-Gabriel Blanchet Cava di Tufa before 1772 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Jean-Antoine Watteau and Jean-Baptiste Pater Fête champêtre ca. 1718-21 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |