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| Théodore Géricault Head of a Guillotined Man ca. 1818-19 oil on panel Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Charles-Emile-Callande de Champmartin Study of a Severed Head ca. 1818-19 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Gabriel Ferrier Scene of the Spanish Inquisition 1879 oil on canvas Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Felice Ficherelli Jonah emerging from the Whale before 1660 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chambéry |
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| Henri Regnault Study for the Head of Salome ca. 1870 oil on canvas (bitumine-based pigment degraded) Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries |
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| Cesare Dandini Allegorical Figure before 1657 oil on canvas (formerly owned by Maria Callas) private collection |
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| Giovanni Battista Langetti Tantalus Chained before 1676 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Egidio Martini, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice |
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| Ludolf Backhuysen Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee 1695 oil on canvas Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Eugène Delacroix Shipwreck of the Don Juan 1840 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Giovanni Battista Benaschi Personification of Time ca. 1675-80 oil on canvas Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata |
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| Stephen Conroy Man of Vision 1987 oil on canvas British Council Collection, London |
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| Bartolomeo Guidobono Sibyl ca. 1690 oil on canvas Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University |
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| Giulio Aristide Sartorio Study for Parliament Frieze ca. 1908-13 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Johan Thopas Post-Mortem Portrait of a Child 1682 oil on canvas Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| attributed to Albert van Ouwater Portrait of a Donor ca. 1460 oil on canvas (altarpiece fragment) Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
"As an intellectual type Erasmus was one of a rather small group: the absolute idealists who, at the same time, are thoroughly moderate. They cannot bear the world's imperfections; they feel constrained to oppose. But extremes are uncongenial to them; they shrink back from action, because they know it pulls down as much as it erects, and so they withdraw themselves, and keep calling that everything should be different, but when the crisis comes, they reluctantly side with tradition and conservatism. Here too is a fragment of Erasmus's life-tragedy: he was the man who saw the new and coming things more clearly than anyone else – who must needs quarrel with the old and yet could not accept the new. He tried to remain in the fold of the old Church, after having damaged it seriously, and renounced the Reformation, and to certain extent even Humanism, after having furthered both with all his strength."
– Johan Huizinga, from Erasmus of Rotterdam, translated by Frederik Hopman (1924)