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| Gabriël Metsu Young Woman receiving a Letter ca. 1658 oil on panel Timken Museum of Art, San Diego |
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| Gabriël Metsu View into Hall with Jester, Boy and Dog ca. 1667 oil on panel Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto |
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| Gabriël Metsu Portrait of a Painter (possibly Maria de Grebber) ca. 1660 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Gabriël Metsu Christ and the Woman taken in Adultery 1653 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Lynne Cohen Untitled 2011 C-print National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Lynne Cohen Untitled 2009 C-print National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Lynne Cohen Spa 2000 C-print Museum London, Ontario |
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| Lynne Cohen Talent Search, Kitchener, Ontario 1978 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Woman and Children at a Window 1840 oil on canvas Neue Pinakothek, Munich |
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| Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Portrait of Captain von Stierle Holzmeister ca. 1819 oil on canvas Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Portrait of Mother and Daughter 1835 oil on canvas Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Self Portrait at age 35 1828 oil on canvas Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Bruno Bobak Burden ca. 1964 woodcut Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick |
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| Bruno Bobak Burden ca. 1964 woodcut Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick |
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| Bruno Bobak Father and Son 1961 oil on canvas Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick |
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| Bruno Bobak Ageing Wrestler 1970 oil on canvas Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick |
from Part Three of The Age of Anxiety
In this manner, sooner or later they come to the crumbling lichen-covered wall of the forgotten graveyard which marks the end of the fifth stage of their journey. At their feet lies a fallen wooden sign, bearing in faded letters the warning:
No Entrance Here Without a Subject
and underneath this, in smaller, barely decipherable script, some verses which Emble starts to read aloud:
Stranger, this still
Museum exhibits
The results of life:
Thoughtfully, therefore,
Peer as you pass
These cases clouded
By vetch and eyebright
And viper's bugloss
At each little collection
Loosely arranged
Of dated dust.
Here it is holy,
Here at last
In mute marble
The Master closed
His splendid period;
A spot haunted
By goat-faced grasshoppers
And gangling boys
Taunted by talents
Which tell them more
Museum exhibits
The results of life:
Thoughtfully, therefore,
Peer as you pass
These cases clouded
By vetch and eyebright
And viper's bugloss
At each little collection
Loosely arranged
Of dated dust.
Here it is holy,
Here at last
In mute marble
The Master closed
His splendid period;
A spot haunted
By goat-faced grasshoppers
And gangling boys
Taunted by talents
Which tell them more
Than their flesh can feel.
Here impulse loses
Its impetus: thus
Far and no farther
Their legs, resolutions
And languages carried
The big, the ambitious,
The beautiful, all
Stopped in mid-stride
At this straggling border
Where wildflowers begin
And wealth ends.
Yet around their rest
Flittermice, finches
And flies restore
Their lost milieu;
As inconsequential
Host of pert
Occasional creatures,
Blindly, playfully,
Bridging death's
Eternal gap
With quotidian joy.
Here impulse loses
Its impetus: thus
Far and no farther
Their legs, resolutions
And languages carried
The big, the ambitious,
The beautiful, all
Stopped in mid-stride
At this straggling border
Where wildflowers begin
And wealth ends.
Yet around their rest
Flittermice, finches
And flies restore
Their lost milieu;
As inconsequential
Host of pert
Occasional creatures,
Blindly, playfully,
Bridging death's
Eternal gap
With quotidian joy.
– W.H. Auden (1944-46)