Wednesday, June 5, 2024

Bunny - Degas - Kollwitz - Burchill

Rupert Bunny
Nocturne
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Rupert Bunny
Returning from the Garden
ca. 1906
oil on board
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Rupert Bunny
In the Luxembourg Gardens
ca. 1909
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Rupert Bunny
Saltimbanques
ca. 1926-30
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Edgar Degas
Actress in Dressing Room
ca. 1875-80
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Edgar Degas
Study after a Florentine Renaissance
drawing formerly attributed to Leonardo

ca. 1858-59
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Edgar Degas
Portrait of dancer Joséphine Gaujelin
1867
oil on canvas
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Edgar Degas
Pauline et Virginie Cardinal
bavardant avec des Admirateurs

ca. 1876-77
monotype
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Käthe Kollwitz
Help Russia
1921
lithograph (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Käthe Kollwitz
Mary and Elizabeth
1929
woodcut
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Käthe Kollwitz
Self Portrait
1934
lithograph
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Käthe Kollwitz
The Last Act
1925
woodcut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley
#5 (series, Freiland)
1992
C-print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley
#6 (series, Freiland)
1992
C-print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley
#11 (series, Freiland)
1992
C-print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Janet Burchill and Jennifer McCamley
#18 (series, Freiland)
1992
C-print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

At the Grave of Henry James

The snow, less intransigeant than their marble, 
Has left the defence of whiteness to these tombs,
     And all the pools at my feet
Accommodate blue now, echo such clouds as occur
To the sky, and whatever bird or mourner the passing
     Moment remarks they repeat. 

While rocks, named after singular spaces
Within which images wandered once that caused
     All to tremble and offend,
Stand here in an innocent stillness, each marking the spot
Where one more series of errors lost its uniqueness
     And novelty came to an end. 

To whose real advantage were such transactions,
When worlds of reflection were exchanged for trees?
     What living occasion can
Be just to the absent? Noon but reflects on itself,
And the small taciturn stone, that is the only witness
     To a great and talkative man,

Has no more judgement than my ignorant shadow
Of odious comparisons or distant clocks
     Which challenge and interfere
With the heart's instantaneous reading of time, time that is
A warm enigma no longer to you for whom I
     Surrender my private cheer,

As I stand awake on our solar fabric,
That primary machine, the earth, which gendarmes, banks
     And aspirin pre-suppose,
On which the clumsy and sad may all sit down, and any who will
Say their a-ha to the beautiful, the common locus
     Of the Master and the rose,

Shall I not especially bless you as, vexed with
My little inferior questions, I stand
     Above the bed where you rest,
Who opened such passionate arms to your Bon when It ran
Towards you with Its overwhelming reasons pleading
     All beautifully in Its breast?

With what an innocence your hand submitted
To those formal rules that help a child to play,
     While your heart, fastidious as
A delicate nun, remained true to the rare noblesse
Of your lucid gift and, for its love, ignored the
     Resentful muttering Mass,

Whose ruminant hatred of all that cannot
Be simplified or stolen is yet at large:
     No death can assuage its lust
To vilify the landscape of Distinction and see
The heart of the Personal brought to a systolic standstill,
     The Tall to diminished dust.

Preserve me, Master, from its vague incitement;
Yours be the disciplinary image that holds
     Me back from agreeable wrong
And the clutch of eddying Muddle, lest Proportion shed
The alpine chill of her shrugging editorial shoulder
     On my loose impromptu song.

All will be judged. Master of nuance and scruple,
Pray for me and for all writers, living or dead:
     Because there are many whose works
Are in better taste than their lives, because there is no end
To the vanity of our calling, make intercession
     For the treason of all clerks.

– W.H. Auden (1941)