Gravelot (Hubert-François Bourguignon) Study - Two Gentlemen standing in the Corridor of a Palace I before 1773 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Gravelot (Hubert-François Bourguignon) Study - Two Gentlemen standing in the Corridor of a Palace II before 1773 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Gravelot (Hubert-François Bourguignon) Study - Two Gentlemen standing in the Corridor of a Palace III before 1773 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Gravelot (Hubert-François Bourguignon) Scene in a Painter's Studio before 1773 etching Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Vilhelm Hammershøi Woman standing at a Table 1888 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
Edward Hopper East Side Interior 1922 etching National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Corot's Studio with a Woman before an Easel ca. 1868 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Lee Miller Portrait of Jean Arp, Switzerland 1947 gelatin silver print Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
Bernard van Orley The Annunciation ca. 1518 oil on panel National Gallery of Norway, Oslo |
Édouard Vuillard Maternité 1896 lithograph National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Robert Walter Weir Taking the Veil 1863 oil on canvas Yale University Art Gallery |
Christian Krohg Mother at Child's Bed 1884 oil on canvas National Gallery of Norway, Oslo |
Arie Johannes Lamme Meditation – a Lady looking out of a Window ca. 1840 oil on canvas Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Head-Waiter in Café 1904 color woodblock print National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
John Singer Sargent Portrait of Margaret Stuyvesant Rutherfurd (Mrs Henry White) 1883 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Alphonse Legros May Service for Young Women 1868 oil on canvas Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
"There was no end to the predictions of catastrophes: floods, hail of fire, havoc-wreaking disasters that would cause full-scale panic. Fifty-six authors and one hundred thirty-three pamphlets devoted to forecasts and astrological calculations have been counted for the decade 1520-30. Two obsessions that recur constantly are the end of the world and the destruction of Rome and the papacy. . . . And so, while the doctrine espoused by the Medici popes – which in fact was the traditional position of the Church – declared the inviolability of the papal city, everything conspired to make the humiliation of the Holy See and the destruction of the Eternal City a necessary disaster. The collective subconscious in Italy as well as in Germany was stirred up by the popular belief in portents and celestial omens: it viewed the attack on Rome as symptomatic of Christianity's ultimate crisis. For Lutherans, from a religious viewpoint, the symbolic sack of Rome became indispensable to the renewal of Christian faith. The fears and stirrings came to a head in the tension following 1525. Imperial policy, like the pope's, entered into a fatal stage of development in which the details were surprising, but the fundamental ideas remained consistent with the thinking of Charles's entourage: the pope, minister of human souls, had to be subordinated to the emperor, administrator of the world."
– André Chastel, The Sack of Rome, 1527, translated by Beth Archer, 1983 (expanded from the A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 1977, and published by Princeton University Press and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)