Visualizing the Warrior - VII

Tullio Lombardo
Tomb Effigy of Guidarello Guidarelli
1525
marble
Museo d'Arte della Città di Ravenna

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
The Continence of Scipio
(portrait historié of newlyweds and family)
1658
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Lorenzo de Ferrari
Death of Themistocles
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Palazzo Reale, Turin

Fedele Fischetti
Tancred attempting to enter the Forest
(scene from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata)
ca. 1760
drawing, with watercolor
Morgan Library, New York

Jean-Henri Marlet
Les Bons Camarades
1817
hand-colored lithograph
Wellcome Collection, London

Charles Parrocel
Two Soldiers
ca. 1730
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Cavaliere d'Arpino after Raphael
Soldier with Plumed Helmet
ca. 1610
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Niccolò della Casa after Baccio Bandinelli
Cosimo de' Medici in Armour
1544
engraving
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giovanni Bizzelli
Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
1565
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Yannis Moralis
Soldier
1940
drawing
National Museum, Athens

workshop of Titian
Venetian Admiral Vincenzo Cappello
ca. 1540
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Justus van Egmont
Archduke Leopold Wilhelm
1649
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Peter Paul Rubens
Decius Mus addressing the Legions
ca. 1616
oil on panel, transferred to canvas
(tapestry design)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giorgio Vasari
Alessandro de' Medici in Armour
1534
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Salvator Rosa
Jason poisoning the Dragon
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Saint Louis Art Museum

Jan Frans Douven
Figure of Victory with Torch
placing Laurel Wreath on Warrior's Empty Armour
ca. 1700-1710
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

 from The Shadowy Waters

Dectora.                               O ancient worm, 

        Dragon that loved the world and held us to it,
        You are broken, you are broken. The world drifts away,
        And I am left alone with my beloved,
        Who cannot put me from his sight for ever.
        We are alone for ever, and I laugh,
        Forgael, because you cannot put me from you.

        The mist has covered the heavens, and you and I
        Shall be alone for ever. We two – this crown –
        I half remember. It has been in my dreams.
        Bend lower, O king, that I may crown you with it.
        O flower of the branch, O bird among the leaves,
        O silver fish that my two hands have taken
        Out of the running stream, O morning star,
        Trembling in the blue heavens like a white fawn
        Upon the misty border of the wood,
        Bend lower, that I may cover you with my hair,
        For we will gaze upon this world no longer. 

                                         

– W.B. Yeats (1906)

Privately Related

Lucian Freud
After Cézanne
1999-2000
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ruth Chrisman Gannett
Cabbage
ca. 1950
lithograph
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Gerald Drexler Garston
The Jaguar
ca. 1970
screenprint
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Christopher Gallego
Interior with Three Rooms
1996-2000
oil on canvas
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Bartolomeo Gagliardi (lo Spagnoletto)
Baptism of Christ
before 1620 
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Kristian Fredrikson
Costume Design - Ravel's Scheherazade, Sydney Dance Co.
1980
gouache, ink and pastel on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Kristian Fredrikson
Costume Design - Ravel's Scheherazade, Sydney Dance Co.
1980
gouache, ink and pastel on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Michael Frary
After the Storm
ca. 1955
oil on panel
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Battista Franco after Pietro Paolo Galeotti
Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba
1560
etching and engraving
British Museum

Marvin Garner
Ochre & Red
2000
acrylic on canvas
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine

Urbano Fos
St Vincent Ferrer
ca. 1648-50
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Nita Forrest
For Elizabeth
ca. 1975
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Carl Fielgraf
Portrait of Charlotte Müller
1822
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Janet Fisher
Il Porcellino, Florence
before 1920
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Antonio Forbera (Antonio Fort Bras)
Le Chevalet de Peintre
1686
oil on canvas
Musée Calvet, Avignon

Steven Ford and David Forlano
Brooch
2007-2008
polymer and silver
Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin

from Letter to Lord Byron

My last remarks were sent you from a boat.

     I'm back on shore now in a warm bed-sitter,

And several friends have joined me since I wrote;

     So though the weather out of doors is bitter,

     I feel a great deal cheerier and fitter.

A party from a public school, a poet,

Have set a rapid pace, and make me go it. 

 

We're starting soon on a big expedition

     Into the desert, which I'm sure is corking:

Many would like to be in my position,

     I only hope there won't be too much walking.

     Now let me see, where was I? We were talking
Of Social Questions when I had to stop;

I think it's time now for a little shop.

In setting up my brass plate as a critic,

     I make no claim to certain diagnosis,

I'm more intuitive than analytic,

    I offer thought in homoeopathic doses
    (But someone may get better in the process).

I don't pretend to reasoning like Pritchard's

Or the logomachy of I.A. Richards.

I like your muse because she's gay and witty,

     Because she's neither prostitute nor frump,

The daughter of a European city,

     And country houses long before the slump;

     I like her voice that does not make me jump:

And you I find sympatisch, a good townee,
Neither a preacher, ninny, bore, nor Brownie.

A poet, swimmer, peer, and man of action,

– It beats Roy Campbell's record by a mile – 

You offer every possible attraction.

     By looking into your poetic style
     And love-life on the chance that both were vile,

Several have earned a decent livelihood,

Whose lives were uncreative but were good.

You've had your packet from the critics, though:

     They grant you warmth of heart, but at your head

Their moral and aesthetic brickbats throw.

     A "vulgar genius" so George Eliot said,

     Which doesn't matter as George Eliot's dead,

But T.S. Eliot, I am sad to find,
Damns you with: "an uninteresting mind".

A statement which I must say I'm ashamed at;

     A poet must be judged by his intention,

And serious thought you never said you aimed at.

     I think a serious critic ought to mention

     That one verse style was really your invention,

A style whose meaning does not need a spanner,

You are the master of the airy manner.

– W.H. Auden (1936)

Visualizing the Warrior - VI

Anonymous Italian Artist
Marcus Curtius leaping into the Chasm
ca. 1510-20
maiolica plate
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Melchior Feselen
Siege of Alesia by Julius Caesar,
with the Battle against Vercingetorix
1533
oil on panel
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Girolamo Mazzola Bedoli
Portrait of Giberto Scardui
1554
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Eugène Delacroix
Scene from Amadis de Gaule
1860
oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Prospero Antichi
Classical Warrior
ca. 1590
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Salvator Rosa
Standing Figure of Soldier
ca. 1656-57
etching
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Francesco Salviati
Roman Soldier
ca. 1550
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Titian
Portrait of a Man in Armour
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Wallerand Vaillant
Self Portrait with Helmet
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum, Hannover

Franz Anton Maulbertsch
Gideon
ca. 1795-96
oil on canvas
(study for ceiling fresco)
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Ancient Greek Culture
Warrior Cutting his Hair
480-470 BC
lekythos
(excavated in Attica)
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of Aristionos (Hoplite)
510 BC
marble relief
(excavated in Attica)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Grave Stele of a Hoplite
500 BC
marble relief
(excavated in Athens)
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Ancient Greek Culture
Four Hoplites flanked by Youth and Bearded Man
560-550 BC
hydria
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Ancient Greek Culture
Votive Figure of a Hoplite
600-550 BC
bronze statuette
Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Cuirass
4th-3rd century BC
bronze
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

 from The Shadowy Waters

Forgael.  And yet I cannot think they're leading me

        To death; for they that promised to me love

        As those that can outlive the moon have known it,
        Had the world's total life gathered up, it seemed,

        Into their shining limbs – I've had great teachers.

        Aengus and Edain ran up out of the wave –

        You'd never doubt that it was life they promised
        Had you looked on them face to face as I did,
        With so red lips, and running on such feet,

        And having such wide-open, shining eyes. 

Aibric.  It's certain they are leading you to death.

        None but the dead, or those that never lived,
        Can know that ecstasy. Forgael! Forgael!
        They have made you follow the man-headed birds,
        And you have told me that their journey lies

        Towards the country of the dead. 

                                         

– W.B. Yeats (1906)

Armstrong - Eakins - Heimbach - Guardi

Maitland Armstrong
Memorial to Charles Frederick Crocker
1891
stained-glass window
Episcopal Church of St-Mary-in-Tuxedo,
Orange County, New York

Maitland Armstrong
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1905
stained-glass window
Faith Chapel, Jekyll Island, Georgia

Maitland Armstrong
Purgatory Chasm
ca. 1875
oil on canvas
Newport Mansions Preservation Society,
Rhode Island

Anonymous Studio Photographer
Maitland and Helen Armstrong
in Renaissance Costume, Rome
1871
albumen silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Eakins
Model in the Studio
ca. 1889
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Eakins
Students in Ancient Greek Dress
at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts
1883
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins and John Laurie Wallace
at Waterside in Artistic Poses
ca. 1883
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins posing as Pipe Player
ca. 1883
platinum print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Wolfgang Heimbach
Return of the Holy Family from Egypt
1657
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Oldenburg

Wolfgang Heimbach
Baptism of Christ
1679
oil on canvas
Stadtmuseum, Coesfeld

Wolfgang Heimbach
Kitchen Interior
1648
oil on canvas
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

Wolfgang Heimbach
Evening Meal
1647
oil on panel
Kunsthalle zu Kiel

Francesco Guardi
Gateway of the Arsenal, Venice
ca. 1780-90
drawing
British Museum

Francesco Guardi
Regatta on the Grand Canal
ca. 1770-75
drawing
British Museum

Francesco Guardi
Santa Maria della Salute and the Dogana
ca. 1783
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Francesco Guardi
Cannaregio Canal, Venice
ca. 1775-80
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

     Her bedroom was cold, being over the garage, with windows on three sides. Otherwise it was pleasant. Over the bed hung framed photographs of Greek skies and ruins, taken by Dr. Henshawe herself on her Mediterranean trip.
     She was writing an essay on Yeats's plays. In one of the plays a young bride is lured away by the fairies from her sensible unbearable marriage. 
     "Come away, O human child . . ." Rose read, and her eyes filled up with tears for herself, as if she was that shy elusive virgin, too fine for the bewildered peasants who have entrapped her. In actual fact she was the peasant, shocking high-minded Patrick, but he did not look for escape.

     She took down one of those Greek photographs and defaced the wallpaper, writing the start of a poem which had come to her while she ate chocolate bars in bed and the wind from Gibbons Park banged at the garage walls.

                                                        Heedless in my dark womb
                                                        I bear a madman's child . . .

She never wrote any more of it, and wondered sometimes if she had meant headless. She never tried to rub it out, either. 

– Alice Munro, from The Beggar Maid (1978)