Monday, October 28, 2024

Affinities

Milton Avery
Child's Supper
1945
oil on canvas
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Milton Avery
Lady Seated
1944
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Agence Meurisse (Paris)
Portrait of painter Louise Abbéma
1914
gelatin silver print
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Agence Meurisse (Paris)
Portrait of painter Louise Abbéma
1914
gelatin silver print
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Anonymous Chinese Artist
Bridge, Summer Palace, Beijing
before 1927
hand-colored photograph
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Anonymous Chinese Artist
Temple of Heaven complex outside Beijing
before 1927
hand-colored photograph
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Deep Voice
1965
oil on panel
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square
1965
lithograph
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Anonymous Australian Artist (Kimberley)
Spear Point
after 1885
flaked glass from discarded bottle
(made for tourist market rather than for use)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Anonymous Australian Artist (Kimberley)
Spear Point
after 1885
flaked glass from discarded bottle
(made for tourist market rather than for use)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Anonymous German Photographer
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
1919
gelatin silver print
(still image from film set)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Anonymous German Photographer
The Cabinet of Dr Caligari
1919
gelatin silver print
(still image from film set)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Ludwig Becker
Donati's Comet
1859
lithograph (book illustration)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ludwig Becker
Donati's Comet
1859
lithograph (book illustration)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Missing

From scars where kestrels hover,
The leader looking over
Into the happy valley,
Orchard and curving river,
May turn away to see
The slow fastidious line
That disciplines the fell,
Hear curlew's creaking call
From angles unforeseen,
The drumming of a snipe
Surprise where driven sleet
Had scalded to the bone
And streams are acrid yet
To an unaccustomed lip;
The tall unwounded leader
Of doomed companions, all
Whose voices in the rock
Are now perpetual,
Fighters for no one's sake,
Who died beyond the border.

Heroes are buried who
Did not believe in death,
And bravery is now,
Not in the dying breath
But resisting the temptations
To skyline operations.
Yet glory is not new;
The summer visitors
Still come from far and wide,
Choosing their spots to view
The prize competitors,
Each thinking that he will
Find heroes in the wood,
Far from the capital,
Where lights and wine are set
For supper by the lake,
But leaders must migrate:
"Leave for Cape Wrath to-night,"
And the host after waiting
Must quench the lamps and pass
Alive into the house.

– W.H. Auden (1929)