Édouard Manet Flowers in a Crystal Vase ca. 1882 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Édouard Manet Still Life with White Peonies ca. 1880 oil on canvas Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
Édouard Manet Oysters 1862 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Édouard Manet Still Life with Melon and Peaches 1866 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Piet Zwart International Film Festival - The Hague 1928 lithograph (poster) Art Institute of Chicago |
Piet Zwart Housing Rental Office - The Hague 1923 color letterpress Art Institute of Chicago |
Piet Zwart Modular Kitchen Fittings designed for Bruynzeel of Rotterdam 1938 wood and metal Kunstmuseum, The Hague |
Piet Zwart Shadow ca. 1926 gelatin silver print National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Patrick Tosani Rain in Parentheses 1986 C-print Art Institute of Chicago |
Patrick Tosani H 1988 C-print private collection |
Patrick Tosani Portrait #4 1985 C-print Walker Art Center, Minneapolis |
Patrick Tosani Portrait #23 1985 C-print Art Institute of Chicago |
Elsa Schiaparelli Evening Coat 1939 pieced and embroidered wool felt Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Elsa Schiaparelli Evening Gown 1938 printed silk crepe Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Elsa Schiaparelli Evening Gown 1939 silk satin and silk faille Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Elsa Schiaparelli Evening Gown 1939 silk satin Philadelphia Museum of Art |
The Exiles
What siren zooming is sounding our coming
Up frozen fjord forging from freedom,
Up frozen fjord forging from freedom,
What shepherd's call
When stranded on hill,
With broken axle
On track to exile?
With labelled luggage we alight at last,
Joining joking at the junction on the moor,
With practised smile
And harmless tale
Advance to meet
Each new recruit.
Expert from uplands, always in oilskins,
Recliner from library, laying down law,
Owner from shire,
All meet on this shore,
Facing each prick
With ginger pluck.
Our rooms are ready, the register signed,
There is time to take a turn before dark,
See the blistered paint
On the scorching front,
Or icicle sombre
On pierhead timber.
To climb the cliff path to the coastguard's point
Past the derelict dock deserted by rats,
Look from concrete sill
Of fort for sale
To the bathers' rocks,
The lovers' ricks.
Our boots will be brushed, our bolsters pummelled,
Cupboards are cleared for keeping our clothes:
Here we shall live
And somehow love
Though we only master
The sad posture.
Picnics are promised and planned for July
To the wood with the waterfall, walks to find
Traces of birds,
A mole, a rivet,
In factory yards
Marked strictly private.
There will be skating and curling at Christmas – indoors
Charades and ragging, then riders pass
Some afternoons
In snowy lanes,
Shut in by wires
Surplus from wars.
In Spring we shall spade the soil on the border
For blooming of bulbs, we shall bow in Autumn,
When trees make passes,
As high gale pushes,
And bewildered leaves
Fall on our lives.
Watching through windows the wastes of evening,
The flare of foundries at fall of the year,
The slight despair
At what we are,
The marginal grief
Is source of life.
In groups forgetting the gun in the drawer
Need pray for no pardon, are proud till recalled
By music on water
To lack of stature,
Saying Alas
To less and less.
Till holding our hats in our hands for talking,
Or striding down streets for something to see,
Gas-light in shops,
The face of ships,
And the tide-wind
Touch the old wound.
Till our nerves are numb and their now is a time
Too late for love or for lying either,
Grown used at last
To having lost,
Accepting dearth,
The shadow of death.
– W.H. Auden (1930)