Friday, July 4, 2025

Constraints

Willy Jaeckel
The Giants in the Pit
(Dante's Inferno)
ca. 1923
etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Paul Jourdy
Prometheus chained to the Rock
1840
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Palma il Giovane
Study for Christ at the Column
ca. 1580
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Irving Penn
Truman Capote
1948
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Karl Sandels
Wrestling - Sweden versus Finland
1935
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Pavel Petrovich Sokolov-Skalya
Stop!
ca. 1925-30
lithograph (poster)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Albert Weisgerber
Absalom
1914
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Gösta Åberg
Women in Cages - Corinne Luchaire
(French Cinema's New Sensation)
1955
lithograph (poster)
Röhsska Museet, Göteborg

Anonymous French Artist
Roman Captive
17th century
marble relief (fragment)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Christo
Wrapped LOOK Magazine
1965
mixed media object
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Michiel Coxie
St Sebastian
ca. 1530
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Théodore Géricault
Bound Eros
before 1824
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Alberto Giacometti
Cage
1930-31
wood
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Hellenistic Greek Culture
Alcyoneus (Giant) from the Athena Group
Pergamon Altar Frieze (east)

175-150 BC
marble-relief
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Annika von Hausswolff
It Takes a Long Time to Die
2002
C-print
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

"So exquisite were the harmonies of the singers, so exactly did the rhythms of the sound of their steps keep time with the music, that one's ears charmed one's eyes to be blind to what they saw; and as the procession of maidens passed, the onlookers moved in step with them, as if drawn by the cadences of the song, until behind them the troop of young horsemen and their captain rode up in splendor to prove the vision of beauty more potent than any sound."

"The young men numbered fifty, divided into two groups of twenty-five to escort the leader of the sacred mission who rode at their center.  They wore boots woven from straps of crimson leather and bound tightly above their ankles.  Their cloaks were white, fastened across their chests with a golden clasp and hemmed all around with a band of dark blue.  Their mounts were all Thessalian steeds, and the light of the freedom of the plains of Thessaly shone in their eyes; they resented the mastery of the bit, foaming and champing and trying to dislodge it, yet they allowed their riders' thoughts to guide them.  The horses were caparisoned with silver and gold frontlets and cheekpieces so splendid that you might have thought that the young men had held a competition on this point."

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)