Clusters - I

Anonymous German Artist
Paris landing on the Greek coast
ca. 1464
watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Susanna Hesselberg
Blondes
2006
C-print
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Eugène Lepoittevin
Beach at Étretat
1864
oil on canvas
private collection

John O'Reilly
Four
2014
collage of printed paper
with added drawing and pigments
Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, Massachusetts

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Six Men
1928
lithograph
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Franz Timmermann
Allegory of Law and Grace
ca. 1540
oil on panel
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Pieter Brueghel the Elder
The Beggars
1568
oil on panel
Musée du Louvre

Jacqueline Marval
Odalisques
1903
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Anonymous Florentine Artist
Family of Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany
ca. 1622-23
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Jacques-Henri Lartigue
40 rue Cortambert, Paris
Boubette - Louis - Robert - Zissou
1903
gelatin silver print
Dayton Art Institute, Ohio

Miriam Cahn
In the Desert
2015
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle zu Kiel

Paul-Ponce-Antoine Robert after Nicolas Le Sueur after Raphael
Pythagoras and his Pupils in The School of Athens
ca. 1729
chiaroscuro woodcut and etching
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Pietro di Francesco degli Orioli
Two Saints preaching before a Judge
ca. 1485
tempera on panel
(predella fragment)
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

Alexander Kanoldt
Still Life 
1922
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Friedrich Friedlaender
Soldiers playing Cards
1880
drawing
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Hellenistic Culture
Battle of Gods and Giants
175-150 BC
fragments of marble frieze from the Pergamon Altar 
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Chorus:  Well, what if Zeus is at last about to change the wind of disaster?

Cilissa:  And how can that be?  Orestes, the hope of the house, is gone.

Chorus:  Not yet: it would be a bad diviner that drew that conclusion.

Cilissa:  What are you saying?  Do you know something that's different from what's been reported?

Chorus:  Go and deliver your message, carry out your instructions!  The gods care for what they care for.  

Cilissa:  Yes, I'll go and do that in compliance with your suggestion; may all turn out for the very best, with the gods' blessing!  [She departs]

Chorus:

Now at my entreaty, Zeus,
father of the Olympian gods,
grant that fortune may fall out well
for the masters of the house who yearn
to see the light.
Every word I have uttered has been in accordance with justice:
Zeus, may you protect it!

Hear us, Zeus, and set the man within the house
above his foes, for if you raise him to greatness
you will receive in return, with delight,
twofold and threefold recompense. 

– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)