Telescopic Views

Claude Mellan
Phases of the Moon - Last Quarter
1637
engraving
(based on telescope views by Pierre Gassendi)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Henri Matisse
Woman seated in an Armchair
1940
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Hans Memling
The Canon Gilles Joye
1472
tempera and oil on panel
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse
Putto as Allegorical Figure of Commerce
1828
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Claude Mellan
Phases of the Moon - First Quarter
1637
engraving
(based on telescope views by Pierre Gassendi)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Henri Matisse
Still Life with Apples
1924
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Hans Memling
Portrait of a Man with a Pink
ca. 1480
oil on panel
Morgan Library, New York

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse
Putto as Allegorical Figure of The Arts
1828
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Claude Mellan
Phases of the Moon - Full
1637
engraving
(based on telescope views by Pierre Gassendi)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Henri Matisse
Still Life with Pineapple
1924
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Hans Memling
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1470-75
oil on panel
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse
Putto as Allegorical Figure of The Sciences
1828
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Mirror Back with Chess Game
ca. 1300
ivory relief
Musée du Louvre

Henri Matisse
Vase de Fleurs et le Plat d'Huitres
1940
oil on canvas
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Hans Memling
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1480
oil on panel
Kunsthaus Zürich

Jean-Baptiste Mauzaisse
Putto as Allegorical Figure of War
1828
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Mirror Back with the Storming of the Palace of Love
ca. 1350-70
ivory relief
Musée du Louvre

A tomb on the Thracian approaches of Olympus holds

Orpheus, the one whom the Muse Calliope bore. 

The oaks could not but obey him, and the mindless

Rocks kept pace to his beat, and the woodland beast-packs.

He found out the occult initiation rites of Bacchus, and likewise

Structured the linked line in epic metre.

Spellbound, with his lyre, he held the heavy mind

Of Him Whom we speak well of, the unmollifiable,

And that wrath likewise which no enchantment can bind.

– from the Greek Anthology, translated by John Heath-Stubbs and Carol A. Whiteside

Stage Business

Eugène Devéria
Figaro
1834
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Eduard Engerth
Figaro Cycle
1865
watercolor and gouache on paper
(study for fresco, Vienna State Opera House)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Édouard Vuillard
La Malade imaginaire of Molière
cs. 1912-13
oil on paper
(mural design for Théâtre des Champs-Élysées)
Kunsthalle Bremen

Karl Blechen
Stage Design - Alchemist's Laboratory
1826
ink and watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Karl Blechen
Stage Design - Gothic Courtyard
1824
ink and watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Josef Platzer
Stage Design - Palatial Interior
ca. 1785
ink and watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giorgio Fuentes
Stage Design - Temple
ca. 1796-1800
ink and watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous German Artist
Classical Costuming for Mlle. Raucourt
as Medea at the Comédie Française
ca. 1795
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Emil Cardinaux
Outdoor Theater Season - Lucerne
1909
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Julius Klinger
Berliner Theater - Taifun
1910
gouache on paper (study for poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Emil Pirchan
Theatermuseum
Klara Ziegler Stiftung, München
1913
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin
Clitie received by Frédéric
(scene from the comic opera Le Faucon
by Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny after Boccaccio)
1772
watercolor and gouache on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
Daifilo and Granida
(scene from pastoral play Granida by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft)
ca. 1650-52
drawing
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Theater Box
1909
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Johann Esaias Nilson
Portrait of Catharina Helena Stöber
1775
etching
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Hans Thoma
Costume Study - Valkyrie
(for Wagner's Ring as staged at Bayreuth)
ca. 1894-96
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Botanist on Alp (No. 1)

Panoramas are not what they used to be. 
Claude has been dead a long time
And apostrophes are forbidden on the funicular.
Marx has ruined Nature,
For the moment.

For myself, I live by leaves,
So that corridors of clouds,
Corridors of cloudy thoughts,
Seem pretty much one:
I don't know what.

But in Claude how near one was
(In a world that was resting on pillars,
That was seen through arches)
To the central composition,
The essential theme.

What composition is there in all this:
Stockholm slender in a slender light,
An Adriatic riva rising,
Statues and stars,
Without a theme?

The pillars are prostrate, the arches are haggard,
The hotel is boarded and bare.
Yet the panorama of despair
Cannot be the specialty
Of this ecstatic air.

– Wallace Stevens (Ideas of Order, 1935)

Headgear

James Chapin
William Hartack
1958
oil on canvas
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Benjamin Green-Field
Hat
ca. 1966-68
beaded and embroidered rayon velvet with nylon netting
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Anonymous Printmaker
Corinne Griffith
1934
offset-printed and hand-colored cinema card
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Jane Clifford
Burgonet of Charles V
ca. 1865
albumen silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

William Edward Dassonville
Portrait of a Woman in Profile
ca. 1930
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Justin O'Brien
The Boy in the Yellow Straw Hat
ca. 1967
oil on board
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Ilse Bing
The Honourable Daisy Fellowes, modeling Hat
1933
gelatin silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Anonymous Photographer
Lepidopterist
ca. 1850
hand-colored daguerreotype
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous Printmaker
Poster advertising Wine
ca. 1880
chromolithograph (proof before lettering)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Ernest Baker
American Soldier
1950
gouache on board
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Lillian Bassman
Dior Hat modeled by Barbara Mullen
1949
gelatin silver print
(published in Harper's Bazaar)
Milwaukee Art Museum

Louis Bouché
The Princess
1919
oil on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Clarence Sinclair Bull
Holmes Herbert
1928
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Gerrit Hondius
The Yellow Hat
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Hugo von Habermann
Woman with Plumed Hat
ca. 1915
pastel on paper
private collection

Howard Cook
Grave Digger
1950
woodcut
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Manufacturer
Hat with Tea Roses
ca. 1955
printed silk and raffia
National Museum of African American
History and Culture, Washington DC

from The Weeper

                Hail, Sister Springs!

            Parents of Silver-footed rills!

                Ever bubling things!

            Thawing Christall! Snowy Hills!

Still spending, never spent! I mean
Thy fair Eyes, sweet Magdalene!

                Heavens, thy fair Eyes bee;

            Heavens of ever-falling stars.

                'Tis seed-time still with thee

            And stars thou sow'st, whose harvest dares

Promise the earth to countershine

Whatever makes Heavens fore-head fine.

                But we are deceived all.

            Stars they are indeed too true,

                For they but seem to fall

            As Heavens other spangles doe:

It is not for our earth and us

To shine in things so pretious.

                Upwards thou dost weepe.

            Heavens bosome drinks the gentle streame. 

                Where th' milky rivers creep,

            Thine floates above; and is the Creame.

Waters above th' Heavens, what they be

We're taught best by thy Teares and thee.  

– Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (1648, revised 1652)