Irony

Juan Rexach
St James the Greater and St Giles
ca. 1450-60
tempera and gold on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia

Girolamo Romanino
Virgin and Child enthroned
with St James the Greater and St Jerome
ca. 1512
oil on panel
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Marcantonio Raimondi
The Painter Raphael wrapped in a Cloak
ca. 1520
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pieter Pourbus
Portrait of a Young Clergyman
ca. 1560
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Giovanni Pietro Possenti
Lot and his Daughters
ca. 1640-50
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jan Anthonisz van Ravesteyn
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1647
oil on panel
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Mattia Preti (il Cavalier Calabrese)
St Mark
before 1669
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Andrea Procaccini after Carlo Maratti
Cloelia fleeing across the Tiber
ca. 1710
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sebastiano Ricci
Diana and Callisto
1712-16
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Jonathan Richardson, Senior
Portrait Study of boxer James Figg
1714
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Johann Baptist Reiter
Portrait of a Man
1838
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Childhood of St Geneviève
ca. 1877
ink on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Hilla Rebay
Solomon R. Guggenheim
1928
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Philip Reisman
The Bathroom
ca. 1929
etching
Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

Diego Rivera
Woman and Child in Snow (Moscow Scene)
1956
watercolor on paper
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

John Raye
Carnival at Stop & Shop Plaza
ca. 1978
gelatin silver print
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

David Robbins
Cindy Sherman
1986
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

from Hero and Leander

With that he stripped him to the ivory skin,

And crying, 'Love, I come', leaped lively in.

Whereat the sapphire-visaged god grew proud,

And made his capering Triton sound aloud,

Imagining that Ganymede, displeased,

Had left the heavens; therefore on him seized.

Leander strived; the waves about him wound,

And pulled him to the bottom, where the ground

Was strewed with pearl, and in low coral groves

Sweet singing mermaids sported with their loves

On heaps of heavy gold, and took great pleasure

To spurn in careless sort the shipwreck treasure:

For here the stately azure palace stood,

Where kingly Neptune and his train abode. 

– Christopher Marlowe (1598)

Lifted - II

Guido Reni
Christ crowned with Thorns
ca. 1639-40
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Jacob Wilhelm Christian Roux 
after Friedrich Tiedemann
Arteries of the Head
1822
lithograph (book illustration)
Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg

Joseph-Marie Vien
Académie
1767
oil on canvas
(made in Rome)
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Andrea Casali
Lucretia
ca. 1735-45
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Agostino Carracci
Penitent Magdalen
ca. 1581
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Frank Samuel Eastman
Half-Length Study of a Model
ca. 1910
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Hendrik Goltzius 
St John the Evangelist
1589
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Nicolas van Haften
Heraclitus, the Weeping Philosopher
1702
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Wolfgang Philipp Kilian
Portrait of humanist Conradus Celtis
ca. 1700
etching and engraving
Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Leipzig

Adolph Menzel
Study of Young Woman
1893
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Albert Theer
Portrait of Johanna Weissenthurn as Medea
1843
gouache on paper (miniature)
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Bartolomeo Passarotti
Mary Magdalen
ca. 1560
oil on canvas
Museo Civico di Modena

Fede Galizia
St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1620
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Elisabetta Sirani
Virgin and Child
1663
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Tanzio da Varallo
St Francis
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jusepe de Ribera
St Mary of Egypt
1641
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

On a Painting of Andromeda – The land is Ethiopia; he with the winged sandals is Perseus; she who is chained to the rock is Andromeda; the face is the Gorgon's, whose glance turns men to stone; the sea-monster is the task set by Love; she who boasted of her child's beauty is Cassiopeia.  Andromeda releases from the rock her feet inured to numbness and dead, and her suitor carries off the bride his prize. 

On a Painting of Andromeda – Did Cepheus or the painter expose Andromeda on the rocks, for the judgment of the eye is indecisive?  And was the monster drawn as we see it on the curving crag, or did it rise out of the neighbouring sea?  I see: a skilled man made these things; he was indeed clever thus to deceive our eyes and our wits.  

On a Picture of Helen – This is the lovely form of Argive Helen, whom of old the cowherd carried away, spurning Zeus who protects host and guest. 

On a Painting of Dido – Thou seest, O stranger, the exact likeness of far-famed Dido, a portrait shining with divine beauty.  Even so I was, but had not such a character as thou hearest, having gained glory rather for reputable things.  For neither did I ever set eyes on Aeneas nor did I reach Libya at the time of the sack of Troy, but to escape a forced marriage with Iarbas I plunged the two-edged sword into my heart.  Ye Muses, why did ye arm chaste Virgil against me to slander thus falsely my virtue?

On a Statue of Echo – Tongueless Echo sings in the shepherd's meadow, her voice taking up and responding to the notes of the birds. 

On a Statue of Echo – The Echo of the rocks thou seest, my friend, the companion of Pan, singing back to us a responsive note, the garrulous counterfeit of every kind of tongue, the shepherds' sweet toy.  After hearing every word thou utterest, begone. 

– from Book XVI (Epigrams of the Planudean Anthology) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)

Aline Fruhauf – MIdcentury Tastemakers

Aline Fruhauf
Muriel King (fashion designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Louise Barnes Gallagher (fashion designer)
1942
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Helen Cramp Cookman (fashion designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Aline Bernstein (stage designer)
1943
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Clare Potter (fashion designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Fira Benenson (fashion designer)
1942
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Nettie Rosenstein (fashion designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Omar Kiam (fashion designer)
1942
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Tom Brigance (fashion designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
William Pahlmann (interior designer)
1939
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Sally Victor (milliner)
1942
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Lilly Daché (milliner)
1942
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Pola Stout (textile designer)
1941
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
James Berryman (cartoonist)
1949
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Aline Fruhauf
Duncan Phillips (art collector)
1949
ink and watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

from Santarém

Of course, I may be remembering it all wrong

after, after – how many years?

That golden evening I really wanted to go no farther;

more than anything else I wanted to stay while

in that conflux of two great rivers, Tapajós, Amazon,

grandly, silently flowing, flowing east.

Suddenly there'd been houses, people, and lots of mongrel

riverboats skittering back and forth

under a sky of gorgeous, under-lit clouds,

with everything gilded, burnished along one side,

and everything bright, cheerful, casual – or so it looked.

I liked the place; I liked the idea of the place.

Two rivers. Hadn't two rivers sprung

from the Garden of Eden? No, that was four

and they'd diverged. Here only two

and coming together. Even if one were tempted

to literary interpretations

such as: life/death, right/wrong, male/female

– such notions would have resolved, dissolved, straight off

in that watery, dazzling dialectic. 

In front of the church, the Cathedral, rather,

there was a modest promenade and a belvedere

about to fall into the river,

stubby palms, flamboyants like pans of embers,

buildings one story high, stucco, blue or yellow,

and one house faced with azulejos, buttercup yellow. 

The street was deep in dark gold river sand

damp from the ritual afternoon rain,

and teams of zebus plodded, gentle, proud,

and blue, with down-curved horns and hanging ears,

pulling carts with solid wheels.

The zebus' hooves, the people's feet

waded in golden sand,

dampered by golden sand,

so that almost the only sounds

were creaks and shush, shush, shush.

Two rivers full of crazy shipping – people

all apparently changing their minds, embarking, 

disembarking, rowing clumsy dories.

(After the Civil War some Southern families

came here; here they could still own slaves.

They left occasional blue eyes, English names,

and oars. No other place, no one

on all the Amazon's four thousand miles

does anything but paddle.)

– Elizabeth Bishop (1978)

Miners

Hans Maler
Portrait of banker Anton Fugger
ca. 1525
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Nosadella (Giovanni Francesco Bezzi)
Three Figures
ca. 1540
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Johann Ulrich Mayr
Portrait of the Mother of the Artist
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

attributed to Carlo Francesco Nuvolone
Portrait of Giovanni Battista Silva
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Museum of Art and Archaeology,
University of Missouri, Columbia

Giovanni Battista Pittoni the Younger
The Finding of Moses
ca. 1730-40
oil on canvas
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Franz Xavier Karl Palko
Birth of Athena
ca. 1755
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Michel-Nicolas Perseval
Portrait of medical scientist Pierre Robin
ca. 1775
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Pietro Antonio Novelli
The Annunciation
ca. 1780-90
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Johann Friedrich Overbeck
Virgin and Child with St Elizabeth
and young St John the Baptist
1825
oil on canvas
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Charles Christian Nahl
Sunday Morning in the Mines
1872
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Hans Namuth
Julia Child
1977
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Mary Peck
Temple of Poseidon, Sounion
1979
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Bill Owens
Los Angeles Documentary Project: Artist
1980
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Bill Owens
Los Angeles Documentary Project: Cocaine
1980
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anne Noble
Statue of Saint Michael Archangel,
Tyburn Convent, London
ca. 1988-90
gelatin silver print
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

Shirin Neshat
Amir (Villains)
2012
gelatin silver print with acrylic paint
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Gregory Olympio
Winter
2022
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Bethsabe's Song

Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,

Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:

Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air and ease me;

Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me:

Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,

Make not my glad cause cause of mourning.

            Let not my beauty's fire

            Inflame unstaid desire,

            Nor pierce any bright eye

            That wandereth lightly.

– George Peele (1599)