Showing posts with label classicism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label classicism. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2025

Architectural Fragments

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Capriccio of Ruins on a Coast
ca. 1610-20
oil on copper
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

workshop of Bartholomeus Breenbergh
Italian Landscape with Ruins of the Aurelian Wall
ca. 1650-60
oil on canvas
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Paul Bril
Religious Procession among Ruins, Rome
ca. 1600-1610
oil on copper
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Claude Lorrain
Roman Ruins on the Aventine Hill
before 1682
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Caspar David Friedrich
Ruins of the Temple of Juno at Agrigento
ca. 1828
oil on canvas
Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund

Giovanni Ghisolfi
Capriccio with Ruins
ca. 1650
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Svein Johansen
Roman Ruins
ca. 1983
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Jules Laurens
Ruins of a Roman Roadhead in Bithynia
ca. 1875
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille

Jean Lemaire
Artists studying Ruins
ca. 1630
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Giovanni Battista Mercati
Domes of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore rising behind Roman Ruins
1629
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Gian Paolo Panini
Capriccio of Roman Ruins with the Pantheon
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Marco Ricci
Capriccio of Antique Ruins
ca. 1720-25
tempera on vellum
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Marco Ricci
Capriccio of Antique Ruins
ca. 1720-30
oil on canvas
Museo Civico di Modena

Hubert Robert
Artist among Ruins on the Palatine Hill, Rome
ca. 1760-65
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Louise Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont
Ruins of Roman Theater at Taormina
1825
oil on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Jan Baptist Weenix
Study of Ruins
ca. 1646
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

He recounts that he saw other similar things, and he tells marvelous stories of having seen men and other things that no one else says he has seen or heard, and that no one else has even imagined.  The most wondrous thing of all is that in traveling north they came close to the moon, which was like a completely stripped land, and that while there they saw things that it was natural for a man to see who had invented such an exaggerated fiction.

Then the Sibyl picked up her art of divination again, with Carmanes.  After this, each person made his own prayer, and everything turned out for each of the others in accordance with his prayer, but in his case, after he woke up, he was found in Tyre in the temple of Hercules, and after he got up, he found Dercyllis and Mantinias.  They were safe and had released their parents from the long sleep or, rather, death, and were prospering in other ways as well.

These things Dinias told to Cymbas and provided cyprus tablets on which he asked Cymbas's companion Erasinides, since he was a skillful writer, to record the account.  He also showed Dercyllis to them – it was in fact she who brought the cypress tablets.  He ordered Cymbas to have the accounts written down on two sets of cypress tablets, one of which Cymbas would keep and the other of which Dercyllis was to place in a small box and set down near Dinias's grave at the time of his death.

– Antonius Diogenes, from The Wonders Beyond Thule, written in Greek, 1st-2nd century AD.  A detailed summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The original text by Antonius Diogenes was subsequently lost; only the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Belle Époque - III

Artur Nikodem
Lady with Hat
ca. 1910
drawing
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Edvard Munch
Recital
1903
lithograph
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Joseph-Paul Meslé
Portrait of Mademoiselle Marie P.
1896
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Constant Montald
Dancing Nymphs
1898
tempera and oil on canvas
Musée Fin de Siècle, Brussels

Peder Severin Krøyer
Portrait of Marie Krøyer
1890
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Karl Gussow
Portrait of a Young Woman
1881
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Flagg & Plummer
Woman with Winged Dress
ca. 1900
collodion silver print
(cabinet card)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Jan Toorop
Woman with Parasol
1888
oil on canvas
Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels

Alfred Stieglitz
Woman placing Garland on Herm
1895
platinum print
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Thérèse Schwartze
Portrait of Marie Louise Treub
1912
oil on canvas
Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden

Hans Olde
Portrait of Adelheid von Schorn
1906
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Félicien Rops
Flore
ca. 1890
watercolor on cardboard
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Théo van Rysselberghe
Portrait of Margareta von Kühlmann-Stumm
1913
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Edward Penfield
Harper's - July
1896
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Oskar Zwintscher
Woman seated among Flowers
1904
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anders Zorn
Night Effect
1895
oil on canvas (sketch)
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

The twenty-fourth book present Azoulis as narrator and then Dinias adding Azoulis's stories to the tales he has already told Cymbas.  We learn how Azoulis discovered the method of enchantment whereby Paapis had employed his magic to cause Dercyllis and Mantinias to come to life at night but during the day to be corpses, and how he freed them from the affliction when he found the secret of the punishment inflicted, and also the antidote to it, in Paapis's bag, which Mantinias and Dercyllis had brought with them.  He also discovered how Dercyllis and Mantinias should free their parents from the great curse to which they had fallen victim.  On the advice of Paapis, who led them to believe that they would be acting for their parents' good, they themselves had injured their parents grievously by causing them to lie like corpses for a long time. 

Then Dercyllis and Mantinias hurried home to revive and save their parents.  Dinias, along with Carmanes and Meniscus – for Azoulis had separated from them – extended their journey beyond Thule.  This is the journey in which he saw the wonders beyond Thule, according to the report he is now presented as making to Cymbas.  He says he saw things that enthusiasts of stargazing maintain, such as that it is possible for some people to live at the North Pole, and that a night there lasts a month, sometimes less, sometimes more, or six months, or in the extreme case twelve months, and not only is night drawn out to such an extent, but days correspond in duration to the nights.

– Antonius Diogenes, from The Wonders Beyond Thule, written in Greek, 1st-2nd century AD.  A detailed summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The original text by Antonius Diogenes was subsequently lost; only the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Densely Composed - IV

François Fontaine
Beautiful Company
1981
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Girolamo Miruoli
Intervention of the Sabine Women
ca. 1570
detached fresco
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Hugo Birger
Scandinavian Artists' Luncheon at Café Ledoyen, Paris
1886
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Jules-Alexandre Grün
Friday Gathering at the Salon
1911
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek
(wing of triptych)
ca. 1510-20
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1550
oil on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Marx Reichlich
The Last Judgment
ca. 1490
tempera and oil on panel
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Grace Hartigan
#29 Pastorale
1953
screenprint
Dayton Art Institute, Ohio

Clara Peeters
Flowers in a Basket and on a Silver Tazza
ca. 1615
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Francesco Solimena
Boreas abducting Oreithyia
ca. 1727-28
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Maerten de Vos
Temptation of St Anthony
1594
oil on panel
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Henri Cueco
Capturing the Rhinoceros
1970
acrylic and lacquer on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
La Bibliothèque Municipale, Issoudun
1951
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anton Faistauer
Still Life with Coffee Cups
1912
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Lyubov Popova
Portrait of a Woman (Relief)
1915
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Maurice Prendergast
The Merry-Go-Round
ca. 1902-1906
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Read: the twenty-four books of Antonius Diogenes' romance The Wonder Beyond Thule.  Its narrative is uncluttered and so pure that there is no lack of clarity even in the digressions.  It is most agreeable in the ideas that it expresses because, though verging on the mythical and the incredible, it is altogether credible in the contrivance and elaboration of its episodes.

The story, then, opens with Dinias, who along with his son Demochares has wandered from his homeland in search of information.  After passing over the Black Sea and away from the Caspian, or Hyrcanian Sea, they reached what are called the Rhipaean Mountains and the source of the river Tanais.  There, because of the extreme cold, they turned back towards the Scythian Sea and then struck out in the direction of the east to the quarter of the rising sun, skirting the exterior sea for a long time in complicated wanderings.  

– Antonius Diogenes, from The Wonders Beyond Thule, written in Greek, 1st-2nd century AD.  A detailed summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The original text by Antonius Diogenes was subsequently lost; only the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).  

Friday, August 22, 2025

Densely Composed - III

Eberhard Havekost
Trash 1
2003
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Frans Francken the Younger
Witches' Sabbath
ca. 1610
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie Flämische Barockmalerei im Schloss Neuburg

Lovis Corinth
Homage to Michelangelo
1911
oil on canvas
Lenbachhaus Munich

Émile Aubry
The Voice of Pan
1936
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Lotti Jeanneret
The Lamp and the Light
1967
printed paper collage
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Sigmar Polke
Untitled
2000
acrylic on paper
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Jacob Jordaens
Triumph of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange
ca. 1630-40
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Peter Paul Rubens
Marie de' Medici disembarking at Marseille
ca. 1622-25
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Jan Albertsz Rootius
Portrait of Meyndert Sonck and Agatha van Neck
and their Children

1662
oil on canvas
Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp

Olga Rozanova
Metronome
1915
oil on canvas
State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Robert Rauschenberg
Homage to Frederick Kiesler
1966
screenprint
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Jacques Réattu
The Triumph of Civilization
ca. 1795
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Marc Lafargue
View of a Study with Yellow Armchairs
ca. 1920-25
oil on cardboard
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Asger Jorn
Untitled
1948
oil on canvas
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giorgio Ghisi after Giovanni Battista Bertani
Judgment of Paris
ca. 1554-55
engraving
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Jörg Immendorff
Cafe Deutschland I
1977-78
acrylic on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

A few months or a few days later Apollonius consented at the urging of Stranguillio and his wife, Dionysias, and in accordance with the demands of Fortune to sail to the city of Pentapolis in Cyrene so that he could go into hiding there.  And so Apollonius was conducted to his ship with full honors, and he bade the people farewell as he boarded the ship.  Within two hours of his departure by ship the reassuring calm of the sea was changed.  

Reassurance gave way to uncertainty.
A violent storm made the universe blaze red.
Aeolus occupied the plain of the sea with rain-producing winds and squalls.
The South Wind was darkened by pitch-black mist,
and it splintered the sides of all the ships and churned the eddying waters.
The North Wind blew, and the sea could no longer withstand the East Wind.
Sand was stirred up and swirled about in the sea.
As the waves crested and subsided,
everything was thrown into a mass of confusion.  
The sea beat against the heavenly stars.
The storm intensifies.
Clouds, hail, snow, west winds, floods, lightning and thunder all occur at the same time.
Flames fly on the wind. The disturbed sea bellows.
Here the South Wind, there the North Wind, here the bristling wind of Africa, all threaten.
Neptune scatters the sands with his trident.
Triton sounds his awesome horn over the waves.*

*This passage is in part a clumsy pastiche of lines from Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, and other poems.

– from The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, after anonymous Latin manuscripts of the 5th-6th century AD translating a lost Greek text of the 2nd-3rd century AD, and translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989)