Botanical

Hilla Becher
Box Elder Leaf
1965
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Adela Dundas
A Leaf and Two Berries
1860
watercolor and gouache on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Wilson Bentley
Leaf with Frost
ca. 1920
gelatin silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Ruth Bernhard
Two Leaves
1952
gelatin silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Eugène Atget
Fig Leaves
ca. 1910
albumen silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Anna Atkins
Aspidium lobatium
1853
cyanotype
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Imogen Cunningham
Aloe
1925
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Eugène Atget
Agave du Mexique
ca. 1923-25
albumen silver print from glass negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charles Aubry
Grapes, Life-Size
1863
albumen silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Gualtiero Baynes
Melon in Giardino di Santa Zita, Florence
ca. 1900-1901
oil on panel
Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata

Eliot Hodgkin
Quinces
1969
oil on board
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Anonymous British Photographer
Two Varieties of Grasses
ca. 1840
salted paper print
Princeton University Art Museum

Imogen Cunningham
Tuberose
ca. 1920-30
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Bertha E. Jaques
Wild Lettuce in Bloom
ca. 1900
cyanotype
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Anonymous British Photographer
Immense Tree in a Park
ca. 1850
salted paper print
Princeton University Art Museum

Barbara Bosworth
Purple Beech, Vassar Campus
2003
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Sylvette David
Pansy Friends
ca. 1995
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir

Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,

With a cargo of ivory,

And apes and peacocks,

Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,

Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,

With a cargo of diamonds,

Emeralds, amethysts,

Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smokestack

Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,

With a cargo of Tyne coal,

Road-rail, pig-lead,

Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

– John Masefield (1903)

Prospect

El Greco
The Disrobing of Christ
ca. 1580-85
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

John White Alexander
Aurora Leigh
1904
oil on canvas
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Cherubino Alberti
Study for The Raising of Lazarus
ca. 1580
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Taddeo Zuccaro
Gladiators in Roundel
before 1566
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Francisco de Zurbarán
St Francis
c. 1660
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Bernardino di Bosio Zaganelli
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Roar Wold
In the Room
1982
acrylic on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Philips Wouwerman
Landscape with Bathers
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Carel Willink
Portrait of Wilma
1938
oil on canvas
Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands

Wobbe Alkema
Composite no. 4
1961
oil on board
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Pieter Withoos
Field Poppy
before 1693
gouache on vellum
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Joachim Martin Falbe
Henriette Amalie, Princess of Anhalt-Dessau
ca. 1740-45
oil on canvas
Schloss Mosigkau, Dessau

Adolf Hölzel
Church Goers
1903
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Mannheim

Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi)
St Martin dividing his Cloak with the Beggar
ca. 1517-20
oil on panel
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Wenceslaus Hollar
Neapolitan Triton Shell
ca. 1645
etching
Royal Collection, Windsor

Svend Wiig Hansen
Monumental Figure with Small Head
1957
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Ventidius

     I pity Dollabella, but she's dangerous:

     Her eyes have power beyond Thessalian charms

     To draw the moon from heaven; for eloquence,

     The sea-green Sirens taught her voice that flattery,

     And while she speaks, night steals upon the day,

     Unmarked of those that hear; then she's so charming,

     Age buds at sight of her, and swells to youth;

     The holy priests gaze on her when she smiles,

     And with heaved hands, forgetting gravity,

     They bless her wanton eyes; even I, who hate her, 

     With a malignant joy behold such beauty,

     And while I curse, desire it. Antony

     Must needs have some remains of passion still,

     Which may ferment into a worse relapse

     If now not fully cured. I know this minute 

     With Caesar he's endeavouring her peace.

                          *          *         *          

Octavia
     Yes, I will go, but never to return.

     You shall no more be haunted with this Fury.

     My Lord, my Lord, love will not always last

     When urged with long unkindness and disdain.

     Take her again whom you prefer to me:

     She stays but to be called. Poor cozened man!

     Let a feigned parting give her back your heart,

     Which feigned love first got. For injured me,

     Though my just sense of wrongs forbid my stay,

     My duty shall be yours. 

     To the dear pledges of our former love

     My tenderness and care shall be transferred,

     And they shall cheer, by turns, my widowed nights.

     So, take my last farewell, for I despair

     To have you whole, and scorn to take you half.

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Prospect

Paul Jenkins
Brother Boreas
1962
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

George Hitchcock
Haarlem Tulips
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Rudolf Junk
Roses
1908
color woodblock print
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

André Joly
Le Château de Lunéville
ca. 1760
oil on canvas
Musée Lorrain à Nancy

Ernst Josephson
Lady with Bouquet
1880
oil on panel (sketch)
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Augustus John
Portrait of a Boy
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

Christoph Jamnitzer
Fantastic Figures
1610
etching
(illustration to Neues Groteskenbuch)
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Anonymous Italian Artist
The Drunkenness of Noah
17th century
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Veslemøy Sparre Jansen
Tolleif House
2019
gouache on paper
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Viggo Johansen
Interior with Swan
1910
oil on canvas
Randers Kunstmuseum, Denmark

Irma Salo Jæger
Å Lytte Til
1998
oil and tempera on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Jacob Jørgensen
Hyrdevej toward Nordstranden
1915
oil on canvas
Johannes Larsen Museum, Kerteminde, Denmark

Johann Matthias Kager
The Annunciation
1600
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jacob Jordaens
Adoration of the Shepherds
1617
oil on panel
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Jens Juel
Portrait of Christian VII, King of Denmark
1789
oil on canvas
Rosenborg Castle, Copenhagen

Michel Journiac
24 Hours in the Life of an Ordinary Woman
1974
gelatin silver print
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

Octavia

     I need not ask if your are Cleopatra:

     Your haughty carriage –

Cleopatra                            Shows I am a queen:

     Nor need I ask who you are.

Octavia                                      A Roman:

     A name that makes, and can unmake, a queen.

Cleopatra

     Your lord, the man who serves me, is a Roman.

Octavia

     He was a Roman, till he lost that name

     To be a slave in Egypt; but I come

     To free him thence.

Cleopatra                    Peace, peace, my lover's Juno.

     When he grew weary of that household clog,

     He chose my easier bonds.

Octavia                                    I wonder not

     Your bonds are easy: you have long been practised

     In that lascivious art. He's not the first

     For whom you spread your snares: let Caesar witness.

Cleopatra

     I loved not Caesar: 'twas but gratitude

     I paid his love. The worst your malice can

     Is but to say the greatest of mankind

     Has been my slave. The next, but far above him

     In my esteem, is he whom law calls yours,

     But whom his love made mine.

Octavia coming up close to her     I would view nearer

     That face which has so long usurped my right,

     To find th'inevitable charms that catch

     Mankind so sure, that ruined my dear lord.

Cleopatra

     Oh, you do well to search, for had you known

     But half these charms, you had not lost his heart.

Octavia

     Far be their knowledge from a Roman lady,

     Far from a modest wife. Shame of our sex,

     Dost thou not blush to own those black endearments

     That make sin pleasing?

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Slice

Samuel Cotes
Miniature Portrait of a Lady
1766
watercolor on ivory
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Cornelis Cort
The Spinario
(antique bronze preserved in Rome)
ca. 1575
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Peter Cornelius
Place de La Bastille, Paris
ca. 1957
C-print
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Lovis Corinth
Self Portrait with Model
(model is the artist's wife, Charlotte Berend)
1903
oil on canvas
Kunsthaus Zürich

Cornelis van Haarlem
St Sebastian
ca. 1591
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)
Punishment of Hercules
before 1669
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Lorenzo Costa the Elder
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1485-95
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Gustave Courbet
Blossoming Branches
1855
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Francesco del Cossa
St Peter
ca. 1470-73
tempera on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Jan Cossiers
Supper at Emmaus
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Carlo Crivelli
St Francis collecting the Blood of Christ
ca. 1490-95
tempera on panel
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Francesco Curradi
Triumph of Judith
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Pierre Courteys
Flight of Aeneas from Troy
before 1586
enamel on copper
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Antoine Coysevox
Louis of France, the Grand Dauphin
(son of Louis XIV, grandfather of Louis XV)
ca. 1698-99
marble
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Gabriel Cualladó
Clemente with Three-Wheeled Bike
1958
gelatin silver print
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

Carl Curman
Statue of Diomedes by Johan Tobias Sergel
ca. 1880
albumen silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Antony                         Take heed, young man,

     How thou upbraid'st my love: the Queen has eyes,

     And thou too hast a soul. Canst thou remember

     When, swelled with hatred, thou beheld'st her first,

     As accessory to thy brother's death? 

Dollabella

     Spare my remembrance; 'twas a guilty day,

     And still the blush hangs here.

Antony                                          To clear herself

     For sending him no aid, she came from Egypt.

     Her galley down the silver Cydnos rowed,

     The tackling silk, the streamers waved with gold;

     The gentle winds were lodged in purple sails;

     Her nymphs, like Nereids, round her couch were placed,

     Where she, another sea-born Venus, lay.

Dollabella

     No more; I would not hear it.

Antony                                        Oh, you must!

     She lay, and leant her cheek upon her hand,

     And cast a look so languishingly sweet

     As if, secure of all beholders' hearts,

     Neglecting she could take 'em. Boys like Cupids

     Stood fanning with their painted wings the winds

     That played about her face; but if she smiled,

     A darting glory seemed to blaze abroad,

     That men's desiring eyes were never wearied,

     But hung upon the object. To soft flutes

     The silver oars kept time; and while they played,

     The hearing gave new pleasure to the sight,

     And both to thought. 'Twas Heaven, or somewhat more,

     For she so charmed all hearts, that gazing crowds

     Stood panting on the shore, and wanted breath

     To give their welcome voice.

     Then, Dollabella, where was then thy soul?

     Was not thy fury quite disarmed with wonder?

     Didst thou not shrink behind me from those eyes,

     And whisper in my ear, 'Oh, tell her not

     That I accused her of my brother's death'?

Dollabella

     And should my weakness be a plea for yours?

     Mine was an age when love might be excused, 

     When kindly warmth, and when my springing youth

     Made it a debt to Nature. Yours –

Ventidius                                          Speak boldly.

     Yours, he would say, in your declining age,

     When no more heat was left but what you forced,

     When all the sap was needful for the trunk,

     When it went down, then you constrained the course,

     And robbed from Nature to supply desire;

     In you, I would not use so hard a word.

     But 'tis plain dotage.

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)