Hue

attributed to Saracchi Family of Milan
Dragon-shaped Cup with Lid
ca. 1575-1600
bloodstone with enameled-gold mounts
(collection of Louis XIV)
Musée du Louvre

Ottavio Miseroni
Shell-shaped Cup
ca. 1600
bloodstone with enameled-gold mounts
(collection of Louis XIV)
Musée du Louvre

Gustav Klimt
The Park
1910
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Barnett Newman
Dionysius
1949
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Roberto Matta for Gavina (Italy)
Malitte Lounge Furniture
1966
polyurethane and wool
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Blinky Palermo
Untitled
1970
dyed cotton mounted on muslin
Museum of Modern Art, New York

David Willetts
On the Return Journey
1973
acrylic on board
Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London

Jenny Holzer
Untitled
(series, Inflammatory Essays)
ca. 1979-82
offset lithograph
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Riduan Tomkins
Déjà vu
1982
oil on canvas
private collection

Joseph Marioni
Green Painting no. 3
1992
acrylic on linen
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Thomas Ruff
Nacht 13 III
1993
C-print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

David Shrigley
Imagine the Green is Red
1997
C-print
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Luc Tuymans
Illegitimate I
1997
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

Sharon Lockhart
Ikebana by Haruko Takeichi
2002
C-print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jonathan Lyndon Chase
Run Away With Me
2019
acrylic and felt-pen on muslin
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Kate Shepherd
Here and There
2020
enamel and transfer-paper on paper
Menil Collection, Houston

Robert Zandvliet
Paradaidha VI, Pons
2023
tempera and oil on linen
private collection

Song from a Play

I saw a staring virgin stand

Where holy Dionysus died,

And tear the heart out of his side,

And lay the heart upon her hand

And bear that beating heart away;

And then did all the Muses sing

Of Magnus Annus at the spring,

As though God's death were but a play.

Another Troy must rise and set,

Another lineage feed the crow,

Another Argo's painted prow

Drive to a flashier bauble yet.

The Roman Empire stood appalled:

It dropped the reins of peace and war

When that fierce virgin and her Star

Out of the fabulous darkness called.

– William Butler Yeats (1926)

Prospect

Ferdinand Küss
Still Life with Roses and Apricots
ca. 1845-50
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

 Håkan Lindström
The Sun and the North Star
France and Sweden in the 18th century
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm
1993
lithograph (poster)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Emanuel Labhardt
Schwanau Island in Lake Lauerz
ca. 1845
gouache on paper
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Antoine Lafréry
Antique Bust of Thales of Miletus
1569
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

René Lalique
Ring with Dancers in Relief
ca. 1920
gold
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Roger de La Fresnaye
Seated Man
1914
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

Georg Lemberger
Throne of Solomon
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to the "Luther" Bible)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Louis Le Nain
Four Children on a Rooftop
ca. 1646
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Max Liebermann
Garden of the Orphanage in Amsterdam
1894
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg

Per Lindekrantz
Self Portrait in a Mirror
ca. 1940
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Fernand Léger
Soldiers playing Cards
1917
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Eugène-Louis Lami
Figures in a Forest
ca. 1840
watercolor and gouache on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Le Corbusier
Wine Bottle
ca. 1922
oil on canvas
Musée des Ursulines de Mâcon

Marie Laurencin
Girls with Guitar
1923
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Leonardo da Vinci
Salvator Mundi
ca. 1499
oil on panel
private collection

Daniel Lindtmayer
God the Father
1572
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Dollabella

     I came prepared

     To tell you heavy news, news which, I thought,

     Would fright the blood from your pale cheeks to hear: 

     But you have met it with a cheerfulness

     That makes my task more easy; and my tongue,

     Which on another's message was employed,

     Would gladly speak its own.

Cleopatra                                  Hold, Dollabella.

     First tell me, were you chosen by my lord,

     Or sought you this employment?

Dollabella

     He picked me out, and, as his bosom friend,

     He charged me with his words.

Cleopatra                                       The message then

     I know was tender, and each accent smooth,

     To mollify that rugged word, 'Depart'. 

Dollabella

     Oh, you mistake: he chose the harshest words;

     With fiery eyes and with contracted brows,

     He coined his face in the severest stamp,

     And fury shook his fabric like an earthquake:

     He heaved for vent, and burst like bellowing Etna

     In sounds scarce human, 'Hence, away forever;

     Let her begone, the blot of my renown,

     And bane of all my hopes:

            All the time of this speech, Cleopatra seems more and more

                                   concerned, till she sinks quite down.

     Let her be driven as far as men can think

     From man's commerce; she'll poison to the centre!'

Cleopatra

     Oh, I can bear no more!

Dollabella

     Help, help! O wretch! O cursed, cursed wretch!

     What have I done?

Charmion                  Help, chafe her temples, Iris.

Iras

     Bend, bend her forward quickly.

Charmion                                        Heaven be praised.

     She comes again.

Cleopatra                 Oh, let him not approach me.

     Why have you brought me back to this loathed being,

     Th'abode of falsehood, violated vows,

     And injured love? For pity, let me go;

     For if there be a place of long repose,

     I'm sure I want it. My disdainful lord

     Can never break that quiet, nor awake

     The sleeping soul with hollowing in my tomb

     Such words to fright her hence. Unkind, unkind!

Dollabella kneeling

     Believe me, 'tis against myself I speak;

     That sure deserves belief. I injured him;

     My friend ne'er spoke those words. Oh, had you seen

     How often he came back, and every time

     With something more obliging and more kind

     To add to what he said: what dear farewells;

     How almost vanquished by his love he parted,

     And leaned to what unwillingly he left.

     I, traitor as I was, for love of you

     (But what can you not do, who made me false?)

     I forged that lie; for whose forgiveness kneels

     This self-accused, self-punished criminal.

Cleopatra

     With how much ease believe we what we wish!

     Rise, Dollabella. If you have been guilty,

     I have contributed, and too much love

     Has made me guilty too.

     Th'advance of kindness which I made was feigned,

     To call back fleeting love by jealousy.

     But 'twould not last. Oh, rather let me lose

     Than so ignobly trifle with his heart.

Dollabella

     I find your breast fenced round from human reach,

     Transparent as a rock of solid crystal,

     Seen through, but never pierced. My friend, my friend!

     What endless treasure hast thou thrown away,

     And scattered, like an infant, in the ocean,

     Vain sums of wealth which none can gather thence. 

Cleopatra

     Could you not beg

     An hour's admittance to his private ear?

     Like one who wanders through long barren wilds,

     And yet foreknows no hospitable inn

     Is near to succour hunger,

     Eats his fill before his painful march:

     So would I feed a while my famished eyes

     Before we part, for I have far to go,

     If death be far, and never must return.

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Beings

Giovanni di Paolo
Angel of the Annunciation
1430
tempera and gold on panel
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Sano di Pietro
Angel of the Annunciation
ca. 1440-50
tempera and gold on pane
Musée du Petit Palais, Avignon

Agostino di Duccio
Virgin and Child with Angels
ca. 1465
marble relief
Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Bellini
Madonna of the Red Cherubs
1485
oil on panel
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Bernaert van Orley
Putto with Arms of Jacques Coëne
ca. 1513
oil on panel
(reverse of altarpiece painting)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Andrea Feltrini (Andrea di Cosimo)
Cherubs with Arms of Medici Pope
1515
fresco
Cappella dei Papi, Convento Domenicano di Santa Maria Novella, Florence

Battista Dossi
Holy Family with young St John the Baptist and an Angel
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Paolo Veronese
St Agatha crowned by Cherubs
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Orazio Gentileschi
St Francis supported by an Angel
1612-13
oil on canvas
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Francesco Albani
Angels
ca. 1627-32
fresco (in ruinous condition)
Chiesa di Santa Maria di Galliera, Bologna

Jacques Stella
Christ in the Wilderness attended by Angels
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Michel Dorigny
Winged Putti bearing the Arms
of Anne of Austria, Regent of France
ca. 1659-61
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Michel Dorigny
Winged Putti bearing the Arms
of Anne of Austria, Regent of France
ca. 1659-61
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Domenico Piola and Niccolò Viviano
Ornamental Putti
ca. 1675
fresco
Palazzo Rosso, Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa

Anonymous Sienese Painter
St Christina of Bolsena tended by Angels
ca. 1650-1700
oil on canvas
Collezioni della Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena

Niccolò Ricciolini
Putti crowning Statue of Armed God
before 1772
ceiling painting
Palazzo Buonaccorsi, Macerata

Louisa Anne, Marchioness of Waterford
Putti with Peacocks
before 1891
watercolor on paper
(illustrating poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
British Museum

from Dream-Pedlary

If there are ghosts to raise,

        What shall I call,

Out of hell's murky haze,

        Heaven's blue hall?          

– Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Death's Jest-Book (1828)