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) 

Densely Composed - I

Charley Toorop
Portrait of H.P. Bremmer and his Wife with Artists of their Time
1936-38
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Jackson Pollock
Unformed Figure
1953
oil and enamel on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Jacob de Backer
The Last Judgment
ca. 1580-85
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Josef Abel
The merchant Johann Christian Edler von Bruchmann
with his Family
1810
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Alfred Leslie
N.Y. 10 N.Y.
1961
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Giorgio Morandi
Bottles
1915
etching
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Kjartan Slettemark
Polaroid Necklace
1988
mounted Polaroids
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Master of Frankfurt
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1505
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Auguste Herbin
Landscape at Céret
1919
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Alessandro Allori
Coronation of the Virgin
1593
oil on panel
Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

Hans Canon
The Circle of Life
1885
oil on canvas
(modello for mural)
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Still Life with Flowers, Fruit,
and Covered Silver Goblet
1838
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Léon Frédéric
Abundance
1897
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Anonymous Artist
The Mocking of Christ
15th century
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Luc Simon
Les Ateliers - Je n'ai plus peur
1984
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Werner Rohde
Mannequins
1934
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

After the young man's departure, King Antiochus called for his reliable steward Thaliarchus and said to him: "Thaliarchus, as my trusted confidant, you know that Apollonius of Tyre has found the solution to my riddle.  Board a ship immediately and go in pursuit of the young man.  When you reach his native Tyre, you will find an enemy of his to kill him with a sword or poison.  After you return, you will have your liberty."

After hearing this, Thaliarchus took money and poison, boarded a ship, and set sail for Apollonius's homeland.  Apollonius, however, reached his homeland first, unharmed.  He entered his house, opened the bookcase, and studied the riddles of all the philosophers and astrologers.  When he found nothing except what he had already discerned, he said to himself: "What are you doing, Apollonius?  You have solved the king's riddle, you have not won his daughter.  You've been fobbed off only to be killed later."

And he ordered that ships be loaded with grain.  Apollonius himself with a few of his most trustworthy slaves accompanying him secretly boarded a ship.  Taking with him a great amount of gold and silver and an abundance of clothing, he entrusted himself to the high seas during the deep silence of midnight.

The next day the citizens of his city came to greet him, but he was not to be found.  The entire city resounded with the shouts of grief and wailing.  So great was his subjects' love for him that for a long time the barbershops were without customers, the public entertainments were suspended, and the baths were closed. 

– 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) 

Heavy Titles - V

Felice Giani
Vestal Virgins showing the Will of Augustus to Tiberius and the Senate
ca. 1785-90
drawing
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Francesco Fontebasso
St Gregory the Great and St Vitalis interceding
with the Virgin for Souls in Purgatory
ca. 1730-31
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Alexandre-Evariste Fragonard
Scene of Persecuted Prisoners condemned to the Pyre
ca. 1830-40
oil on canvas
(modello for larger painting)
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Jean Fouquet
St Vrain, Bishop of Cavaillon, banishing Demons from the Possessed
ca. 1452-60
tempera on vellum
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Conrad Felixmüller
Blast Furnaces at Night, Klöckner Werke, Haspe
1927
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Fidus (Hugo Höppener)
Giordano Bruno - Das Neue Jahrhundert
(tragedy by Otto Borngräber staged at Weimar)
1902
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Siegwald Dahl
Salon in Dresden of the Danish Minister, Count Moltke-Huitfeldt
1851
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Carlo Ferrario
Ulrica's Hut
(stage-design for Giuseppe Verdi's Ballo in Maschera)
ca. 1870
watercolor on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Vinzenz Fischer
Allegory of the Transfer of Artworks
from the Imperial Gallery to the Belvedere
1781
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Ian Hamilton Finlay
Someone Somewhere wants a Cable from You
1981-82
screenprint
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

William Powell Frith
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu laughing
at the romantic advances of Alexander Pope
1852
oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

Étienne-Barthélemy Garnier
Priam and his Family mourning the Death of Hector
1792
watercolor on paper
(sketch for painting)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Étienne-Barthélemy Garnier
Priam and his Family mourning the Death of Hector
1792
oil on canvas
Musée des Ursulines de Mâcon

Théodore Géricault
Grooms preparing Arab Stallion to cover waiting Mare
before 1824
watercolor and gouache on paper
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Corrado Giaquinto
St Helena and the Emperor Constantine
presented by the Virgin to the Holy Trinity
ca. 1741-42
oil on canvas
(modello for ceiling painting)
Saint Louis Art Museum

Åke Göransson
Pull-out Sofa with Odin Statue
ca. 1926-29
oil on canvas
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Soon there came into sight nearby the Island of Dreams, but it was faint and hard to make out.  The island itself was like the dreams in a way, in that as we approached, it receded before us, retreated, retired farther off.  At last we caught up with it and sailed into Sleep Harbor, as it is called.  . . .  The dreams themselves varied in character and appearance.  Some were tall and handsome, others short and misshapen; some appeared to be made of gold, others were poor and shabby.  There were winged dreams among them and monster-dreams and dreams in carnival costume – some dressed up as kings, some as gods, and so on.  Many of them in fact we recognized, having seen them before at home; they came up and greeted us like old friends, took us in charge, put us to sleep, and showed us most excellent and ingenious entertainment.  

– Lucian, from A True Story (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by B.P. Reardon (1989)

Heavy Titles - IV

Kerstin Bernhard
Signage going up in Berlin for Greta Garbo
starring in the film Queen Christina
1934
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Paul Baudry
Sketch for an Allegorical Figure of Jurisprudence
1880
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Eugène Carrière
Priam imploring Achilles for the Body of Hector
(scene from the Iliad)
1876
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Heinrich Anton Dahling
Käthchen von Heilbronn and Count Wetter vom Ray
(scene from The Trial by Fire, drama by Heinrich von Kleist)
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
Saint Richardis of Swabia,
widow of Charles le Gros, taking the Veil
ca. 1790
etching
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Christian Berentz
Still Life with Relief Fragment
from the Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome
ca. 1715-20
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Abraham Bloemaert
Apollo disguised as a Shepherd,
with Mercury and Battus approaching
(scene from the Metamorphoses of Ovid)
ca. 1587-88
drawing
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Hugo Birger
Interior of the Parlor
of Pontus and Göthilda Fürstenberg,
illuminated by Electricity
1902
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Philippe de Champaigne
Adam and Eve mourning the Death of Abel
ca. 1656
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Carlo Crivelli
Enthroned Virgin and Child giving Keys
to the Apostle Peter, attended by Saints
ca. 1488
tempera on panel
(altarpiece)
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Nils Jakob Blommér
After defeating Loki, Heimdall returns Brisingamen (necklace of fire) to Freyja
(scene from Norse mythology)
1846
oil on canvas
Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Family of Beggars in the Ruins of the Colosseum
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Franz Ludwig Catel
Pompey's Visit to Cicero's Villa near Pozzuoli
1828-29
oil on canvas
Bildgalerie von Sanssouci, Potsdam

Thomas Blanchet
Design for Allegorical Fountain
honoring the Duc de Bourgogne
ca. 1682
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Simone Cantarini (il Pesarese)
Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune honoring the Arms of Cardinal Scipione Borghese
ca. 1630
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Brassaï
Couple d´amoureux
dans un petit café parisien, Quartier Italie
ca. 1930
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

In the course of time their athletic contest, the Games of the Dead, took place.  The judges were Achilles, who was holding the office for the fifth time, and Theseus, holding it for the seventh.  I shall summarize the events; a full report would take a long time.  The wrestling was won by Caprus the Heraclid, who beat Odysseus for the title.  The boxing was a draw between Areius the Egyptian, who is buried in Corinth, and Epeius.  They have no pancratium, and I cannot now recall who won the race.  In poetry, Homer was really much the best; Hesiod won, though.  The prize for every winner was a garland of peacock feathers plaited.

Just after the games were finished, news was brought that those who were being punished in the abode of the wicked had broken their chains and overpowered their guard and were advancing upon the island, under Phalaris of Acragas, Busiris the Egyptian, Diomede the Thracian, and Sciron and Pityocamptes and their followers.  On hearing this, Rhadamanthus marshaled the heroes on the beach, giving the command to Theseus, Achilles and Ajax the son of Telamon (now restored to sanity).  

– Lucian, from A True Story (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by B.P. Reardon (1989)