Night

Robert Mapplethorpe
Marianne Faithfull
1976
gelatin silver print
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Thomas Ruff
Nacht 21
1992
C-print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Bartolomé Estebán Murillo
The Vision of Fray Julián of Alcalá
(Ascension of the Soul of King Philip II of Spain)
1645–46
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Robert Frank
New Yorker Theater, New York
1962
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Takuma Nakahira
La Nuit 3
ca. 1969
photogravure
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Giovanni Domenico Lombardi (l'Omino)
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1735-40
oil on canvas
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca

Alvin Langdon Coburn
New York Subway Entrance, Madison Square Park
1912
photogravure
Princeton University Art Museum

Samuel Palmer
Cornfield by Moonlight
ca. 1830
watercolor and gouache on paper
British Museum

Eli Reed
Castro Theater, San Francisco
ca. 1980
gelatin silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation)

Augusto Giacometti
Summer Night
1917
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Arthur Segal
RCA Building
ca. 1949
gelatin silver print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
(Achenbach Foundation)

Kohei Yoshiyuki
Untitled
1979
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Brassaï
Les Arbres des quais, avec le Pont Neuf
ca. 1945
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Edward Hopper
Night Windows
1928
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Matthew Pillsbury
Tanya & Sartaj Gill - CSI: Miami
2002
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Weegee
Tenement Fire
ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jacopo Bassano
The Deposition
ca. 1575-77
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

    To the true Browne enthusiast, indeed, there is something almost shocking about the state of mind which would exchange 'pensile' for 'hanging' and 'asperous' for 'rough,' and would do away with 'digladiation' and 'quodlibetically' altogether.  The truth is, that there is a great gulf fixed between those who naturally dislike the ornate, and those who naturally love it.  There is no remedy; and to attempt to ignore this fact only emphasizes it the more.  Anyone who is jarred by the expression 'prodigal blazes' had better immediately shut up Sir Thomas Browne.  

– Lytton Strachey on Sir Thomas Browne (1906)

Nocturne

Anonymous Artist
Champa Street at Night, Denver, Colorado
ca. 1913
halftone print (postcard)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Pierre-Gaston Rigaud
Moonlight
ca. 1910
oil paint and pastel on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Donato Creti
Astronomical Observation - Venus
1711
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Caspar David Friedrich
Shore in Moonlight
ca. 1835-36
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Edvard Munch
Moonlight
1895
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Abraham Bosse after Claude Vignon
Group with Torches in a Boat at Night
1639
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Jean Jouvenet
Last Supper
ca. 1705
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Frans Francken the Younger
Christ and Nicodemus
ca. 1610
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Daniele Crespi
Dream of St Joseph
ca. 1620-30
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Oswald Achenbach
Night Festival near Florence
1889
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous German Artist
The Great Comet of 1664-65
1665
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Artist
Dark Moon and Pair of Comets
1540
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress (broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Valentin Schönig
Arrival of a Comet
1577
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress (broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Johan Christian Dahl
View of Dresden in Moonlight
1839
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Axel Fridell
By Lamplight
1928
drypoint
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

James Heath after Henry Fuseli
Shade of Patroclus beseeching Achilles for Burial
ca. 1820-30
etching
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

The stranger is Zoilus of Hermione, but he lies buried in a foreign land, clothed in this Argive earth, which his deep-bosomed wife, her cheeks bedewed with tears, and his children, their hair close cut, heaped on him. 

The stranger was brief; so shall the verse be. I will not tell a long story. "Theris, Aristaeus' son, a Cretan." – For me it is too long.  

The tomb is that of Protalidas of Lycastus who was supreme in love, war, the chase and the dance. Ye judges of the underworld, yourselves Cretans, ye have taken the Cretan to your company. 

Love gave to Protalides success in his pursuit of his boy-loves, Artemis in the chase, the Muse in the dance, and Ares in war. Must we not call him blest, the Lycastian supreme in love and song, with the spear and the hunting-net. 

Here Philippus laid his twelve-year-old son, Nicoteles, his great hope.

On Phrygian Aeschra, his good nurse, did Miccus while she lived besow every comfort that soothes old age, and when she died he erected her statue, that future generations may see how he rewarded the old woman for her milk. 

Hail, earth, mother of all! Aesigenes was never a burden to thee, and do thou too hold him without weighing heavy on him. 

Of a surety, Aretemias, when descending from the boat thou didst set thy foot on the beach of Cocytus, carrying in thy young arms thy babe newly dead, the fair daughters of the Dorian land pitied thee in Hades and questioned thee concerning thy death; and thou, thy cheeks bedewed with tears, didst give them these mournful tidings: "My dears, I brought forth twin children; one I left with Euphron my husband, and the other I bring to the dead."

– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Ippolito Caffi (1809-1866) - Faithful to the Risorgimento

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Colosseum Interior illuminated by Fireworks
before 1866
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Colosseum Interior
before 1866
watercolor and gouache on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - St Peter's Square in Moonlight
before 1866
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - St Peter's Basilica and Square with Crowds awaiting a Papal Audience
1845
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - View from the Pincio
1866
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Egidio Martini, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Forum, with Arch of Constantine
before 1866
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Blessing of Pius IX from Palazzo Quirinale
1848
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Arch of Titus and Temple of Venus and Roma
before 1866
watercolor and gouache on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Piazza del Popolo
1847
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Festa dei Moccoletti
1852
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Rome - Forum
before 1866
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Venice - Santa Maria dei Miracole and Santa Maria Nova
before 1866
oil on cardboard
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Venice - Piazzetta by Night
before 1866
oil on paper
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Venice - Night Festival in Via Eugenia
before 1866
oil on canvas
private collection

Ippolito Caffi
Venice - Eclipse of the Sun viewed from Fondamente Nove
1842
watercolor and gouache on paper
private collection

"Cavaliere Ippolito Caffi – was a painter of architectural subjects and sea-pieces, born at Belluno in 1814 [actually 1809].  His first work was produced at the Venice Academy.  He subsequently removed to Rome, where he worked laboriously as a teacher of drawing, and made some little reputation by his treatise on Perspective, as well as by his investigations on the subject of Roman Monuments.  In 1843 he visited Greece and the East.  . . .  Taking part in the revolutionary movement at Venice in 1848, he had to retire to Piedmont.  His intention of producing a painting commemorative of the first Italian naval engagement was frustrated by the destruction of the Re d'Italia, the vessel on board of which he was, when he perished at Lissa along with his comrades in 1866." 

– Michael Bryan, Dictionary of Painters and Engravers, Biographical and Critical (London: George Bell and Sons, 1886)

Night - Painted Views and Narratives

Kelvin Bowers
Swimming Pool (Coat Hooks and Crescent Moon)
ca. 1991
oil on panel
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent

Frederick Lee Bridell
The Coliseum at Rome by Moonlight
1859
oil on canvas
Southampton City Art Gallery

Peter Paul Rubens
Landscape by Moonlight
ca. 1635-40
oil on panel
Courtauld Gallery, London

Joseph Wright of Derby
The Lady in Milton's Comus
1785
oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Joseph Wright of Derby
Annual Girandola at Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome
ca. 1775-76
oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Petrus van Schendel
Market Scene at Night
ca. 1850
oil on panel
Foundling Museum, London

Henry Thomson
Prospero and Miranda
1803
oil on canvas
Royal Academy of Arts, London

 

Philippe de Champaigne
The Dream of St Joseph
ca. 1642-43
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

October 1973

Last night I dreamed I ran through the streets of New York
Looking for help for you, Nicanor.
But my few friends who are rich or influential
were temporarily absent from their penthouses or hotel suites.
They had gone to the opera, or flown for the weekend to Bermuda.
At last I found one or two of them at home,
preparing for social engagements,
absently smiling, as they tried on gown after gown
until heaps of rich, beautiful fabric were strewn
over the chairs and sofas. They posed before mirrors,
with their diamonds and trinkets and floor-length furs.
Smiling at me from the mirror, they vaguely promised help.
They became distracted – by constantly ringing phones,
by obsequious secretaries, bustling in with packages,
flowers, messages, all the paraphernalia,
all part of the uninterruptible rounds of the rich,
the nice rich, smiling soothingly, as they touched their hair
or picked up their phone extensions.
Absently patting my arm, they smiled, "It will be all right."

Dusk fell on the city as I ran, naked, weeping, into the streets.
I ran to the home of Barbara, my friend,
Who, as a young girl, rescued four Loyalist soldiers
from a Spanish prison;
in her teenage sweater set and saddle shoes and knee socks,
she drove an old car sagging with Loyalist pamphlets
across the Pyrenees all the way to Paris without being caught.
And not long ago, she helped save a group of men
from Franco's sentence of death.

In my dream, Barbara telephones Barcelona.
I realize this isn't quite right,
but I just stand there paralyzed, as one does in dreams.
Then, dimly, from the other end of the line,
through the chatter of international operators,
we hear artillery fire, the faint tones of lost men,
cracked voices singing "Los Cuatro Generales" through the pulsations
of the great, twisted cable under the ocean.
Agonía, agonía, sueño, fermente & sueño.
Este es el mundo, amigo, agonía, agonía.

"No, Barbara!" I scream. "We are not back there.
That's the old revolution. Call up the new one."
Though I know that, every day,
your friends, Nicanor, telephone Santiago,
where the number rings and rings and rings
with never an answer. And now the rings
are turning into knells:

The church bells of Santiago
tolling the funeral of Neruda, his poems looted,
his autobiography stolen, his books desecrated
in his house on Isla Negra.
And among the smashed glass, the broken furniture,
his desk overturned, the ruined books strewn over the floor,
lie the great floral wreaths from the Swedish academy,
the wreaths from Paris, South Asia, the whole world over.
And the bells toll on . . .
Then I tell Barbara to hang up the phone.

She dials the number again, then turns to me, smiling,
smiling like an angel:
"He is there." Trembling, I take the phone from her,
and hear your voice, Nicanor,
sad, humorous, infinitely disillusioned,
infinitely consoling:
"Dear Carolyn . . ." It is Nicanor!
And the connection is broken, because I wake up,
in this white room, in this white silence,
                   in this backwater of silence
on this Isla Blanca:
                   Nicanor, Nicanor,
are you, too, silent under the earth,
                   Brother, Brother?

– Carolyn Kizer (published in YIN, 1984)

Master of the Annunciation to the Shepherds
The Annunciation to the Shepherds
ca. 1630-31
oil on canvas
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, West Midlands

Philippe de Champaigne
The Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1645
oil on canvas
Wallace Collection, London

Mattia Preti
The Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1645
oil on canvas
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool

Guido Reni
The Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
National Gallery, London

 

Luca Cambiaso
Christ before Caiaphas
before 1585
oil on canvas
Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow

Anonymous French Artist
The Entombment
19th century
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Sisto Badalocchio
Christ carried to the Tomb
ca. 1610-20
oil on copper
National Gallery, London