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

Julius Paulsen
In the Bedroom
1891
oil on canvas
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Michael Pacher
St Augustine disputing with Heretics
ca. 1480
oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

William Orpen
The Orpens arrive at the Conders' Party
1905
watercolor on paper
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Irving Penn
Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning
1947
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Allegretto Nuzi
Imago Pietatis
ca. 1350-60
tempera and gold on panel
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Palma il Giovane
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and St Sebastian
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon

Anonymous Printmaker after Andrea Palladio
Ground Plan of the Pantheon, Rome
(illustration to Quattro Libri dell'Architettura)
1581
woodcut
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Bernard Picart
Académie
1723
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Pablo Picasso
Woman
1930
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Jean-Marc Nattier
Angélique Louise Sophie, marquise de Baglion
 as the goddess Flora
1746
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Franz Xaver Petter
Bouquet of Flowers
1845
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Lasse Persson
Lots of Stuff
1988-89
acrylic on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Nicholaes Eliasz Pickenoy
Portrait of a Lady
1633
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Art

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel
Rabbi Naphtali Ben Cohen with Pupils and Apparition
1778
drawing
(print study)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Statue of Jacob Cats
1922
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Agostino Musi after Baccio Bandinelli
News is brought to the Gods on Mount Olympus
ca. 1520-30
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

from Academic Discourse at Havana

Canaries in the morning, orchestras

In the afternoon, ballrooms at night. That is

A difference, at least, from nightingales,

Jehovah and the great sea-worm. The air

Is not so elemental nor the earth

So near.

              But the sustenance of the wilderness

Does not sustain us in the metropoles.

                         *          *        * 

Is the function of the poet here mere sound,

Subtler than the ornatest prophecy,

To stuff the ear? It causes him to make

His infinite repetition and alloys

Of pick of ebon, pick of halcyon.

It weights him with nice logic for the prim.

As part of nature he is part of us.

His rarities are ours: may they be fit

And reconcile us to our selves in those

True reconciling, dark, pacific words,

And the adroiter harmonies of their fall.

– Wallace Stevens (1935)

Vellum

Cosmè Tura
St Francis receiving the Stigmata
ca. 1470-80
tempera and gold on vellum (manuscript illumination)
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jan Baptist Weenix
The Three Fates among Ruins
ca. 1645
gouache on vellum
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Johan Thopas
Portrait of Gijsbert van der Hoven
1657
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Samuel Cooper
Miniature Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1660-65
watercolor on vellum
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Samuel Cooper
Miniature Portrait of Henry Jermyn, Baron Dover
1667
watercolor on vellum
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Johan Thopas
Portrait of a Woman
ca. 1670
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Simon de Vos
The Taking of Christ
before 1676
oil on vellum
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Johan Thopas
Portrait of a Man
1684
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Johan Thopas
Portrait of a Woman
1684
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous English Artist
Miniature Portrait of a Man
ca. 1685
watercolor on vellum
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Johan Thopas
Portrait of Ida Block
1688
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Thomas Forster
Miniature Portrait of Margaret Harcourt
1708
graphite on vellum (plumbago)
British Museum

Cornelis Troost
Self Portrait
1745
gouache on vellum
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Elisabeth Geertruida Wassenbergh
Self Portrait
1754
watercolor on vellum
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Phoebe Anna Traquair
Two Illuminated Leaves - Sonnets from the Portuguese by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
ca. 1894-96
watercolor and gold on vellum
National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh

Phoebe Anna Traquair
Illuminated Leaf from
Collection of Reproductions of Medallions
1897
watercolor and gold on vellum
University of Edinburgh Library

Idelle Weber
It's a Business
ca. 1967-69
watercolor, collage and chalk on vellum
private collection

Crossing alone the nighted ferry

        With the one coin for fee,

Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,

        Count you to find?  Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,

        The true, sick-hearted slave,

Expect him not in the just city

        And free land of the grave.

– A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

Prospect

Walter Dexel
Figuration
1922
woodcut
Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig

Stefano della Bella
Death seizing a Young Woman
ca. 1645-50
etching
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Roy De Maistre
Studio Interior with Figures
1935
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Gitte Dæhlin
Without a Ticket
1977
fabric sculpture on steel armature
Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norway

Michel-François Dandré-Bardon
Entry of Princess into a City
ca. 1740
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Josef Danhauser
The Glutton
1836
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jacques-Louis David
Portrait of Jacques-François Desmaisons
(architect, and uncle of the artist)
1782
oil on canvas
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Prosper Debia
Classical and Romantic
1832
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres-Bourdelle, Montauban

Henri Delavallée
View at Marlotte
1884
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Robert Delaunay
Formes circulaires, Soleil
1912-13
oil on canvas
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Maurice Denis
The Red Beach
1901
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Eugène Delacroix after Peter Paul Rubens
St John the Evangelist on Patmos
1850
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ignazio Danti
The Battle of Lepanto
ca. 1575-85
fresco
Galleria della Carte Geografiche, Musei Vaticani

Nicolas-Joseph Delin
Portrait of Leonardus van der Aar
1786
oil on canvas
Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden

Edgar Degas
The Fallen Jockey
(scene from the steeplechase)
1866
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giorgio de Chirico
Bowl of Fruit
1926
oil on board
Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, Netherlands

Antony

     Shall I, who to my kneeling slave could say

     'Rise up, and be a king,' shall I fall down

     And cry, 'Forgive me, Caesar'? Shall I set

     A man, my equal, in the place of Jove, 

     As he could give me being? No; that word

     'Forgive' would choke me up,

     And die upon my tongue. 

Dollabella                              You shall not need it.

Antony

     I will not need it. Come, you've all betrayed me –

     My friend too! – to receive some vile conditions.

     My wife has bought me with her prayers and tears,

     And now I must become her branded slave:

     In every peevish mood she will upbraid

     The life she gave; if I but look awry,

     She cries, 'I'll tell my brother.'

Octavia                                        My hard fortune

     Subjects me still to your unkind mistakes.

     But the conditions I have brought are such

     You need not blush to take. I love your honour

     Because 'tis mine; it never shall be said

     Octavia's husband was her brother's slave.

     Sir, you are free, free even from her you loathe.

     For though my brother bargains for your love,

     Makes me the price and cement of your peace,

     I have a soul like yours; I cannot take

     Your love as alms, nor beg what I deserve.

     I'll tell my brother we are reconciled;

     He shall draw back his troops, and you shall march

     To rule the East: I may be dropped at Athens –

     No matter where, I never will complain.

     But only keep the barren name of wife,

     And rid you of the trouble.

Ventidius

     Was ever such a strife of sullen honour!

     Both scorn to be obliged.

Dollabella

     Oh, she has touched him in the tender'st part;

     See how he reddens with despite and shame,

     To be outdone in generosity!

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)