Seventeenth-Century Imagery from Northern Europe

Master of the Procession
Feast of the Wine (The Procession of the Ram)
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Master of the Procession
Gathering of Gamblers with Hurdy-Gurdy Player
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Theodoor Rombouts
Card Players
ca. 1620-30
etching
British Museum

Roelant Savery
Mountain Landscape with Woodcutters
1610
oil on copper
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Jacob van Ruisdael
Landscape with the Ruins of the Castle of Egmond
ca. 1650-55
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Adriaen van de Velde
Pastoral Landscape with Ruins
1664
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

From the Book on the Nature of Things

In the Beginning

Chaos: mass without master, substance uncontrolled by subject. The unintelligible force of the world.

The Human Abyss

The human soul where all opposites contend; thus chaos always newly and furtively forming.

What Then Is the Body?

A passing handprint; a thin wave in the voice of time.

Bargaining with Time

Futility of discourse. A rage of wind in the trees.

Grave Discomfort

The prison of self-consciousness. Insomnia of the ego.

The Sensation of Grace

To be like a fish suspended in a net, caught up in the web of the world.

Temptation Disguised as Thought

To follow an argument, abstractly, to its conclusion.

Intuitive Conjecture

The suspicion of the inconsequence of being. 

Perplexing Fact

Imagination, itinerant, travels independent of us, performing in all of the provinces.

Premature Sorrow

The violation of trust by knowledge.

What is Remembered

The loam of dusk rising under the luminous bow of summer.

Maturity of Sorts

To abandon simplicity and climb the tilted ladder of paradox.

The Sensation of Nostalgia

Unexplained night winds; a chill patterned with longing.

Where Does the Soul Reside?

Under the cover of darkness, having been routed by evil.

The Pursuit of the Good

To find out where the soul is hiding from evil.

Forgetfulness of Objects

The mirror's silver which forgets, even quicker than the mind, the green ripeness of apples.

Concluding Hypothesis

And then, if the soul exists – what a thicket it lives in!

– Ellen Hinsey (The White Fire of Time, Wesleyan University Press, 2002)

Ignaz Elhafen
Battle Scene
ca. 1680-85
cedar-wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Ignaz Elhafen
Battle Scene with Amazons
ca. 1680-85
cedar-wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

attributed to Jacques Blanchard
Charity
ca. 1635-36
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

attributed to Lucas Kilian
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
ca. 1602
wash drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Lucas Vorsterman and Peter Paul Rubens
Lot's Daughters fleeing Sodom
ca. 1615-20
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Pieter Crijnse Volmarijn
Panthea before Cyrus the Great, King of Persia
before 1679
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Peter Paul Rubens and workshop
Study for St Sebastian
ca. 1620
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Artist after Peter Paul Rubens
Study of Two Nude Warriors
17th century
drawing
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

European Sixteenth-Century Quality - III

follower of Giulio Romano
St Veronica with the Sudarium
before 1550
oil on canvas
Philadelphia Museum of Art

follower of Hendrik Goltzius
Two Figure Studies of Women
1568
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jean Hey
Mourning Virgin
(fragment of painting - Christ carrying the Cross)
ca. 1500-1505
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Jean Hey
St John the Evangelist
(fragment of painting - Christ carrying the Cross)
ca. 1500-1505
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

Wolfgang Huber
Raising of the Cross
ca. 1522
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Artist working in Italy
Three Putti with Musical Instruments
ca. 1520-30
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

The Land of Nod

Growing up, I barely knew the Bible, but read
and reread the part when Cain drifted east
or was drawn that way, into a place of desolation,
the land of Nod, there to begin, with a wife

of unknown origin, another race of men,
under the mark of God. As a boy, I thought Nod
would be a place where the blue scillas
would bloom gray, a country of the rack and screw,

the serrated sword, where the very serving cups
were bone. As a grown man, I've heard that Nod
never was a nation – of Cain's offspring, or anyone –
but a mistranslation of "wander," so Cain

could go wherever, and be in Nod. Far more
than God, I believe in Cain, who destroyed
his own brother, and therefore in any city
could have his wish, and be alone.

–James Arthur (2011)

Monogrammist IP
The Fall of Man
ca. 1520-30
pear-wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giovanni Battista Naldini
Study for The Purification of the Virgin
ca. 1577
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

attributed to Bartolomeo Passarotti
Young Woman and Matron
before 1592
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Perino del Vaga
Crossing of the Red Sea
ca. 1522-23
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Callisto Piazza
A Musical Gathering
ca. 1520-30
oil on panel
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Camillo Procaccini
The Transfiguration
ca. 1590
etching
Art Institute of Chicago

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Allegory of Spirit and Matter
ca. 1515-30
bronze plaquette
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Riccio (Andrea Briosco)
Brutus and Lucretia
ca. 1495-1515
bronze plaquette
Victoria & Albert Museum

European Sixteenth-Century Quality - II

attributed to Annibale Carracci
Seated Figure (half-length, viewed from the back)
1590s
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Annibale Carracci
Landscape with Man sleeping beneath a Tree
1595
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Ludovico Carracci
Alexander Farnese directing the Siege of Antwerp
ca. 1580-90
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Ludovico Carracci
Judith and Holofernes
ca. 1583-85
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Ludovico Carracci
Christ and the Woman of Canaan
1595-96
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

from The Task

Thus heav'n-ward all things tend. For all were once
Perfect, and all must be at length restor'd.
So God has greatly purpos'd; who would else
In his dishonour'd works himself endure
Dishonour, and be wrong'd without redress.
Haste then, and wheel away a shatter'd world,
Ye slow-revolving seasons! we would see,
(A sight to which our eyes are strangers yet)
A world that does not dread and hate his laws,
And suffer for its crime; would learn how fair
The creature is that God pronounces good,
How pleasant in itself what please him.
Here ev'ry drop of honey hides a sting,
Worms wind themselves into our sweetest flow'rs,
And ev'n the joy that haply some poor heart
Derives from heav'n, pure as the fountain
Is sully'd in the stream; taking a taint
From touch of human lips, at best impure.
Oh for a world in principle as chaste
As this is gross and selfish! over which
Custom and prejudice shall bear no sway,
That govern all things here, should'ring aside
The meek and modest truth, and forcing her
To seek a refuge from the tongue of strife
In nooks obscure, far from the ways of men:
Where violence shall never lift the sword,
Nor cunning justify the proud man's wrong,
Leaving the poor no remedy but tears:
Where he that fills an office, shall esteem
Th' occasion it presents of doing good
More than the perquisite: Where law shall speak
Seldom, and never but as wisdom prompts
And equity; not jealous more to guard
A worthless form, than to decide aright:
Where fashion shall not sanctify abuse,
Nor smooth good-breeding (supplemental grace)
With lean performance ape the work of love.

– William Cowper (1785)

Cesare da Sesto
Adoration of the Kings (detail)
ca. 1516-19
oil on panel
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Cima da Conegliano
St Sebastian
ca. 1500-1502
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg

Dirk Coornhert
Capture of King Francis I of France at the Battle of Pavia
(Victories of Emperor Charles V)
ca. 1570-80
cherry-wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Dirk Coornhert
Conquest of the Americas
(Victories of Emperor Charles V)
ca. 1570-80
cherry-wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

workshop of Dosso and Battista Dossi
Appearance of the Virgin and Child
with St Francis and St Bernardino
to the Confraternita di Santa Maria della Neve
ca. 1530-40
oil on canvas
Palazzo dei Musei, Modena

Albrecht Dürer
Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand Christians
1508
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Albrecht Dürer
Three Putti with Shield and Helmet
ca. 1505
engraving
Art Institute of Chicago

Albrecht Dürer
Witch riding backward on a Goat
ca. 1500-1502
engraving
Art Institute of Chicago

Matthias Gerung
The Dream of Paris
1536
oil on panel
Art Institute of Chicago

European Sixteenth-Century Quality - I

Cherubino Alberti after Michelangelo
St Jerome in the Desert
ca. 1575
engraving
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Artist working in the Netherlands
Susanna and the Elders
ca. 1550-75
tempera, lacquer, gold leaf and silver foil on glass
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Artist working in Germany
The Crucifixion
ca. 1530
painted wood relief
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Domenico Beccafumi
Adoration of the Shepherds
before 1551
engraving
Princeton University Art Museum

Domenico Beccafumi
Holy Family
before 1551
oil on panel
private collection

Chester

Wallace Stevens is beyond fathoming, he is so strange; it is as if he had a morbid secret he would rather perish than disclose.
                    – Marianne Moore to William Carlos Williams

Another day, which is usually how they come:
A cat at the foot of the bed, noncommital
In its blankness of mind, with the morning light
Slowly filling the room, and fragmentary
Memories of last night's video and phone calls.
It is a feeling of sufficiency, one menaced
By the fear of some vague lack, of a simplicity
Of self, a self without a soul, the nagging fear
Of being someone to whom nothing ever happens.
Thus the fantasy of the narrative behind the story,
Of the half-concealed life that lies beneath
The ordinary one, made up of ordinary mornings
More alike in how they feel than what they say.
They seem like luxuries of consciousness,
Like second thoughts that complicate the time
One simply wastes. And why not? Mere being
Is supposed to be enough, without the intricate
Evasions of a mystery or offstage tragedy.
Evenings follow on the afternoons, lingering in
The living room and listening to the stereo
While Peggy Lee sings "Is That All There Is?"
Amid the morning papers and the usual
Ghosts keeping you company, but just for a while.
The true soul is the one that flickers in the eyes
Of an animal, like a cat that lifts its head and yawns
And stares at you, and then goes back to sleep.

– John Koethe (2007)

Domenico Beccafumi
Holy Family
ca. 1540-50
oil on panel
Princeton University Art Museum

Leonhard Beck
St George and the Dragon
ca. 1513-14
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Sebald Beham after Barthel Beham
Adam and Eve
1543
engraving
Art Institute of Chicago

Sebald Beham
Women's Bath
ca. 1530-40
woodcut
Art Institute of Chicago

follower of Giovanni Bellini
Madonna and Child with Saints and Donors
ca. 1515
oil on panel
Harvard Art Museums

attributed to Andrea Boscoli
Olympias, Mother of Alexander the Great, visited by Zeus in the Guise of a Serpent
ca. 1595
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

attributed to Andrea Boscoli after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Procession as Frieze
late 16th century
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Patricio Cajés
Liberation of St Peter
late 16th century
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Luca Cambiaso
Allegorical Subject
(Angel above Two Sibyls on Clouds)
ca. 1560-65
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago