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| Rodolphe Bresdin Mon Rêve 1883 etching British Museum |
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| Marilyn Bridges Chichén Itzá, Yucatan 1982 gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Miller Gore Brittain The Trial ca. 1950 gouache and pastel on paper Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia |
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| Hablot Knight Browne (Phiz) Amazon fording a Stream ca. 1850 watercolor on paper British Museum |
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| Roger Brown Natural Bridge 1971 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Hendrick ter Brugghen Bravo with Dog 1628 oil on canvas Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna |
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| John G. Bullock Marjorie Bullock in the Garden ca. 1903 platinum print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Edward Burne-Jones The Turkish Bath before 1898 drawing British Museum |
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| Edward Burne-Jones The Turkish Bath before 1898 drawing British Museum |
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| Giuseppe Capogrossi Superficie 236 1957 oil on canvas Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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| Joan Cassis Cecil in the Living Room 1972 hand-colored gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Federico Castellon The Groom ca. 1947 lithograph Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State |
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| Elizabeth Catlett Angela Libre 1972 screenprint on foil National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC |
-Holy-Family-with-young-St-John-the-Baptist-c1640-oil-on-canvas-Galleria-Borghese-Rome.jpg) |
| Giovanni Domenico Cerrini (il Cavalier Perugino) Holy Family with young St John the Baptist ca. 1640 oil on canvas Galleria Borghese, Rome |
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| Caleb Charland Atomic Model 2008 gelatin silver print Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Minna Citron Still Point of the Night 1955 gouache and collage on board Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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| John Constable Mourner with Funerary Urn 1806 drawing British Museum |
from Of the Answers of the Oracle of Apollo at Delphos to Croesus King of Lydia
Others may wonder how the curiositie of elder times having this opportunitie of his oracles omitted natural questions; or why old magitians discoursed no more philosophie, and if they had the assistance of spirits, could rest content with the common hoties or trite notions of things, without addition by such discoveries; which unwarrantable beginnings time long ere this might have confirmed, and made an innocent part of our knowledge. Some divines conceave a Reality in the acts of the magitians of Aegypt, and that their great performances before Pharaoh were not mere delusions. Rightly to understand how they contrived Serpents out of Rods, froggs and blood of water, were worth half of Porta's magick.
Hermolaus Barbarus was scarce in his right witts who upon conference with a spirit would propose no other question than an explication of Aristotles Entelecheia. Appion the Grammarian, that would raise the Ghost of Homer, to decide the controversie about his countrey, made a frivolous and pedantick use of Necromancy; and Philostratus did as litle who called up the ghost of Achilles, for a particular of the warre of Troye. Smarter curiosities would have been at the great Elixir, the flux and reflux of the Sea, with such noble obscurities in nature; butt yet probably all in vayne. In matters cognoscible and framed for our disquisition, Industrie must bee our Oracle, and Reason our Apollo.
– Sir Thomas Browne (1656)