Descenders

Constantin Alajalov
Theater Lobby
ca. 1940
watercolor on paper
(design for magazine cover)
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Descent from the Cross
ca. 1518
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Federico Barocci
St Dominic de Guzmán receiving the Rosary
ca. 1590
oil on paper (sketch for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Max Beckmann
Falling Man
1950
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Francesco Clemente
Moon
1980
gouache on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Andrea Commodi
Fall of the Rebel Angels
ca. 1614-17
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Lovis Corinth
Höllenfragment
ca. 1901
oil on canvas
(fragment saved from discarded painting)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Eikoh Hosoe
Kamaitachi #17
1965
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Anonymous Italian Painter
Suor Oretta Pugliesi visited by the Virgin and two Dominican Saints
ca. 1500-1510
fresco
Monastero di San Niccolò, Prato

Yves Klein and Harry Shunk
Yves Klein saut dans la vide, Paris
1960
gelatin silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Dorothea Lange
Indonesian Women
1958
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Sebastiano Mazzoni
The Annunciation
ca. 1645-50
oil on canvas (altarpiece)
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Adolph Menzel
Falcon attacking Pigeon
1844
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pietro da Rimini
Descent from the Cross
ca. 1325-50
tempera and gold on panel
Musée du Louvre

Edward Poynter
The Age of Gold
1875
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Sebastiano Ricci
Dream of Aesculapius
ca. 1725-30
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Johann Heinrich Roos
The Annunciation to the Shepherds
ca. 1659
drawing
British Museum

The bird goes up and the bat goes down:

The bird will burn and the bat will drown.

– W.H. Auden (1930)