-Bader-Chaker-al-Sayyab-(poet)-1965-oil-on-canvas-Tate-Modern-London.jpg) |
| Marwan (Marwan Kassab Bachi) Portrait of poet Bader Chaker al-Sayyab 1965 oil on canvas Tate Modern, London |
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| Daniel Massad Night Piece 1987 pastel on paper Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Master of the 1540s Portrait of a Man 1545 oil on panel Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
-c1920-platinum-palladium-print-National-Museum-of-American-History-Washington-DC.jpg) |
| Margrethe Mather Pierrot (actor Otto Matiesen) ca. 1920 platinum palladium print National Museum of American History, Washington DC |
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| Henri Matisse Nature Morte avec Livres ca. 1895 oil on canvas Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Leonard Maurer Proust 1973 linocut Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| Gabriel Max The Anatomist 1869 oil on canvas Neue Pinakothek, Munich |
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| Ludovico Mazzolino Circumcision of Christ 1526 oil on panel (altarpiece) Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
-c1955-gelatin-silver-print-Loeb-Art-Center-Vassar-College-Poughkeepsie-New-York.jpeg) |
| Rollie McKenna Portrait of art historian Agnes Claflin ca. 1955 gelatin silver print Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York |
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| William McTaggart Group of Classical Casts ca. 1860 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
-Gerhard-Richter-Neue-Bilder-Galerie-1967-offset-lithograph-(exhibition-poster)-Cooper-Hewitt-Smithsonian-Design-Museum.jpg) |
| Mendell & Oberer (Munich) Gerhard Richter - Neue Bilder Galerie 1967 offset lithograph (exhibition poster) Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| William Menelaws Portrait of Mrs John Muir 1905 oil on canvas Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia |
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| Hans Mettler Venetian Laundry II 2001 C-print Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario |
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| Nicolas Mignard Portrait présumé de Françoise Marguerite de Sévigné, comtesse de Grignan before 1668 oil on canvas Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne |
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| Hieronymus van der Mij Portrait of Johan van den Bergh 1746 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
-1971-etching-and-engraving-Smithsonian-American-Art-Museum-Washington-DC.jpg) |
| Peter Milton The Jolly Corner III (Henry James) 1971 etching and engraving Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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| George Minne De Kleine Relikwiedrager 1897 marble Kunstmuseum, The Hague |
from Minturno, or, On Beauty
(Modeled on Plato's Hippias Major, Minturno is a conversation between the philosopher Antonio Minturno and Geronimo Ruscelli, a colorful courtier and dilettante)
Giacomo Ruscelli: If the beautiful is not what is pleasing to the senses of hearing and sight, what other definition can we find that is equally satisfactory?
Antonio Minturno: Let's not abandon the search for one.
G.R.: I have often read that beauty is a proportion between parts that are well arranged. This opinion, which many have shared, is not easy to dismiss.
A.M.: There is proportion only where there are dissimilar parts. But if beauty were a proportion between parts that do not resemble each other, there would be no beauty in simple things, but gold and silver are beautiful, in the judgment of miserable mortals, as well as diamonds, rubies, and other precious stones; colors are beautiful, and light, in which there is no proportion at all, is very beautiful indeed. Besides, there are times when the proportion between the parts remains – as in bodies grown old and feeble – but not beauty, which is lost with the flower of youth. For these reasons I am not satisfied with this definition either.
G.R.: I do not know if I can produce any other that will satisfy you more. But you must recall the definitions of Plutarch and Plotinus. The first is that beauty is an ornament or glory of the soul which irradiates the body, the other that it is a victory of form over matter. To these one could add another that beauty is an appearance or an image of the good, as ugliness is a darkened face of evil.
A.M.: I remember having read something of these things and heard them spoken about, but I find myself with the same doubts. For if beauty is an ornament of the soul imparted to the body or a victory of form over matter, then it must exist in bodily and material things, in which there is perhaps no beauty at all, or not the kind we are seeking. And I wonder at Nifo and the other Peripatetics, who have located beauty in the body and in matter, because by its nature matter is ugly and deformed in the extreme, or rather is ugliness itself, so that the beautiful would be found to exist in the ugly as its proper medium, which is not at all fitting, for the beautiful should issue from the beautiful as flower issues from flower. Besides, if the opinion of those who have defined it in this way is true, the angels would not be beautiful, since in the angelic nature matter is not overcome by form, and there is no body to which the soul's quality can be imparted.
– Torquato Tasso (ca. 1593-94), translated by Dain A. Trafton and Carnes Lord (1982)