Opaque

Willi Storn
Crucifixion
1982
collage and oil paint on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Max Beckmann
The Letter
1945
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

John Hamilton Mortimer
Caricature of Four Beastly Heads
ca. 1770
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Thomas Anshelm
Imago Joannis
1504
woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Albrecht Altdorfer
Punishment of the Courtesan
(episode from legend about Virgil)
ca. 1520-30
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Anonymous German Printmaker
Equestrian Monument
to Herzog August II of Brunswick-Wulfenbüttel
1646
engraving
(printed in red ink)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous German Printmaker
Equestrian Monument
to Herzog August II of Brunswick-Wulfenbüttel
1646
engraving
(printed in red ink)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Albert Aublet
Before the Mosque
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Karl Christian Aubel
The Italian (Maria di Sora)
1826
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous Swedish Designer
Masterpieces from Spökslottet
(Scheffler Palace, Stockholm)
1995
lithograph
(exhibition poster for the Nationalmuseum)
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anonymous German Sculptor
Archbishop saying Mass
amongst Deacons and Canons
AD 950-1000
carved ivory book cover
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Louis Anquetin
Torso of Hercules
ca. 1890
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous German Artists 
The Pouring-Out of the Fourth and Fifth Bowls of Wrath
(scene from the Apocalypse)
ca. 1460-70
hand-colored woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Albrecht Altdorfer
End of the Age of Silver
ca. 1510
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Andrea Appiani the Elder
Jupiter
1792
drawing
(study for ceiling painting)
Museo Poldi-Pezzoli, Milan

Otto Arpke
Spring Flower Show, Berlin
1935
offset print (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

The Blue Buildings in the Summer Air 

                                   I

Cotton Mather died when I was a boy. The books
He read, all day, all night and all the nights,
Had got him nowhere. There was always the doubt,
That made him preach the louder, long for a church
In which his voice would roll its cadences,
After the sermon, to quiet that mouse in the wall.

                                   II

Over wooden Boston, the sparkling Byzantine
Was everything that Cotton Mather was
And more. Yet the eminent thunder from the mouse,
The grinding in the arches of the church,
The plaster dropping, even dripping, down,
The mouse, the moss, the woman on the shore . . .

                                   III

If the mouse should swallow the steeple, in its time . . .
It was a theologian's needle, much
Too sharp for that. The shore, the sea, the sun,
Their brilliance, through the lattices, crippled
The chandeliers, their morning glazes spread
In opal blobs along the walls and floor.

                                   IV

Look down now, Cotton Mather, from the blank.
Was heaven where you thought? It must be there.
It must be where you think it is, in the light
On bed-clothes, in an apple on a plate.
It is the honey-comb of the seeing man.
It is the leaf the bird brings back to the boat.

                                   V

Go, mouse, go nibble at Lenin in his tomb,
Are you not le plus pur, you ancient one?
Cut summer down to find the honeycomb,
You are one . . . Go hunt for honey in his hair.
You are one of the not-numberable mice
Searching all day, all night, for the honey-comb.

– Wallace Stevens (1942)