Mid-Distance

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Ghismonda with the Heart of Guiscardo
ca. 1520-30
oil on panel
(scene from Boccaccio's Decameron)
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
The Gathering of Manna
ca. 1540-55
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Woman with Nosegay
ca. 1525
oil on panel
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Young Man with Lute
ca. 1524-25
oil on panel
New Orleans Museum of Art

Sam Tata
Billboard for Lux Toilet Soap
with film star Greer Garson, Shanghai
1949
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Sam Tata
People's Liberation Army parading on stilts, Shanghai
1949
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Sam Tata
Gerald Potterton, filmmaker, Montreal
1966
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Sam Tata
Weeshe Cumine, Shanghai
1939
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Jennifer Dickson
Palazzo Farnese, Caprarola
2009
inkjet print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Jennifer Dickson
Mapperton
2014
inkjet print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Jennifer Dickson
Sphinx Labyrinth, Blickling Hall
2007
hand-colored giclée print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Jennifer Dickson
Spring Rain, Hidcote
2007
hand-colored giclée print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel 
Portrait of 17th-century artist Adam Grimmer
1778
etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1775
drawing (print study)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel
Portrait of a Young Man
1771
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel
The Miser
1772
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

from Part Two of The Age of Anxiety

Quant said:
                                  Since the neighbors did,
     With a multitude I made the long
     Visitors' voyage to Venus Island, 
     Elated as they, landed upon
     The savage shore where old swains lay wrecked
     Unfit for her fable, followed up
     The basalt stairway, bandying jokes with
     The thoughtless throng, but then, avoiding
     The great gate where she gives all pilgrims

     Her local wine, I legged it over

     A concrete wall, was cold sober as,

     Pushing through brambles, I peeked out at
     Her fascination. Frogs were shooting

     Craps in a corner, cupids on stilts,
     Their beautiful bottoms breaking wind,
     Hunted hares with hurricane lanterns
     Through woods on one side, while on the other

     Shining out through shivering poplars,
     Stood a brick bath-house where burghers mixed
     With light-fingered ladies and louche trade,
     Dancing in serpents and daisy chains
     To mad music. In the mid-distance
     On deal chairs sat a dozen decayed
     Gentlewomen with dejected backs
     And raw fingers morosely stitching
     Red flannel scivvies for heroic herms.

     Primroses, peacocks and peachtrees made
     A fair foreground but fairer there, with
     An early Madonna's oval face
     And lissom limbs, delighting that whole

     Degraded glen, the Goddess herself
     Presided smiling; a saucy wind,
     Plucking from her thigh her pink wrapper
     Of crêpe-de-chine, disclosed a very
     Indolent ulcer. 

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)