Thursday, February 5, 2026

Rock

Lucas van Valckenborch
Mountainous Landscape with Mine and Ore-Smelter
1580
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

David Teniers the Younger
The Wanderers
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Joseph Werner the Younger
Lion with Prey and Man with Vegetables
in a Rocky Landscape

ca. 1666-68
gouache on vellum
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Franz Kobell
Rock Face above Stream
ca. 1795
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Johann Christian Reinhart
Boulders in Parco Chigi, Ariccia
ca. 1809-1810
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Johann Joachim Faber
Rocky Landscape near Sorrento
1821
oil on paper
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Eugène Delacroix
Landscape with Rocks, Augerville
ca. 1830
oil on cardboard
Morgan Library, New York

August Bromeis
Study in the Pontine Marshes
ca. 1845
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum, Hannover

Paul Huet
Rocks in the Forest of Fontainebleau
ca. 1860
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Henri-Joseph Harpignies
Palace of the Caesars, Rome
1866
watercolor on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Rudolf Schick
Nero's Nymphaeum at Subiaco
1884
oil on cardboard
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ole Juul
Landscape
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø

Paul Cézanne
Quarry at Bibémus
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Georgia O'Keeffe
Cliffs beyond Abiquiu - Dry Waterfall
1943
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Per Lindekrantz
Rocks, Heestrand
1957
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Svein Johansen
The Third Landscape
ca. 1985
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Cerberus, whose bark strikes terror into the dead, there comes a terrible shade before whom even thou must tremble. Archilochus is dead. Beware the acrid iambic wrath engendered by his bitter mouth. Thou knowest the might of his words ever since one boat brought thee the two daughters of Lycambes.*

Now, three-headed dog, better than ever with thy sleepless eyes guard the gate of thy fortress, the pit. For if the daughters of Lycambes to avoid the savage bile of Archilochus' iambics left the light, will not every soul leave the portals of this dusky dwelling, flying from the terror of his slanderous tongue?

This tomb by the sea is that of Archilochus, who first made the Muse bitter, dipping her in vipers' gall, staining mild Helicon with blood. Lycambes knows it, mourning for his three daughters hanged. Pass quietly by, O wayfarer, lest haply thou arouse the wasps that are settled on his tomb.

                                                 *                     *                   *

Ionian Miletus nourished and revealed this Thales, first in wisdom of all astronomers.

Small is the tomb, but see how the fame of the deep thinker Thales reaches to the heavens.

Once, Zeus the Sun, didst thou carry off from the stadion, as he was viewing the games, Thales the sage. I praise thee for taking him away to be near thee, for in truth the old man could no longer see the stars from earth. 
 
– from Book VI (Sepulchral Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*who hanged themselves owing to bitter verses directed at them by Archilochus