Avid of Elseness

Andrew Moore
Zumi Crabapple, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
Winterberry Holly and Flowering Crabapples, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
European Beech, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
Eastern White Pine, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of sculptor Pierre Le Pautre
1689
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of la comtesse de Bemareau
1713
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of Jacques-Antoine Arlaud
making a copy of Michelangelo's Leda
1714
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of a Man wearing a Cuirass
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Satanic Ballet
ca. 1922
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Othello, Act II
1930
pochoir
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Molière's Don Juan
ca. 1929
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Ballet
ca. 1925-28
oil on panel
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Pasture with Two Goats
ca. 1865
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Ravine in the Morvan near Lormes
ca. 1840-45
oil on canvas
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Mantes (Le Matin)
ca. 1865-69
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Rebecca at the Well
ca. 1838-39
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

from Part One of The Age of Anxiety

Malin suggested:

                                 Let us then

     Consider rather the incessant Now of

     The traveller through time, his tired mind
     Biased towards bigness since his body must

     Exaggerate to exist, possessed by hope,

     Acquisitive, in quest of his own 

     Absconded self yet scared to find it

     As he bumbles by from birth to death

     Menaced by madness; whose mode of being,

     Bashful or braggart, is to be at once

     Outside and inside his own demand

     For personal pattern. His pure I

     Must give account of and greet his Me,

     That field of force where he feels he thinks, 

     His past present, presupposing death,

     Must ask what he is in order to be

     And make meaning by omission and stress,

     Avid of elseness. All that exists

     Matters to man; he minds what happens

     And feels he is at fault, a fallen soul

     With power to place, to explain every

     What in his world but why he is neither

     God nor good, this guilt the insoluble

     Final fact, infusing his private

     Nexus of needs, his noted aims with

     Incomprehensible comprehensive dread

     At not being what he knows that before

     This world was he was willed to become. 

Quant approved:

     Set him to song, the surly old dodger.

So did Emble:

     Relate his lies to his longings for truth.

So did Rosetta:

     Question his crimes till his clues confess.

     The radio attempted to interrupt by remarking

          And now Captain Kidd in his Quiz Program

          HOW ALERT ARE YOU

But Quant pointed a finger at it and it stopped immediately. He said:

                                          Listen, Box,

     And keep quiet. Listen courteously to us

     Four reformers who have founded – why not? – 

     The Gung-Ho Group, the Ganymede Club
     For homesick young angels, the Arctic League
     Of Tropical Fish, the Tomboy Fund
     For Blushing Brides and the Bide-a-wees

     Of Sans-Souci, assembled again

     For a Think-Fest: Our theme tonight is

          HOMO ABYSSUS OCCIDENTALIS

                                     or

          A CURIOUS CASE OF COLD FEET

                                     or

          SEVEN SELFISH SUPPERLESS AGES

     And now, at Rosetta's suggestion, they left their bar-stools and moved to the quieter intimacy of a booth. Drinks were ordered and the discussion began.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)