Saturday, November 14, 2026

Glib Waters

Gustave Caillebotte
Portrait of a Woman
1882
oil on canvas
Seattle Art Museum

Gustave Caillebotte
The Seine at Argenteuil
ca. 1892
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Gustave Caillebotte
The Yellow Boat
1891
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Caillebotte-Gustave-
Yellow Roses in a Vase
1882
oil on canvas
(originally owned by Edgar Degas)
Dallas Museum of Art

Thomas Gainsborough
Landscape in Suffolk
1748
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of Clement Tudway
1773
oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott
ca. 1782
oil on canvas
Frick Collection, New York

Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of Lady Anne Hamilton
ca. 1778
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Juan Gris
Seated Harlequin
1920
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Juan Gris
Still Life with Bottle of Bordeaux
1919
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum

Juan Gris
Still Life with Poem
1915
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Juan Gris
Verre sur une Table
1916
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum

Robert Indiana
Design of Processional Float for the
Santa Fe production of The Mother of Us All

(opera by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein)
1976
cut-paper collage
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Robert Indiana
Design of Processional Float for the
Santa Fe production of The Mother of Us All

(opera by Virgil Thomson and Gertrude Stein)
1976
cut-paper collage
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Robert Indiana
Eternal Hexagon
1964
screenprint
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Robert Indiana
Leaves
1965
oil on canvas
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

from Part Two of The Age of Anxiety

Malin went on, spoke of the Fifth Age:
                                        In peace or war,
     Married or single, he muddles on,
     Offending, fumbling, falling over,
     And then, rather suddenly, there he is
     Standing up, an astonished victor
     Gliding over the good glib waters
     Of the social harbor to set foot
     On its welcoming shore where at last
     Recognition surrounds his days with
     Her felicitous light. He likes that;
     He fairly blooms; his fever almost
     Relaxes its hold. He learns to speak
     Softer and slower, not to seem so eager;
     His body acquires the blander motions
     Of the approved state. His positive glow
     Of fiscal health affects that unseen
     Just judge, that Generalized Other
     To whom he thinks and is understood by,
     Who grows less gruff as if gravely impressed
     By his evident air of having now
     Really arrived, bereaved of every
     Low relation.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)