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| Lorenzo Lippi Allegory of Music ca. 1650 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Gerard ter Borch The Music Lesson ca. 1668 oil on canvas Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Pieter De Grebber Musicians ca. 1620-23 oil on canvas Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao |
THE USE AND ABUSE OF MUSIC
The rites deriv'd from ancient days
With thoughtless reverence we praise,
The rites that taught us to combine
The joys of music and of wine,
And bade the feast, and song, and bowl,
O'erfill the saturated soul,
But n'er the Flute or Lyre apply'd
To cheer despair, or soften pride,
Nor call'd them to the gloomy cells
Where Want repines, and Vengeance swells,
Where Hate sits musing to betray
And Murder meditates his prey.
To dens of guilt and shades of care
Ye sons of Melody repair,
Nor deign the festive dome to cloy
With superfluities of joy.
Ah, little needs the Minstrel's pow'r
To speed the light convivial hour;
The board with varied plenty crown'd
May spare the luxuries of sound.
– from the Medea of Euripides, translated by the great Samuel Johnson (1782)
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| Mathieu Le Nain Musicians before 1677 oil on canvas Dulwich Picture Gallery, London |
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| Diego Velázquez The Three Musicians ca. 1618 oil on canvas Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Anonymous Flemish Tapestry Musicians in a garden ca. 1650-1700 silk and wool Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Evaristo Baschenis Still-life with musical instruments, books and statuette ca. 1650 oil on canvas Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Agostino Ciampelli God the Father surrounded by music-making angels ca. 1600-1610 drawing British Museum |
from GOD IS NOT CAST DOWN
"If materialism were content to build scaffolding on which to ascend to the nebulae and transform itself into so much mist in the turning of the great cosmic vortex – well, that would be a point in its favor, in my view; but as long as it presents itself as simply a 'fight for survival' or a struggle with Nature, all its victories strike me as meaningless."
– Kasimir Malevich (1920) translated by Jonathan A. Anderson
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| Carlo Maratti Figure of Music ca. 1660-1710 drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
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| Agostino Tassi Women playing music and a girl dancing ca. 1610-20 drawing British Museum |
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| Paul Gauguin Portrait of Cellist Frédéric Guillaume Schneklüd 1894 oil on canvas Baltimore Museum of Art |
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| Edgar Degas Portrait of the cellist Pilet ca. 1868-69`` oil on canvas Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Edgar Degas Seated Violin Player 1872 oil on paper Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Gian Paolo Panini Musical Fête 1747 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |