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| Jan van Eyck Annunciation ca. 1434-36 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Jan van Eyck Madonna and Child in a Gothic church ca. 1438 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Jan Gossaert St Luke painting the Madonna ca. 1515-25 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
ENGLISH SPOKEN
"In my childhood, some elderly English ladies with whom my parents kept up relations often gave me books as presents: richly illustrated works for the young, also a small green bible bound in morocco leather. All were in the language of the donors: whether I could read it none of them paused to reflect. The peculiar inaccessibility of the books, with their glaring pictures, titles and vignettes, and their indecipherable text, filled me with the belief that in general objects of this kind were not books at all, but advertisements, perhaps for the machines like those my uncle produced in his London factory. Since I came to live in Anglo-Saxon countries and to understand English, this awareness has not been dispelled but strengthened. There is a song by Brahms, to a poem by Heyse, with the lines: O Herzeleid, du Ewigkeit! / Selbander nur ist Seligkeit. In the most widely used American edition this is rendered as: O misery, eternity! / But two in one were ecstasy. The archaic, passionate nouns of the original have been turned into catchwords for a hit song, designed to boost it. Illuminated in the neon-light switched on by these words, culture displays its character as advertising."
– from Minima Moralia (1951) by Theodor Adorno, translated by E.F.N. Jephcott (1974)
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| Ludovico Brea Virgin and Child Enthroned 1490 oil on panel Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan |
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| Cima da Conegliano Madonna and Child in a Landscape ca. 1496-99 oil on panel Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Antonio Solario Madonna and Child with St John the Baptist ca. 1500-1510 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Leonardo da Vinci Virgin of the Rocks ca. 1506-1508 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Quinten Massys Virgin and Child Enthroned with four Angels ca. 1506-1509 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Girolamo Marchesi Virgin and Child Enthroned with St Michael, St Catherine of Alexandria, St Cecilia, and St Jerome ca. 1507-1517 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
SECOND HARVEST
"Talent is perhaps nothing other than successfully sublimated rage, the capacity to convert energies once intensified beyond measure to destroy recalcitrant objects, into the concentration of patient observation, so keeping a tight hold on the secret of things, as one had earlier when finding no peace until the quavering voice had been wrenched from the mutilated toy. Who has not seen on the face of a man sunk in thought, far removed from practical objects, traits of the same aggression which is otherwise exerted practically? Does not the artist feel himself, amid the transports of creation, brutalized, 'working furiously'? Indeed, is not such fury necessary to free oneself from confinement and the fury of confinement? Might not the very conciliatoriness of art have been only bullied out of its destructiveness?"
– from Minima Moralia (1951) by Theodor Adorno, translated by E.F.N. Jephcott (1974)
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| Sebastiano del Piombo Raising of Lazarus ca. 1517-19 oil on panel, transferred to canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Hans Baldung Crucifixion 1512 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Josse Lieferinxe Crucifixion ca. 1500-1505 oil on panel Louvre, Paris |
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| Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio and Marco d'Oggiono Resurrection of Christ with St Leonard of Noblac and St Lucia ca. 1491-94 oil on panel Gemäldegalerie, Berlin |
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| Sebastiano del Piombo Daughter of Herodias with the Head of John the Baptist 1510 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Geertgen tot Sint Jans Legend of the Relics of St John the Baptist ca.1484-90 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |