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| Simon Vouet Angel playing a lute before 1649 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Simon Vouet Seated King or Hero ca. 1630 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| Simon Vouet Kneeling man with raised arms before 1649 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
from The New Noah
If time started anew,
and waters submerged the face of life,
and the earth convulsed, and that god
rushed to me, beseeching, "Noah, save the living!"
I would not concern myself with his request.
I would travel upon my ark, removing
clay and pebbles from the eyes of the dead.
I would open the depths of their being to the flood,
and whisper in their veins
that we have returned from the wilderness,
that we have emerged from the cave,
that we have changed the sky of years,
that we sail without giving in to our fears –
that we do not heed the word of that god.
Our appointment is with death.
Our shores are a familiar and pleasing despair,
a gelid sea of iron water that we ford
to its very ends, undeterred,
heedless of that god and his word,
longing for a different, a new, lord.
– Adonis, translated from Arabic by Shawkat M. Toorawa (2007)
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| Simon Vouet St Mary Magdalene 1640s drawing British Museum |
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| Simon Vouet Study of female figure with putto ca. 1630-35 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Simon Vouet Study of young man before 1649 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| attributed to Simon Vouet Half-length of Satyr before 1649 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Simon Vouet Three frolicking Putti before 1649 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| Simon Vouet Sketch for a mural between tympani before 1649 drawing Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Simon Vouet Design for wall decoration at Fontainebleau 1643-44 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
Life
I made a posy, while the day ran by:
"Here will I smell my remnant out, and tie
My life within this band."
But Time did beckon to the flowers, and they
By noon most cunningly did steal away,
And withered in my hand.
My hand was next to them, and then my heart;
I took, without more thinking, in good part
Time's gentle admonition;
Who did so sweetly death's sad taste convey,
Making my mind to smell my fatal day,
Yet sug'ring the suspicion.
Farewell dear flowers, sweetly your time ye spent,
Fit, while ye lived, for smell or ornament,
And after death for cures.
I follow straight without complaints or grief,
Since, if my scent be good, I care not if
It be as short as yours.
– George Herbert (1593-1633)
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| Simon Vouet Bust portrait of young man ca. 1620-25 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Simon Vouet Portrait of Louis XIII ca. 1632-35 drawing Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Simon Vouet Portrait of young woman with pearl earrings ca. 1632-35 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Simon Vouet Portrait of Cardinal Richelieu ca. 1632-34 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |