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| Joost II de Momper Landscape with the Fall of Icarus before 1635 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Joost II de Momper Mountain Landscape ca. 1620-30 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Joost II de Momper Shipwreck of the Greek fleet on the voyage home from Troy before 1635 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Peter Paul Rubens after Titian Bacchanal of the Andrians before 1640 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Peter Paul Rubens after Titian Worship of Venus before 1640 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| anonymous copyist after Jacques Courtois Cavalry Battle ca. 1675 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Aniello Falcone Battle Scene before 1656 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Antonín Stevens The Hermit Onofrius in the Wilderness 1641 oil on copper Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
Crazy Weather
It's this crazy weather we've been having:
Falling forward one minute, lying down the next
Among the loose grasses and soft, white, nameless flowers.
People have been making a garment out of it,
Stitching the white of lilacs together with lightning
At some anonymous crossroads. The sky calls
To the deaf earth. The proverbial disarray
Of morning corrects itself as you stand up.
You are wearing a text. The lines
Droop to your shoelaces and I shall never want or need
Any other literature than this poetry of mud
And ambitious reminiscences of times when it came easily
Through the then woods and ploughed fields and had
A simple unconscious dignity we can never hope to
Approximate now except in narrow ravines nobody
Will inspect where some late sample of the rare,
Uninteresting specimen might still be putting out shoots, for all we know.
– John Ashbery, from Houseboat Days (Viking, 1977)
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| David Teniers the Elder Landscape with Rest on the Flight into Egypt before 1649 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Simon Peter Tilemann Roman Battle 1641 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jan Brueghel the Elder Landscape with Diana and Actaeon before 1625 oil on copper Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Paulus Bor The Flower Vendor (episode from Cervantes) 1640- oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| workshop of Frans Francken II Abduction of Helen ca. 1625 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jan Asselijn Landscape with View through a Cave ca. 1635 oil on panel Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
from Wall, Cave, and Pillar Statements, after Asôka
In order to perfect all readers
the statements should be carved
on rock walls, on cave walls,
and on the side of pillars so
the charm of their instruction can
affect the mountain climbers near
the cliffs, the plainsmen near
the pillars, and the city people near
the caves they go to on vacations.
The statements should, and in a fair
script, spell out the right text and gloss
of the Philosopher's jocular remark. Text:
"Honesty is the best policy." Gloss:
"He means not 'best' but 'policy,'
(this is the joke of it) whereas in fact
Honesty is Honesty, Best
is Best, and Policy is Policy,
the three terms being not
related, but here loosely allied.
What is more important is that 'is'
is, but the rocklike truth of the text
resides in the 'the.' The 'the' is The.
By this means the amusing sage
has raised or caused to be raised
the triple standard in stone:
the single is too simple for life,
the double is mere degrading hypocrisy,
but the third combines the first two
in a possible way, and contributes
something unsayable of its own:
this is the pit, nut, seed, or stone
of the fruit when the fruit has been
digested: . . ."
– Alan Dugan, from Poems (Yale University Press, 1961)