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| François Boucher View of Tivoli with the Temple of Vesta ca. 1725-30 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-Baptiste Pater A Company bathing in a Park before 1736 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg Landscape with Waterfall, Castle and Peasants 1767 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-Joseph-Xavier Bidauld Gorge at Cività Castellana 1787 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
By Day and By Night
Shadow, index of the sun,
Who knows him as you know him,
Who have never turned to look at him since the beginning?
In the court of his brilliance
You set up his absence like a camp.
And his fire only confirms you. And his death is your freedom.
– W.S. Merwin (1962)
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| Auguste-Xavier Leprince At Barrière de la Villette, Paris ca. 1820 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Eugène Delacroix The Lion Hunt 1855 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
A Divine Image
Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secrecy, the Human Dress.
The Human Dress, is forgèd Iron,
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
– William Blake (1794)
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| Eugène Delacroix Erminia and the Shepherds 1859 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-François Millet The Coast at Gréville before 1875 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Ennery near Auvers before 1875 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
from Oenone
There lies a vale in Ida, lovelier
Than all the valleys of Ionian hills.
The swimming vapour slopes athwart the glen,
Puts forth an arm, and creeps from pine to pine,
And loiters, slowly drawn.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1829)
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| Auguste Renoir La Grenouillère 1869 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Camille Pissarro Landscape at Pontoise 1874 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Claude Monet View over the Sea 1882 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Georges Seurat The Bridge at Bineau before 1891 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
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| Alfred Sisley On the Shores of Loing 1896 oil on canvas Nationalmuseum, Stockholm |
from The Book of the Dead: The Dam
This is a perfect fluid, having no age nor hours,
surviving scarless, unaltered, loving rest,
willing to run forever to find its peace
in equal seas in currents of still glass.
Effects of friction : to fight and pass again,
learning its power, conquering boundaries,
able to rise blind in revolts of tide,
broken and sacrificed to flow resumed.
– Muriel Rukeyser (1936)