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| Mary Cassatt Woman on a Bench ca. 1881 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Pastel-box of Mary Cassatt (1844-1926) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Mary Cassatt Gardner and Ellen Mary Cassatt 1899 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Mary Cassatt Portrait of a Young Girl 1899 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
End of Summer
After all things occurred to me,
the void occurred to me.
There is a limit
to the pleasure I had in form –
I am not like you in this,
I have no release in another body,
I have no need
of shelter outside myself –
My poor inspired
creation, you are
distractions, finally,
mere curtailment; you are
too little like me in the end
to please me.
And so adamant –
you want to be paid off
for your disappearance,
all paid in some part of the earth,
some souvenir, as you were once
rewarded for labor,
the scribe being paid
in silver, the shepherd in barley
although it is not earth
that is lasting, not
these small chips of matter –
If you would open your eyes
you would see me, you would see
the emptiness of heaven
mirrored on earth, the fields
vacant again, lifeless, covered with snow –
then white light
no longer disguised as matter.
– Louise Glück, from The Wild Iris (Ecco Press, 1992)
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| James McNeill Whistler Little Rose of Lyme Regis 1895 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| William Merritt Chase Lady in Black 1888 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| John La Farge Portrait of the Painter (self-portrait) 1859 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| William Morris Hunt The Bathers 1877 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Thomas Eakins Arcadia ca. 1883 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Jean-Léon Gérôme Greek Slave 1870 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Clear Morning
I've watched you long enough,
I can speak to you any way I like –
I've submitted to your preferences, observing patiently
the things you love, speaking
through vehicles only, in
details of earth, as you prefer,
tendrils
of blue clematis, light
of early evening –
you would never accept
a voice like mine, indifferent
to the objects you busily name,
your mouths
small circles of awe –
And all this time
I indulged your limitation, thinking
you would cast it aside yourselves sooner or later,
thinking matter could not absorb your gaze forever –
obstacle of the clematis painting
blue flowers on the porch window –
I cannot go on
restricting myself to images
because you think it is your right
to dispute my meaning:
I am prepared now to force
clarity upon you.
– Louise Glück, from The Wild Iris (Ecco Press, 1992)
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| Walter Crane The Renaissance of Venus 1877 tempera on canvas Tate Gallery |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Jean-Paul Flandrin Odalisque with Slave 1842 oil on canvas Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Gustave Courbet Reclining Nude ca. 1840-41 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
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| Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux Crouching Flora (modello for attic relief on the Pavillon de Flore at the Louvre) ca. 1863 terracotta Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |