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| Édouard Manet Strawberries ca. 1882 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Virgin adoring the Host 1852 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Henri Fantin-Latour Roses and Lilies 1888 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Gift
Nothing will hurt you that much despite how you feel
the stress on your back shapes your insight
this splendid November rain Toussaint. I find
you by your mark, he says
an imprint
But when I summon you, I talk to – I say –
my memory of your face. It's kind of crazy
to others. They're not very interesting, he says.
When I first came to this country, and now
I know the language I say, but I had in a dream
spoken it many years previously. That is,
not the language of the dead the language
of France. I took one year of French in 1964
and then nothing but once, in 1977 I spoke French
in a dream all night: I was in the future I
moved here in 1992. Country of the more
logical than I? though the people of my quartier
know and like me, even as I a foreigner remain strange
You do everything alone a woman said to me.
There are ways to care without interfering
but the French speak of anguish frequently
they are conscious of emotional extremity
a terrible gift. It's all a gift, he says . . .
some haven't been opened. I'm not sure
he said that it's nearly my sixty-seventh birthday
today though it's the day of the dead hello
we love you they say.
– Alice Notley (2015)
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| Charles-François Daubigny Landscape with Sunlit Stream before 1877 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Horace Vernet Start of the Race of the Riderless Horses 1820 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| James Tissot Spring Morning ca. 1875 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Isidore Pils Minerva combating Brute Force before 1875 oil on paper, mounted on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Henri Rousseau The Banks of the Bièvre near Bicêtre ca. 1908-1909 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Alfred-Bernard Meyer Allegory of the French Republic 1892 enamel on copper Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
The French Revolution as it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven! – Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress – to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise, that which sets
(As at some moment might not be unfelt
Among the bowers of paradise itself)
The budding rose above the rose full blown.
What temper at that prospect did not wake
To happiness unthought of? The inert
Were roused, and lively natures rapt away!
They who had fed their childhood upon dreams,
The playfellows of fancy, who had made
All powers of swiftness, subtilty, and strength
Their ministers, – who in lordly wise had stirred
Among the grandest objects of the sense,
And dealt with whatsoever they found there
As if they had within some lurking right
To wield it; – they, too, who, of gentle mood,
Had watched all gentle motions, and to these
Had fitted their own thoughts, schemers more wild,
And in the region of their peaceful selves; –
Now was it that both found, the meek and lofty
Did both find, helpers to their heart's desire,
And stuff at hand, plastic as they could wish;
Were called upon to exercise their skill,
Not in Utopia, subterranean fields,
Of some secreted island, Heaven knows where!
But in the very world, which is the world
Of all of us, – the place where in the end
We find our happiness, or not at all!
– William Wordsworth (1798)
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| Jean-François Montessuy Pope Gregory XVI visiting the Church of San Benedetto at Subiaco 1843 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| attributed to Paulin Jénot Captain Swaton before 1930 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Jean-François Millet Garden Scene 1854 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Édouard Vuillard Jos and Lucie Hessel in the small salon, Rue de Rivoli ca. 1900-1905 oil on cardboard, mounted on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Édouard Vuillard The Green Interior (figure seated by a curtained window) 1891 oil on cardboard, mounted on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |