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| Master of the Procession Feast of the Wine (The Procession of the Ram) ca. 1650 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Master of the Procession Gathering of Gamblers with Hurdy-Gurdy Player ca. 1660 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Theodoor Rombouts Card Players ca. 1620-30 etching British Museum |
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| Roelant Savery Mountain Landscape with Woodcutters 1610 oil on copper Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Jacob van Ruisdael Landscape with the Ruins of the Castle of Egmond ca. 1650-55 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Adriaen van de Velde Pastoral Landscape with Ruins 1664 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
From the Book on the Nature of Things
In the Beginning
Chaos: mass without master, substance uncontrolled by subject. The unintelligible force of the world.
The Human Abyss
The human soul where all opposites contend; thus chaos always newly and furtively forming.
What Then Is the Body?
A passing handprint; a thin wave in the voice of time.
Bargaining with Time
Futility of discourse. A rage of wind in the trees.
Grave Discomfort
The prison of self-consciousness. Insomnia of the ego.
The Sensation of Grace
To be like a fish suspended in a net, caught up in the web of the world.
Temptation Disguised as Thought
To follow an argument, abstractly, to its conclusion.
Intuitive Conjecture
The suspicion of the inconsequence of being.
Perplexing Fact
Imagination, itinerant, travels independent of us, performing in all of the provinces.
Premature Sorrow
The violation of trust by knowledge.
What is Remembered
The loam of dusk rising under the luminous bow of summer.
Maturity of Sorts
To abandon simplicity and climb the tilted ladder of paradox.
The Sensation of Nostalgia
Unexplained night winds; a chill patterned with longing.
Where Does the Soul Reside?
Under the cover of darkness, having been routed by evil.
The Pursuit of the Good
To find out where the soul is hiding from evil.
Forgetfulness of Objects
The mirror's silver which forgets, even quicker than the mind, the green ripeness of apples.
Concluding Hypothesis
And then, if the soul exists – what a thicket it lives in!
– Ellen Hinsey (The White Fire of Time, Wesleyan University Press, 2002)
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| Ignaz Elhafen Battle Scene ca. 1680-85 cedar-wood relief Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Ignaz Elhafen Battle Scene with Amazons ca. 1680-85 cedar-wood relief Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| attributed to Jacques Blanchard Charity ca. 1635-36 drawing Harvard Art Museums |
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| attributed to Lucas Kilian Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes ca. 1602 wash drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Lucas Vorsterman and Peter Paul Rubens Lot's Daughters fleeing Sodom ca. 1615-20 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Pieter Crijnse Volmarijn Panthea before Cyrus the Great, King of Persia before 1679 drawing Minneapolis Institute of Art |
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| Peter Paul Rubens and workshop Study for St Sebastian ca. 1620 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
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| Anonymous Artist after Peter Paul Rubens Study of Two Nude Warriors 17th century drawing Teylers Museum, Haarlem |