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| Anonymous Italian Artist Front and Side Views of an Eye 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Jacopo Tintoretto Recumbent Figure, Foreshortened 1562 drawing Art Institute of Chicago |
On the Progress of History
History, it can never be said, was short on ideas.
Each day there were rustic barges to float down green waterways; young timber to fell in distant forests.
There were the Empires to build: borders to survey over where coal-winged birds nested in hedges far from the fires of the native hearth.
There were languages to create: History stirring up a compound of linguistic tincture – touched by the yellow vowels of the Hellenes and the dark-thatched consonants of Germania.
In all this, History was egalitarian. None were spared the iniquities of fate.
Capitals by the sea were sown with salt – while the genius of deserts prospered: Carthage's soil was white ash when, beneath the star-embroidered sky, Arabic scholars divined the heavens and conquered holy algebra.
History was rarely winded. History was always up-to-date.
Possessed of such prowess, History was naturally ambitious: though crimson blood crazed the paving stones of squares, and horses were driven mad across champs de guerre – history dreamed of stability:
The spectre of the Pax Romana, its head high, bearing the standard down through the centuries.
Yes, History was confident, unconcerned about detail: even as fingers, like birch twigs, were torn from hands; even as the Good were awoken at down and brought to trial.
Truth's green branch twisted in History's dark knoll.
But History's heroics, it seems, are unappreciated: History's luggage has been found full of regrets, last seen abandoned in a ditch.
History, it has been reported, is tired.
– Ellen Hinsey, from The Illegal Age (Arc Publications, 2018)
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Half-Length Figure Study 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Half-Length Figure Study 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Half-Length Figure Study 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Study of Right Arm 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Artist Académie ca. 1650-1700 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Académie ca. 1600-1670 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Giorgio Vasari Figure Study ca. 1555-65 drawing Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist after Michelangelo Ignudo from the Sistine Ceiling ca. 1550-1600 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Nude Figures adoring Crucifix ca. 1550-75 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Study of Torso after Antique Sculpture 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Study of Torso after Antique Sculpture 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Study for Torso of Dead Christ ca. 1650-1700 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Two Studies of Extended Hand 17th century drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |