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| Roman Empire The Farnese Atlas 2nd century AD marble statue Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples |
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| Lucas Cranach the Elder Hercules relieving Atlas of the Globe ca. 1530 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Heinrich Aldegrever Hercules and Atlas 1550 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Cornelis Cort after Frans Floris the Elder Hercules bearing the Globe of Atlas 1563 engraving Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Jean Warin Hercules relieving Atlas of the Globe 1629 bronze medallion National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Guercino Atlas 1646 drawing Royal Collection, Great Britain |
Remembering Atlas
Our eyes, abandoned to the night,
Have seen its wide uneasiness
Sustain the moon; we do not guess
What carnal influence of time
Opens the sky like a caress.
Shuddering from the heart's clear shell
The waves of adoration rise,
Drift through the blood, and like a bell
Struck in a peerless monotone,
Mourn from the temple of the skies.
So to the pendulous hour we cling,
While the ineluctable stars
Float their elusive vapors down
To screen our perishable eyes
With the smoke of avatars.
But a moment, swift, electrical,
Can annihilate delight
And seal the sober reticule
Of the slow and valvular heart –
And all the brain go dry and white.
O, when the hour falls, and time
No longer mystical becomes
A mortal and perverse event,
We shall abide in madness, numb
Beneath its pillared firmament.
– Roberta Holloway (1937)
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| Claude Mellan Hercules taking the Globe from Atlas ca. 1652-61 engraving Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Hubert Quellinus after Artus Quellinus Figure of Atlas ca. 1663 etching and engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Hendrick van Beaumont Atlas 1696 drawing Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Jean Le Blanc Atlas supporting the Heavens 1715 bronze medallion National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| attributed to Clodion Atlas ca. 1780 terracotta painted to resemble bronze Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Anonymous Italian Artist Design for Oil Lamp with Atlas supporting a Globe ca. 1800-1850 drawing Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Isaac Weissenbruch Three Statues of Atlas late 19th century wood-engraving Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| John Singer Sargent Sketches for Atlas and the Hesperides (study for mural) 1921-22 drawing Museum of Fine Arts, Boston |
Atlas
Extreme exertion
isolates a person
from help,
discovered Atlas.
Once a certain
shoulder-to-burden
ratio collapses,
there is so little
others can do:
they can't
lend a hand
with Brazil
and not stand
on Peru.
– Kay Ryan (2005)