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| Jan Anton van der Baren Roses in a Glass Vase ca. 1659 oil on vellum Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Cornelis Kick Still Life with Lemon and Pink Roses before 1681 oil on panel Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Jan Davidsz de Heem Memento Mori ca. 1630-60 oil on panel York City Art Gallery |
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| Antoine Chazal Roses in a Vase 1845 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Henri Fantin-Latour Roses dans un verre à pied 1873 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery |
Roses
"painting has no air . . . "
– Gertrude Stein
That there should never be air
in a picture surprises me.
It would seem to be only a picture
of a certain kind, a portrait in paper
or glue, somewhere a stickiness
as opposed to a stick-to-it-ness
of another genre. It might be
quite new to do without
that air, or to find oxygen
on the landscape line
like a boat which is an object
or a shoe which never floats
and is stationary.
Still there
are certain illnesses that require
air, lots of it. And there are nervous
people who cannot manufacture
enough air and must seek
for it when they don't have plants,
in pictures. There is the mysterious
traveling that one does outside
the cube and this takes place
in air.
It is why one develops
an attitude toward roses picked
in the morning air, even roses
without sun shining on them.
The roses of Juan Gris from which
we learn the selflessness of roses
existing perpetually without air,
the lid being down, so to speak,
a 1912 fragrance sifting
to the left corner where we read
"La Merveille" and escape.
– Barbara Guest (from Collected Poems, Wesleyan University Press, 2008)
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| Henri Fantin-Latour Pink Roses 1881 oil on canvas York City Art Gallery |
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| George Reid Roses 1884 oil on canvas Aberdeen Art Gallery, Scotland |
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| Gerard Chowne Roses 1904 oil on canvas National Museum Cardiff, Wales |
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| Ellen Ladell Roses and Still Life ca. 1885 oil on canvas Bristol Museum and Art Gallery |
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| Charles Howson Bennett Pink, Yellow and Red Roses ca. 1912 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
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| George Cartlidge Roses 1892 oil on canvas The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent |
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| Percy Horton Flowerpiece ca. 1929 oil on board Ashmolean Museum, Oxford |
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| Stuart Park Roses ca. 1928 oil on canvas Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow |
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| Matthew Smith White Roses and Pears 1930 oil on canvas Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, Bradford, Yorkshire |
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| Aidan Wallace Yellow Roses on Black Velvet before 1989 oil on velvet Darlington Library, County Durham |