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| Jacques-Louis David Alexander the Great observing Apelles painting Campaspe ca. 1813-23 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Augustus listening to Virgil reading the Aeneid (with his sister Octavia the Younger and wife Livia) ca. 1814 oil on canvas Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |
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| Pierre-Paul Prud'hon Abduction of Psyche ca. 1808-1814 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Joseph-Désiré Court Achilles at the Funeral Games in Honor of Patroclus during the Trojan War 1820 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen |
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| Alexandre-Charles Guillemot Mars and Venus surprised by Vulcan 1827 oil on canvas Indianapolis Museum of Art |
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| Pierre Bouillon The Child of Fortune before 1831 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen |
from The Guardian Angel of the Private Life
All this was written on the next day's list.
On which the busyness unfurled its cursive roots,
pale but effective,
and the long stern of the necessary, the sum of events,
built-up its tiniest cathedral ...
(Or is it the sum of what takes place?)
If I lean down, to whisper, to them,
down into their gravitational field, there where they head busily on
into the woods, laying the gifts out one by one, onto the path,
hoping to be on the air,
hoping to please the children –
(and some gifts overwrapped and some not wrapped at all) – if
I stir the wintered ground-leaves
up from the paths, nimbly, into a sheet of sun,
into an escape-route width of sun, mildly gelatinous where wet, though mostly crisp,
fluffing them up a bit, and up, as if to choke the singularity of sun
with this jubilation of manyness, all through and round these passers-by –
just leaves, nothing that can vaporize a thought,
no, a burning-bush's worth of spidery, up-ratcheting, tender-cling leaves,
oh if – the list gripped hard by the left hand of one,
the busyness buried so deep into the puffed-up greenish mind of one,
the hurried mind hovering over its rankings,
the heart – there at the core of the drafting leaves – wet and warm at the zero of
the bright mock-stairwaying-up of the posthumous leaves – the heart,
formulating its alleyways of discovery,
fussing about the integrity of the whole,
the heart trying to make time and place seem small,
sliding its slim tears into the deep wallet of each new event on the list
then checking it off – oh the satisfaction – each check a small kiss,
an echo of the previous one, off off it goes the dry high-ceilinged obligation,
checked-off by the fingertips, by the small gust called done that swipes
the unfinishable's gold hem aside, revealing
what might have been, peeling away what should ...
There are flowerpots at their feet.
There is fortune-telling in the air they breathe.
It filters in with its flashlight-beam, its holy-water-tinted air,
down into the open eyes, the lampblack open mouth.
– Jorie Graham (1997)
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| Constantin-Jean-Marie Prévost Sailor receiving a Tattoo ca. 1832 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| François-Vincent Latil Shipwrecked 1841 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Ary Scheffer The Shades of Paolo and Francesca observed by Dante and Virgil 1855 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Théodule Ribot St Vincent ca. 1860 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Paul Baudry The Wave and the Pearl 1862 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
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| Amaury-Duval Birth of Venus 1863 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Émile Salomé The Prodigal Son 1863 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Carolus-Duran Hebe 1874 oil on canvas Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Alexandre-Jacques Chantron Danaë 1891 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes |
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| Xavier Mellery L'Églantier (Dog Rose) ca. 1895 oil on panel Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels |