Israhel van Meckenem Dance of the Daughter of Herodias ca. 1495-1500 engraving Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio |
Anonymous Netherlandish Weavers Shepherds in a Round Dance ca. 1500 wool and silk tapestry Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio |
Anonymous German Artist Three Couples in a Circle Dance ca. 1515 drawing, with watercolor National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Jan Ewoutszoon Dancers 1541 woodcut Teylers Museum, Haarlem |
Jean-Baptiste Leprince The Russian Dance 1769 aquatint Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts |
Aaron Martinet (publisher) La Gavotte ca. 1802 hand-colored etching British Museum |
Philibert-Louis Debucourt La Manie de la Danse 1809 color aquatint and etching printed à la poupée Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts |
Pierre La Mésangère (publisher) La Poule 1812 hand-colored etching British Museum |
George Cruikshank Specimens of Waltzing 1817 hand-colored etching and stipple-engraving Yale Center for British Art |
Thomas Rowlandson The Last Jig, or, Adieu to Old England 1818 hand-colored etching British Museum |
William Young Ottley Couple Dancing 1836 drawing Princeton University Art Museum |
Anonymous Italian Artist Tarantella Napolitana 19th century hand-colored etching British Museum |
Narcisse-Virgile Diaz de la Peña Dance of the Almahs 1864 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Jules Breton Feast of St John the Baptist (dancing around bonfires on the longest day of summer) ca. 1875 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
Edgar Degas Russian Dancers 1899 pastel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Gerhard Marcks Alpine Dance 1929 woodcut Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Alpine Wedding
All dark morning long the clouds are rising slowly up
beneath us, and we are fast asleep.
The mountains unmove
intensely. And so de we. Meadows
look down.
A city there looks up and
stirs a little. Adrift the rolling tiled roofs of
buildings, the deadly
trains of grinding sand and morning –
a spy unfolds his paper,
the coffee's served.
A bride and groom stand shivering on a tarmac
in the mist, and
they are happy. Each one
and all of us entangled, the room is moist with us,
the house unfinished, windowless,
and we are fast asleep.
The brother of the groom can't get
close enough. He leans against the brightest ridge
and ladder, the sucking
sound of memory
as heaven picks up speed and
hurtles through his burning skin
its frozen blankets
to the sun.
– Ralph Angel (2001)