Thursday, February 29, 2024

Visual Relics (1917-1923)

Paul Nash
Mine Crater, Hill 60, Ypres Salient
1917
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Howard Russell Butler
Earth as seen from the Moon
ca. 1920
oil on panel
Princeton University Art Museum

Lovis Corinth
Portrait of an Old Woman
1918
watercolor
Milwaukee Art Museum

Lyubov Popova
Painterly Architectonic
1918
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Pablo Picasso
Still Life on a Pedestal-Table
in Front of a Window

1919
gouache on paper
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Patrick Henry Bruce
Painting - Still Life
ca. 1923
oil on canvas
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Charles Buchel
The Tempest
Miss Viola Tree's Company
Aldwych Theatre

1921
lithograph (poster)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

George Bellows
The Life Class
1917
lithograph
Milwaukee Art Museum

George Bellows
Dempsey and Firpo
1923
lithograph
Milwaukee Art Museum

Rockwell Kent
Figure with Upstretched Arms
ca. 1920
drawing
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Rockwell Kent
Azopardo River
1922
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Adolfo De Carolis
Cover Design for Il Notturno
by Gabriele D'Annunzio

1921
woodcut
private collection

Gabriele Münter
Staffelsee
1920
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Victor Servranckx
Opus 30 (Factory)
1922
oil on cardboard
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

Félix Vallotton
Red Roses
1920
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Georgia O'Keeffe
Apple Family 3
1921
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Then I understanding the cause of his miserable estate, sayd unto him, In faith thou art worthy to sustaine the most extreame misery and calamity, which hast defiled and maculated thyne owne body, forsaken thy wife traiterously, and dishonoured thy children, parents, and friends, for the love of a vile harlot and old strumpet. When Socrates heard mee raile against Meroe in such sort, he held up his finger to mee, and as halfe abashed sayd, Peace peace I pray you, and looking about lest any body should heare, I pray you (quoth hee) take heed what you say against so venerable a woman as shee is, lest by your intemperate tongue you catch some harm. Then with resemblance of admiration, What (quoth I) is she so excellent a person as you name her to be? I pray you tell mee. Then answered hee, Verily shee is a Magitian, which hath power to rule the heavens, to bring downe the sky, to beare up the earth, to turne the waters into hills, and the hills into running waters, to lift up the terrestrial spirits into the aire, and to pull the gods out of the heavens, to extinguish the planets, and to lighten the deepe darkenesse of hell.

– Apuleius, The Golden Ass, translated by William Adlington (1566)

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Visual Relics (1913-1917)

Wassily Kandinsky
Fragment I for Composition VII
1913
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Wassily Kandinsky
Sketch for a Painting with White Border
1913
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Wassily Kandinsky
Painting with Green Center
1913
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

George Bellows
Emma at the Piano
1914
oil on panel
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Erich Mallina
Standing Man, Nude in a Landscape
ca. 1914
gouache on paper
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Elie Nadelman
Head
ca. 1915
drawing
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Émile-Antoine Bourdelle
Antiquity: Centaur with a Genius
ca. 1915
watercolor
Art Institute of Chicago

Patrick Henry Bruce
Composition I
1916
oil on canvas
Yale University Art Gallery

Man Ray
The Black Tray
1914
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Man Ray
Invention
1916
oil on board
Art Institute of Chicago

Man Ray
Percolator
1917
oil on board
Art Institute of Chicago

Lyubov Popova
Untitled
1915
oil on canvas
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

George Grant Elmslie
Architectural Frieze
1916
glazed terracotta
(salvaged from demolished building)
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Lovis Corinth
Portrait of Dr Karl Schwarz
1916
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

George Bellows
Splinter Beach
1916
lithograph
Milwaukee Art Museum

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Subscribe to the 5½ percent Third War Bonds
1915
lithograph (poster)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The other night being at supper with a sort of hungry fellowes, while I did greedily put a great morsell of meate in my mouth, that was fried with the flower of cheese and barly, it cleaved so fast in the passage of my throat and stopped my winde in such sort, that I was well nigh choked. And yet at Athens before the porch, there called Peale, I saw with these eyes a Iugler that swallowed up a two hand sword, with a very keene edge, and by and by for a little money, that we that looked on gave him, hee devoured a chasing speare with the point downeward. And after that hee had conveyed the whole speare within the closure of his body, and brought it out againe behind, there appeared on the top therof (which caused us all to marvell) a faire boy pleasant and nimble, winding and turning himself in such sort, that you would suppose he had neither bone nor gristle, and verily thinke that he were the naturall Serpent, creeping and sliding on the knotted staffe, which the god of Medicine is feigned to beare.

– Apuleius, The Golden Ass, translated by William Adlington (1566)

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Visual Relics (1909-1912)

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Dodo with a Feather Hat
1911
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Fernand Léger
Table and Fruit
1909
oil on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Fernand Léger
Male Figure
1909
drawing
Milwaukee Art Museum

Alphonse Legros
Memories of Fontainebleau in the Rain
ca. 1910
drypoint
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Édouard Vuillard
Woman Sewing
ca. 1910
drawing
Musée d'Unterlinden, Colmar

Édouard Vuillard
Woman sitting at a Table
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Gabriele Münter
Boating
1910
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Lovis Corinth
Judith and Holofernes
1910
lithograph
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Käthe Kollwitz
Self Portrait 
1910
etching
Milwaukee Art Museum

George Luks
The Wedding Cake
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

George Luks
Holiday on the Hudson
ca. 1912
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art

August Macke
Geraniums before Blue Mountain
1911
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Albert Bloch
Boy with Orange
1911
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Dance Hall, Bellevue
ca. 1909
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Wassily Kandinsky
Autumn II
1912
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

As I fortuned to take my voyage into Thessaly, about certaine affaires which I had to doe (for there myne auncestry by my mothers side inhabiteth, descended of the line of that most excellent person Plutarch, and of Sextus the Philosopher his Nephew, which is to us a great honour) and after that by much travell and great paine I had passed over the high mountaines and slipperie vallies, and had ridden through the cloggy fallowed fields; perceiving that my horse did waxe somwhat slow, and to the intent likewise I might repose and strengthen my self (being weary with riding) I lighted off my horse, and wiping away the sweat from every part of his body, I unbridled him, and walked him softly in my hand, to the end he might pisse, and ease himselfe of his wearinesse and travell: and while hee went grazing freshly in the field (casting his head sometimes aside, as a token of rejoycing and gladnesse) I perceived a little before me two companions riding, and so I overtaking them made the third.

– Apuleius, The Golden Ass, translated by William Adlington (1566)

Monday, February 26, 2024

Visual Relics (1903-1909)

Pierre Bonnard
Femme au Chapeau Rouge
1903
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Käthe Kollwitz
Working-Class Woman in Blue Shawl
1903
lithograph
Milwaukee Art Museum

Paul Klee
Komiker
1904
etching
Minneapolis Institute of Art

John Sloan
Turning Out the Light
1905
etching
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Robert Demachy
Behind the Scenes
1904
halftone print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

George Luks
Bleecker and Carmine Streets, New York
ca. 1905
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

John Frederick Peto
Reminiscences of 1865
1904
oil on canvas
Minneapolis Institute of Art

John Frederick Peto
The Marked Passage
1907
oil on board
Princeton University Art Museum

Paula Modersohn-Becker
Two Girls in White and Blue Dresses
1906
oil on board
Milwaukee Art Museum

Georges Braque
Seated Nude
1906
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

George Bellows
Society Ball
ca. 1907
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

William Glackens
The Shoppers
ca. 1907-1908
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Arthur Bowen Davies
Across the Harbor
1908
oil on canvas
Indianapolis Museum of Art

Rockwell Kent
Burial of a Young Man
ca. 1908
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Bertold Löffler
Kunstschau Wien 1908
1908
lithograph (poster)
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Gabriele Münter
Yellow Still Life
1909
oil on cardboard
Milwaukee Art Museum

Meanwhile Olympus' king calls out to Juno
as from a golden cloud she scans the battle:
"Wife, how can this day end? What is there left
for you to do? You know, and say you know,
that, as a deity, Aeneas is owed
to heaven, that the fates will carry him
high as the stars. What is your plan? What is
the hope that keeps you lingering in these
chill clouds?"

– Jupiter reproaches Juno yet again, from Book XII of Virgil's Aeneid, translated by Allen Mandelbaum (1971)