Marble Heads (Divinities)

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Aphrodite
(the Bartlett Head)
330-300 BC
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Roman Empire
Head of Aphrodite
2nd century AD
marble
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Roman Empire
Head of Aphrodite 
2nd century AD
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Roman Empire
Head of Apollo
2nd century AD
marble
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Albert Bruce-Joy
Young Apollo
ca. 1871
marble
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Roman Empire
Head of Athena
1st century AD
marble (colossal)
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

William Theed
Bust of the Ludovisi Juno
1856
colossal marble copy of antique sculpture
(commissioned by Prince Albert)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Antonio Canova
Bust of Hebe
1796
marble
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Roman Empire
Head of Dionysus
1st century AD
marble
Princeton University Art Museum

Roman Empire
Head of Hermes
AD 150-200
marble
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of Zeus
3rd-2nd century BC
marble
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Roman Empire
Head of Serapis
1st century AD
marble (colossal)
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Roman Empire
Head of Venus
AD 160-170
marble
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

William Theed
Bust of the Venus d'Arles
1856
colossal marble copy of antique sculpture
(commissioned by Prince Albert)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

William Theed
Bust of the Goddess Roma
1856
colossal marble copy of antique sculpture
(commissioned by Prince Albert)
Royal Collection, Great Britain

Ancient Greek Culture
Head of a Goddess
(the Chios Head)
3rd-2nd century BC
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

from Constantinople

How art thou falln Imperial City, Low!

Where are thy Hopes of Roman Glory now?

Where are thy Palaces by Prelates rais'd

Where preistly Pomp in Purple Lustre blaz'd?

So vast, that Youthfull Kings might there reside

So Splendid; to content a Patriarchs pride

Where Grecian Artists all their skill displayd

Before yᵉ happy Sciences decay'd;  

Convents where Emperors proffess'd of Old,

The Labour'd Pillars that their Triumphs told,

Vain Monuments of Men that once were great!

Sunk, undistinguish'd in one common Fate!

– Lady Mary Wortley Montagu 

(written January 1718 in the Chiosk at Pera overlooking Constantinople)

Champaigne - Dean - Degas - Courbet

Philippe de Champaigne
Abbess of the Trinity at Caen
ca. 1629
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Philippe de Champaigne
Christ in the House of Simon the Pharisee
ca. 1656
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

Philippe de Champaigne
Virgin and Child
ca. 1635
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Philippe de Champaigne
Louis XIV ceding his Crown to the Virgin
(with his mother and brother looking on)
ca. 1643
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Max Dean
Stack of Albums
2010
C-print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Max Dean
Trigger (Sitting with Doll)
2010
C-print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Max Dean
Trigger (Crying)
2010
C-print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Max Dean
Sacrifice (Tearing Photo)
2010
C-print
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Edgar Degas
Le Bain
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Edgar Degas
Woman putting on Stockings
ca. 1883
pastel on board
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Edgar Degas
Woman Drying
ca. 1876-77
pastel over monotype
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Edgar Degas
Woman leaving the Bath
ca. 1876-77
pastel over monotype
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Gustave Courbet
Hunted Stag
1869
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Gustave Courbet
Roe Deer at a Stream
1868
oil on canvas
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth

Gustave Courbet
Seascape
ca. 1865
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Gustave Courbet
The Meuse at Freyr
ca. 1856
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

from Part Three of The Age of Anxiety

Malin says:
     Boring and bare of shade,
     Devoid of souvenirs and voices,
     It takes will to cross this waste

     Which is really empty: the mirage
     Need not be tasty to tempt;

     For the senses arouse themselves,

     And an image of humpbacked girls
     Or plates of roasted rats
     Can make the mouth water.

     With nothing to know about,
     The mind reflects on its movements
     And so doubles any distance.

     Even if we had time
     To read through all the wrinkled
     Reports of explorers who claim

     That hidden arrant streams
     Chuckle through this chapped land
     In profound and meagre fissures,

     Or that this desert is dotted with
     Oases where acrobats dwell
     Who make unbelievable leaps,

     We should never have proof they were not
     Deceiving us. For the only certain
     Truth is that they returned,

     And that we cannot be deaf to the question:

     "Do I love this world so well
     That I have to know how it ends?"

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)

Downcast Heads

Edward Burne-Jones
Head of Sleeping Attendant
ca. 1881-86
oil on canvas
(study for painting, Briar Rose)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Gaetano Gandolfi
Head of Young Woman
ca. 1785
etching
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Jacques-Louis David after Daniele da Volterra
Head of a Woman
in the painting Descent from the Cross
ca. 1775-80
drawing
(made in Rome)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Walt Kuhn
Large Head
1923
lithograph
Princeton University Art Museum

Gerrit Willem Dijsselhof
Study of Antique Head
ca. 1900
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous Italian Copyist
Head of the Barberini Hera
19th century
plaster cast
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Theodor Kittelsen
Classical Head
1874-76
drawing
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Edward John Poynter
Head of Psyche
1893
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Frans Floris
Study Head
ca. 1555-60
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Augustin Pajou
Head of an Old Man
1761
terracotta
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Pietro Antonio Novelli
Head of a Youth
ca. 1770
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Richard Parkes Bonington
Study of a Woman
ca. 1825
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

William Edward Frost
Study of a Woman
ca. 1850
watercolor
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Gustav Wentzel
Young Man with a Hat
1879
drawing
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Henry Wilson
Study of a Youth
ca. 1915
drawing
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Ralph Eugene Meatyard
Untitled
1959
gelatin silver print
Yale University Art Gallery

"N'est-ce pas le propre de la lecture, repousser toujours plus loin notre ligne d'horizon?"

– Société d'édition Les Belles Lettres, Paris

Bobak - Cavaliere d'Arpino - Cézanne - Ciccimarra

Bruno Bobak
Ages of Man
(left panel of triptych)
1965
oil on canvas
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Bruno Bobak
Ages of Man
(central panel of triptych)
1965
oil on canvas
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Bruno Bobak
Ages of Man
(right panel of triptych)
1965
oil on canvas
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Bruno Bobak
Three Men in a Shower
1963
oil on canvas
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
Expulsion from Paradise
ca. 1610
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
Half-Length Figure Study
ca. 1595
drawing
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
Figure supporting a Banner
ca. 1590
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Cavaliere d'Arpino (Giuseppe Cesari)
Figure Study
ca. 1588-89
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Paul Cézanne
House in Provence
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Paul Cézanne
Rocks, Pines and Sea at l'Estaque
ca. 1883-85
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Paul Cézanne
The Flowered Vase
ca. 1896-98
oil on canvas
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Paul Cézanne
Tulips in a Vase
ca. 1888-90
oil on paper, mounted on board
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Richard Ciccimarra
The Supplicant
1963
gouache on paper
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Richard Ciccimarra
The Yellow Sleeve
1961
gouache on paper
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Richard Ciccimarra
Two Worlds
1968
gouache on paper
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

Richard Ciccimarra
Yellow Plate
ca. 1960
tempera on paper
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

 from Part Three of The Age of Anxiety

     Obedient to their own mysterious laws of direction, their twisting paths converge, approach their several voices, and collect the four for a startled reunion at the forest's edge. They stare at what they see.

Quant says:
     The climate of enclosure, the cool forest
          Break off abruptly:
     Giddy with the glare and ungoverned heat,
          We stop astonished,
     Interdicted by desert, its dryness edged
          By a scanty scrub
     Of Joshua trees and giant cacti;

          Then, vacant of value,
     Incoherent and infamous sands,
          Rainless regions
     Swarming with serpents, ancestral wastes,
          Lands beyond love.

     Now, with only the last half of the seventh stage to go to finish their journey, for the first time fear and doubt dismay them. Is triumph possible? If so, are they chosen? 

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)