Monday, May 13, 2024

Nolan - Weegee - Sisley - Wedgwood

Sidney Nolan
Rosa Mutabilis
1945
enamel on board
Heide Museum of Modern Art, Bulleen, Australia

Sidney Nolan
Desert
1986
acrylic on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Sidney Nolan
The Camp
1946
enamel on panel
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Sidney Nolan
Lublin, or, Baroque Exterior
1944
enamel on board
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Weegee
Hedda Hopper in Winged Hat
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Weegee
Public Library Hatchet Attack
ca. 1945
gelatin silver print
Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane

Weegee
New York Jail
ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Weegee
Weegee's Naked City
1945
offset-print
(paperback cover)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Alfred Sisley
Aqueduct at Louveciennes
1874
oil on canvas
Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio

Alfred Sisley
Path at Les Sablons
1883
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Alfred Sisley
The Loing at Moret
1891
oil on canvas
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Alfred Sisley
Washerwomen near Champagne
1882
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Plate
1883
tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Vase
ca. 1935
glazed earthenware
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Sugar Bowl
ca. 1885
tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Writing Case
ca. 1860
calamander wood veneer over wooden body
embellished with jasperware medallions
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

from For the Time Being

Narrator:

If, on account of the political situation,
There are quite a number of homes without roofs, and men
Lying about in the countryside neither drunk nor asleep,
If all sailings have been cancelled till further notice,
If it's unwise now to say much in letters, and if,
Under the subnormal temperatures prevailing,
The two sexes are at present the weak and the strong,
That is not all unusual for this time of year.
If that were all we should know how to manage. Flood, fire,
The desiccation of grasslands, restraint of princes,
Piracy on the high seas, physical pain and fiscal grief,
These after all are our familiar tribulations,
And we have been through them all before, many, many times.
As events which belong to the natural world where 
The occupation of space is the real and final fact
And time turns round itself in an obedient circle,
They occur again and again but only to pass
Again and again into their formal opposites,
From sword to ploughshare, coffin to cradle, war to work,
So that, taking the bad with the good, the pattern composed
By the ten thousand odd things that can possibly happen
Is permanent in a general average way.

     Till lately we knew of no other, and between us we seemed
To have what it took – the adrenal courage of the tiger,
The chameleon's discretion, the modesty of the dove,
Or the fern's devotion to spatial necessity:
To practice one's peculiar civic virtue was not
So impossible after all; to cut our losses
And bury our dead was really quite easy.  

– W.H. Auden (1941-42)