Hendrik Goltzius Ignis ca. 1586 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Johan Gørbitz Académie ca. 1820 oil on paper, mounted on canvas National Gallery of Norway, Oslo |
Francesco Guardi Woman attacked by a Lion ca. 1780-85 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Anonymous Italian Artist Companion of Ulysses transforming into a Hog (from the Circe episode in The Odyssey) ca. 1650 drawing Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
Anonymous Italian Artist after Polidoro da Caravaggio Heroic Figure 16th century drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
Hubert Le Sueur Crouching Warrior ca. 1615-20 bronze (component of equestrian sculpture of King Henri IV) Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
Vicente López Portaña St Sebastian tended by St Irene ca. 1795-1800 oil on canvas Getty Museum, Los Angeles |
Patricia Macdonald New Course under construction, Gleneagles 2011 C-print on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
Alessandro Magnasco Nobleman in Misery 1725 oil on canvas Detroit Institute of Arts |
Joseph-Charles Marin Naiad supporting a Shell 1793 terracotta statuette Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
Master of the Mansi Magdalen Judith with the Head of Holofernes and Infant Hercules with Strangled Serpents ca. 1530 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
Francesco Montelatici (Cecco Bravo) Beseeching Figure ca. 1640 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
Willem Panneels Study of Wrestler (after the antique sculpture group in the Uffizi, Florence) ca. 1628-30 drawing Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
Daniele Ricciarelli Figure Study ca. 1540 drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
Auguste Rodin Iris, Messenger of the Gods 1891 bronze Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart |
Thomas Rowlandson after James Gillray Modern Grace or The Operatical Finale of the Ballet of Alonzo e Cora 1796 drawing, with watercolor Yale Center for British Art |
Eden
I have seen Eden. It is a light of place
As much as the place itself; not a face
Only, but the expression on that face: the gift
Of forms constellates cliff and stones:
The wind is hurrying the clouds past,
And the clouds as they flee, ravelling-out
Shadow a salute where the thorn's barb
Catches the tossed, unroving sack
That echoes their flight. And the same
Wind stirs in the thicket of the lines
In Eden's wood, the radial avenues
Of light there, copious enough
To draft a city from. Eden
Is given one, and the clairvoyant gift
Withdrawn. 'Tell us,' we say
'The way to Eden,' but lost in the meagre
Streets of our dispossession, where
Shall we turn, when shall we put down
This insurrection of sorry roofs? Despair
Of Eden is given, too: we earn
Neither its loss nor having. There is no
Bridge but the thread of patience, no way
But the will to wish back Eden, this leaning
To stand against the persuasions of a wind
That rings with its meaninglessness where it sang its meaning.
– Charles Tomlinson (1968)