Tuesday, May 14, 2024

Selected Sinuosities - II

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)