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| Jean Arp Sculpture Classique 1964 marble Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |
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| Daniel Arsham Hidden Figure 2020 painted fibreglass National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Francis Bacon Figure Study I 1946 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Giorgio de Chirico Il Trovatore ca. 1924 oil on canvas Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Terry Frost Grey Figure 1957 oil on board Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Fernand Léger Woman and Still Life 1921 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
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| Francis Picabia Figure Triste 1912 oil on canvas Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |
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| Pablo Picasso Nude in a Rocking Chair 1956 oil on canvas Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney |
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| John Singer Sargent Drapery Study for Frieze of Prophets ca. 1890-92 drawing National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Pavel Tchelitchew Study of a Boy ca. 1927 watercolor Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Eric Thake Figure in a Rocky Landscape 1965 linocut National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Jacques Villon Figure 1921 oil on canvas Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York |
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| Madeleine Vionnet Evening Dress on Mannequin 1924 silk National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
-The-Searchers-1958-engraving-Statens-Museum-for-Kunst-Copenhagen.jpg) |
| Svend Wiig Hansen The Searchers 1958 engraving Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
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| Emerson Woelffer Figure 1969 lithograph Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena |
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| Anonymous Artist Académie 19th century drawing Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh |
Against Portraits
How, beyond all foresight
or intention, light
plays with a face
whose features play with light:
frame on gilded frame,
ancestor on ancestor,
the gallery is filled
with more certainty than we can bear:
if there must be
an art of portraiture,
let it show us ourselves as we
break from the image of what we are:
the animation of speech, and then
the eyes eluding
that which, once spoken,
seems too specific, too concluding:
or, entering a sudden slant
of brightness, between dark and gold,
a face half-hesitant,
face at a threshold:
– Charles Tomlinson (1972)