Ruins (Torsos)

Janez Šubic
Roman Landscape with Torso
ca. 1875
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana

Jean-François Thomas de Thomon
Composition with the Belvedere Torso
1807
drawing
Hermitage, Saint Petersburg

Elena Sheehan
Untitled (Antique Torso)
1993
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Ancient Roman Culture
Torso - Draped Female Figure
late 2nd century BC
terracotta
(fragment from temple pediment)
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ancient Roman Culture
Torso with Cuirasse
AD 14-68
marble
Walters Art Museum, Baltimore

Ancient Roman Culture
Torso - Aphrodite
AD 50-100
marble
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Ørnulf Opdahl
Torso
1976
tempera on paper
National Gallery of Norway, Oslo

Michele Mang
Antique Torso
1879
albumen print
(made in Rome)
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum, Basel

Holger Jensen
The Belvedere Torso
ca. 1927-29
etching
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Anonymous Italian Artist
Studies of the Belvedere Torso
16th century
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Johann Daniel Hertz
Study of Antique Torso
ca. 1732
engraving
Wellcome Collection, London

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso - Aphrodite
125-25 BC
marble
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Ancient Greek Culture
Torso - Satyr
2nd century BC
marble
Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Carl Gelles
Torso
ca. 1914
marble
William Morris Gallery, London

Giacomo Brogi
Torso of Bacchus from the Farnese Collection in Naples
ca. 1880
albumen prints (stereocard)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

workshop of Baccio Bandinelli
Study of Antique Torso
ca. 1540
drawing
Biblioteca Reale, Turin

A Prayer for Old Age

God guard me from those thoughts men think

In the mind alone;

He that sings a lasting song
Thinks in a marrow-bone;

From all that makes a wise old man
That can be praised of all;

O what am I that I should not seem
For the song's sake a fool?

I pray – for fashion's word is out
And prayer comes round again –
That I may seem, though I die old,
A foolish, passionate man.

– W.B. Yeats (1935)

Made in 2002

Barbara Astman
Dancing with Che
2002
giclee print
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Richard Avedon
Self Portrait, New York City
2002
gelatin silver prints
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Stephen De Staebler
Figure Column XXI
2002
painted terracotta
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Peter Doig
Guest House 3
2002
watercolor on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Paul Drissen
Good Afternoon
2002
tempera on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Marco van Duyvendijk
Mamaia, Romania
2002
C-print
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

David Elliott
Egyptian Painting
2002
oil and acrylic on canvas
Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec

Casey Keeler
Blooms on Red
2002
latex housepaint and acrylic on board
Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State

Anselm Kiefer
The Secret Life of Plants
2002
painted lead plates
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Maria Lassnig
Untitled
2002
oil on canvas
Hall Collection, Schloss Derneburg, Germany

Kenneth Noland
Mysteries: Primal Blue
2002
acrylic on canvas
Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine

Miklos Pogany
Fontis Nymphae
2002
vitreograph print
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Neo Rauch
Gebot
2002
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Chris Rush
John with White Pumpkin
2002
conte crayon on paper
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Collier Schorr
Joachim, Pear Tree, Reitprechts
2002
C-print
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Wolfgang Tillmans
Arctic
2002
C-print
Art Institute of Chicago

Dover

Steep roads, a tunnel through chalk downs, are the approaches,

A ruined pharos overlooks a constructed bay;

The sea-front is almost elegant; all the show

Has, inland somewhere, a vague and dirty root:

          Nothing is made in this town.

A Norman castle, dominant, flood-lit at night,

Trains which fume in a station built on the sea,

Testify to the interest of its regular life:

Here dwell the experts on what the soldiers want,

          And who the travellers are

Whom ships carry in or out between the lighthouses,

Which guard for ever the made privacy of this bay

Like twin stone dogs opposed on a gentleman's gate.

Within these breakwaters English is properly spoken,

          Outside an atlas of tongues.

The eyes of departing migrants are fixed on the sea,

Conjuring destinies out of impersonal water:

"I see an important decision made on a lake,

An illness, a beard, Arabia found in a bed,

          Nanny defeated, Money."

Red after years of failure or bright with fame,

The eyes of homecomers thank these historical cliffs:

"The mirror can no longer lie nor the clock reproach;
In the shadow under the yew, at the children's party,

          Everything must be explained."

The Old Town with its Keep and Georgian houses
Has built its routine upon such unusual moments,

Vows, tears, emotional farewell gestures,

Are common here, unremarkable actions

          Like ploughing or a tipsy song.

Soldiers crowd into the pubs in their pretty clothes,

As pink and silly as girls from a high-class academy;

The Lion, The Rose, The Crown, will not ask them to die,

Not here, not now: all they are killing is time,

          A pauper civilian future.

Above them, expensive, shiny as a rich boy's bike,

Aeroplanes drone through the new European air

On the edge of a sky that makes England of minor importance;

And tides warn bronzing bathers of a cooling star

          With half its history done.

High over France, a full moon, cold and exciting

Like one of those dangerous flatterers we meet and love
When we are utterly wretched, returns our stare:

The night has found many recruits; to thousands of pilgrims

          The Mecca is coldness of heart.

The cries of the gulls at dawn are sad like work:

The soldier guards the traveller who pays for the soldier,

Each prays in a similar way for himself, but neither

Controls the years or the weather. Some may be heroes:

          Not all of us are unhappy.

– W.H. Auden (1936)

Depicted Confrontations - III

Mariotto Albertinelli
Sacrifices of Abel and of Cain
ca. 1510
oil on panel
(predella fragment)
Harvard Art Museums

Guido Reni
Cain slaying Abel
ca. 1617-20
oil on canvas
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

Artemisia Gentileschi
Judith beheading Holofernes
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Filippo Vitale
Judith and Holofernes
ca. 1635
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

attributed to Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne
Joseph and Potiphar's Wife
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
Princeton University Art Museum

Francesco Providoni
Joseph and Potiphar's Wife
ca. 1685-95
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Lambert Jacobsz
Elisha refusing Naaman's Gifts
ca. 1628-33
oil on canvas
Leiden Collection, New York

Gaspare Diziani
Moses transforming the Rod of Aaron into a Serpent
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner
Sacrifice of Abraham
ca. 1755-60
oil on canvas
(study for mezzotint)
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Simone Brentana
David cutting a piece from Saul's robe
ca. 1710-15
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Cesare Beseghi
The Anger of Saul
1844
oil on canvas
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Simon Vouet
Martha rebuking Mary
ca. 1621
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Odilon Redon
Christ and the Samaritan Woman
(The White Flower Bouquet)
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Matthias Stom
The Taking of Christ
ca. 1630-32
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi)
Noli me tangere
ca. 1525-30
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giacinto Brandi
Conversion of St Paul
ca. 1660
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

from Parnell's Funeral

Rich foliage that the starlight glittered through, 
A frenzied crowd, and where the branches sprang
A beautiful seated boy; a sacred bow;
A woman, and an arrow on a string;
A pierced boy, image of a star laid low.
That woman, the Great Mother imaging,

Cut out his heart. Some master of design
Stamped boy and tree upon Sicilian coin.

– W.B. Yeats (1935)

Beardsley - Beaton - Bowen - Brodzky

Aubrey Beardsley
The Savoy
1896
lithograph (poster)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Aubrey Beardsley
The Yellow Book
1894
lithograph (poster)
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Aubrey Beardsley
Pseudonym and Autonym Library Series
published by T. Fisher Unwin
1894
lithograph (poster)
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Aubrey Beardsley
Ornamental Designs for John Lane
1895
drawing
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Cecil Beaton
Charles James Evening Dresses
1948
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Cecil Beaton
Lady Beaverbrook
1952
hand-colored gelatin silver print
Beaverbrook Art Gallery, Fredericton, New Brunswick

Cecil Beaton
Lady Hudson
ca. 1928
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Cecil Beaton
Miss Edith Sitwell, famous English Poetess
ca. 1929
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dean Bowen
Flying Pie
1991
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dean Bowen
Mechanical Object
1988
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dean Bowen
The Colosseum
1990
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Dean Bowen
The Lone Chimney
1990
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Horace Brodzky
Discussion
1958
oil on board
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Horace Brodzky
Builders
1919
linocut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Horace Brodzky
Bather
1920
linocut (book illustration)
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Horace Brodzky
Expulsion
1914
linocut
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

from Journey to Iceland

Here let the citizen, then, find natural marvels, 
a horse-shoe ravine, an issue of steam from a cleft

     in the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing

          the rocks, and among the rocks birds; 

the student of prose and conduct places to visit,
the site of a church where a bishop was put in a bag,

     the bath of a great historian, the fort where

          an outlaw dreaded the dark,

remember the doomed man thrown by his horse and crying

Beautiful is the hillside. I will not go,

     the old woman confessing He that I loved the

          best, to him I was worst. 

Europe is absent: this is an island and should be
a refuge, where the affections of its dead can be bought
     by those whose dreams accuse them of being
          spitefully alive, and the pale 

from too much passion of kissing feel pure in its deserts.
But is it, can they, as the world is and can lie?
     A narrow bridge over a torrent,
          a small farm under a crag

are natural settings for the jealousies of a province:
a weak vow of fidelity is made at a cairn,
     within the indigenous figure on horseback
          on the bridle-path down by the lake

his blood moves also by furtive and crooked inches,
asks all our questions: Where is the homage? When
     shall justice be done? Who is against me?
          Why am I always alone?

– W.H. Auden (1936)