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| Ferdinand Roybet The Connoisseurs 1876 oil on canvas John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota |
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| Ruth Orkin Jinx staring at Statue, Florence 1951 gelatin silver print Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia |
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| Hugh Douglas Hamilton Antonio Canova in his studio with Henry Tresham studying a plaster model for Cupid and Psyche ca. 1788-91 pastel on paper Victoria & Albert Museum, London |
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| Jean-Simon Berthélemy Portrait of a Gentleman gazing at the Bust of Denis Diderot 1784 oil on canvas Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
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| Floris Verster Man before a Bust ca. 1880 drawing, with watercolor Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
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| Jean-Étienne Liotard Madame de Vermenoux paying Homage to Apollo 1764 pastel on vellum Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe |
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| Kenneth Hayes Miller Woman in Sculpture Hall 1925 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| Harm Kamerlingh Onnes Young Woman in Museum 1960 oil on panel Museum De Lakenhal, Leiden |
-before-1679-oil-on-canvas-Heem-Jan-Davidsz-de-Vanitas-Still-Life-with-Skull-1652-oil-on-panel-N%C3%A1rodn%C3%AD-Galerie-Prague.jpeg) |
| Jan van Kessel the Elder Venus and Cupid in a Gallery (Allegory of Sight) before 1679 oil on canvas Národní Galerie, Prague |
-c1653-oil-on-panel-John-and-Mable-Ringling-Museum-of-Art-Sarasota.jpg) |
| Jan Juriaensz van Baden Watching a Play in Amsterdam ca. 1653 oil on panel John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota |
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| Simon Vouet Psyche secretly gazing upon Cupid ca. 1645 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon |
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| Laurie Simmons Tourism: At the Bikini Atoll 1984 C-print High Museum of Art, Atlanta |
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| Konrad Witz The Tiburtine Sibyl showing Emperor Augustus a Vision of the Virgin and Child in the Sky ca. 1435 oil on panel Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon |
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| Alonso Cano St John the Evangelist's Vision of the Lamb ca. 1635-37 oil on canvas John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota |
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| Alonso Cano St John the Evangelist's Vision of God the Father ca. 1635-37 oil on canvas John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota |
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| Donato Creti Astronomical Observations: The Sun 1711 oil on canvas Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome |
Ancestral Houses
Surely among a rich man's flowering lawns,
Amid the rustle of his planted hills,
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
Life overflows without ambitious pains;
And rains down life until the basin spills,
And mounts more dizzy high the more it rains
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
As though to choose whatever shape it wills
And never stoop to a mechanical
Or servile shape, at others' beck and call.
Mere dreams, mere dreams! Yet Homer had not sung
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Had he not found it certain beyond dreams
That out of life's own self-delight had sprung
The abounding glittering jet; though now it seems
As if some marvellous empty sea-shell flung
Out of the obscure dark of the rich streams,
And not a fountain, were the symbol which
Shadows the inherited glory of the rich.
Some violent bitter man, some powerful man
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
Called architect and artist in, that they,
Bitter and violent men, might rear in stone
The sweetness that all longed for night and day,
The gentleness none there had ever known;
But when the master's buried mice can play,
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.
And maybe the great-grandson of that house,
For all its bronze and marble, 's but a mouse.
O what if gardens where the peacock strays
With delicate feet upon old terraces,
Or else all Juno from an urn displays
Before the indifferent garden deities;
O what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
With delicate feet upon old terraces,
Or else all Juno from an urn displays
Before the indifferent garden deities;
O what if levelled lawns and gravelled ways
Where slippered Contemplation finds his ease
And Childhood a delight for every sense,
But take our greatness with our violence?
What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
What if the glory of escutcheoned doors,
And buildings that a haughtier age designed,
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
The pacing to and fro on polished floors
Amid great chambers and long galleries, lined
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
With famous portraits of our ancestors;
What if those things the greatest of mankind
Consider most to magnify, or to bless,
But take our greatness with our bitterness?
– W.B. Yeats, from Meditations in Time of Civil War (1923)
– W.B. Yeats, from Meditations in Time of Civil War (1923)