Visualizing the Warrior - II

Bernardo Bellotto
Equestrian Portrait of Hussar Officer
1773
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Taddeo Zuccaro
Group of Soldiers
ca. 1563-65
drawing
(study for fresco)
Morgan Library, New York

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée
David triumphing over Goliath
1780
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen

Anonymous Florentine Artist
Battle between Romans and Gauls
ca. 1470-80
oil and tempera on panel
(originally part of a cassone)
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota

Raphael
Study for Figure of Fallen Soldier
ca. 1511-14
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Jean-Simon Berthélemy
Death of a Gladiator
1773
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Hans Thoma
War
1907
oil on canvas
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Franz Anton Maulbertsch
Coriolanus outside the Walls of Rome
ca. 1794-95
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Donato Creti
Study for a Figure of Alexander the Great
ca. 1700
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Thomas Sully
Portrait of Jean Terford David
1813
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Giuseppe Porta (Giuseppe Salviati)
Pallas Athena
ca. 1560
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giovanni Battista Benaschi
Figure wielding Sword
ca. 1678
drawing
Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Head of a Young Soldier
ca. 1740
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hamo Thornycroft
Teucer, brother of Ajax
1882
bronze
(made in Rome)
Art Institute of Chicago

Anonymous Netherlandish Artist
Head of Warrior with Helmet
ca. 1530-40
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Roman Empire
Helmet
AD 50
bronze and iron
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

from Baile and Aillinn

Argument: Baile and Aillinn were lovers, but Aengus, the Master of Love, wishing them to be happy in his own land among the dead, told to each a story of the other's death, so that their hearts were broken and they died. 

I hardly hear the curlew cry,

Nor the grey rush when the wind is high,
Before my thoughts begin to run
On the heir of Ulad, Buan's son,
Baile, who had the honey mouth;

And that wild woman of the south,

Aillinn, who was King Lugaid's heir.
Their love was never drowned in care
Of this or that thing, nor grew cold
Because their bodies had grown old.

Being forbid to marry on earth,

They blossomed to immortal mirth.

– W.B. Yeats (1903)

Valckert - Anonymous - Coburn - Weber

Werner Jacobsz van den Valckert
Self Portrait
1612
etching
British Museum

Werner Jacobsz van den Valckert
Young Couple with Raging Death
1612
etching
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Werner Jacobsz van den Valckert
Sleeping Venus surprised by Satyrs
1612
etching
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Werner Jacobsz van den Valckert
The Good Samaritan
ca. 1620
etching
British Museum

Chinese Culture
Funerary Mask
300-100 BC
bronze
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Chinese Culture
Ritual Bell
550 BC
bronze
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Chinese Culture
Finial (for Staff)
300-220 BC
bronze inlaid with gold and silver
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Chinese Culture
Vase with Lotus Scrolls
18th century
bronze with cloisonné enamel
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Alvin Langdon Coburn
Vortograph
1917
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Alvin Langdon Coburn
Williamsburg Bridge
1910
photogravure
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Alvin Langdon Coburn
The Door in the Wall
before 1911
photogravure
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Alvin Langdon Coburn
Portrait of artist Max Weber, New York
1911
photogravure
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Max Weber
The Mirror #2
1928
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Max Weber
Attitudes
1930
gouache on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Max Weber
Still Life with Two Tables
ca. 1934
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Max Weber
Bananas
1945
oil on linen
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

from Letter to Lord Byron

The vogue for Black Mass and the cult of devils
     Has sunk. The Good, the Beautiful, the True
Still fluctuate about the lower levels.

     Joyces are firm and there there's nothing new.

     Eliots have hardened just a point or two,
Hopkins are brisk, thanks to some recent boosts,

There's been some further weakening in Prousts. 

I'm saying this to tell you who's the rage,
     And not to loose a sneer from my interior.

Because there's snobbery in every age,

     Because some names are loved by the superior,
     It does not follow they're the least inferior:
For all I know the Beatific Vision's 

On view at all Surrealist Exhibitions. 

Now for the spirit of the people. Here
     I know I'm treading on more dangerous ground;

I know there're many changes in the air,
     But know my data too slightly to be sound,
     I know, too, I'm inviting the renowned
Retort of all who love the Status Quo:
"You can't change human nature, don't you know!"
 

We're still, it's true, the same shape and appearance,
     We haven't changed the way that kissing's done;

The average man still hates all interference,
     Is just as proud still of his new-born son:
     Still, like a hen, he likes his private run,
Scratches for self-esteem, and slyly pecks

A good deal in the neighbourhood of sex.

But he's another man in many ways:

     Ask the cartoonist first, for he knows best.

Where is the John Bull of the good old days,
     The swaggering bully with the clumsy jest?
     His meaty neck has long been laid to rest,
His acres of self-confidence for sale;

He passed away at Ypres and Passchendaele.

Turn to the work of Disney or of Strube;*

     There stands our hero in his threadbare seams;

The bowler-hat who strap-hangs in the tube,

     And kicks the tyrant only in his dreams,

     Trading on pathos, deading all extremes;
The little Mickey with the hidden grudge;
Which is the better, I leave you to judge. 

– W.H. Auden (1936)

*cartoonist Sidney Strube created the "Little Man" – a British everyman

Visualizing The Warrior - I

Peter Paul Rubens
Victory crowning the Virtuous Hero
ca. 1613-14
oil on panel
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Bernardo Strozzi
Erminia among the Shepherds
(scene from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata)
ca. 1620-30
oil on canvas
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha

Carlo Raimondi after Parmigianino
St George
1843
watercolor
(print study)
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Jan Both
Foreshortened Cavalier
1640
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Nicolò dell'Abate
Mounted Warrior
ca. 1550
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Capodimonte Porcelain Manufactory (Naples)
Goffredo at the Tomb of Dudone
(scene from Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata)
ca. 1745-50
porcelain
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Lucas van Valckenborch
Archduke Matthias of Austria
1579
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Pietro Testa
St Michael Archangel
before 1650
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Giovanni Verona
Louis XIV
ca. 1875
marble statuette
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jan Kupecký
Portrait of a Soldier
ca. 1710-15
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Battista Franco (il Semolei)
Classical Warrior
ca. 1540-50
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
The Continence of Scipio
ca. 1700
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Franz Anton Maulbertsch
The Arrogance of Brennus
ca. 1794-95
oil on panel
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Silvestro Lega
Italian Soldiers with Austrian Prisoners
1861
oil on canvas
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Alexandre-Denis Abel de Pujol
Episode from the Trojan War
ca. 1820
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Ancient Greek Culture
Helmet
4th century BC
bronze
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

from The Old Age of Queen Maeve

But Maeve, and not with a slow feeble foot, 
Came to the threshold of the painted house
Where her grandchildren slept, and cried aloud,
Until the pillared dark began to stir
With shouting and the clang of unhooked arms.

She told them of the many-changing ones;

And all that night, and all through the next day

To middle night, they dug into the hill.

At middle night great cats with silver claws,

Bodies of shadow and blind eyes like pearls,

Came up out of the hole, and red-eared hounds 

With long white bodies came out of the air

Suddenly, and ran at them and harried them.

The Maines' children dropped their spades, and stood

With quaking joints and terror-stricken faces,

Till Maeve called out, 'These are but common men.

The Maines' children have not dropped their spades

Because Earth, crazy for its broken power,
Casts up a show and the winds answer it
With holy shadows.' Her high heart was glad,

And when the uproar ran along the grass

She followed with light footfall in the midst,
Till it died out where an old thorn-tree stood.

– W.B. Yeats (1903)

Anshutz - Zuccaro - Anonymous - van der Werff

Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Woman Reading
ca. 1895
oil on board
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Cast of Pierre Puget's Sculpture Group
Milo of Croton attacked by a Lion
ca. 1875
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Cast of Antique Sculpture Group
The Wrestlers
ca. 1875
drawing
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Thomas Pollock Anshutz
Classically-Draped Models in the Cast Gallery
of the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts
ca. 1883
albumen silver print
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Federico Zuccaro
Self Portrait
ca. 1580
drawing
British Museum

Federico Zuccaro
Punishment of the Wrathful
ca. 1574-79
drawing
(fresco study for cupola, Duomo di Firenze)
British Museum

Federico Zuccaro
Flying Putti
ca. 1578-79
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Federico Zuccaro
Study of Onlookers
ca. 1563-64
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Indonesian Culture
Chest Ornament
19th century
gold
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Indonesian Culture
Crown
ca. 1880-1930
gilt copper
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Indonesian Culture
Headband
19th century
gold
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Indonesian Culture
Necklace
19th century
gold
Asian Art Museum, San Francisco

Adriaen van der Werff
Boy and Girl with Guinea Pig and Kitten
ca. 1681
drawing
(variation on a painting by van der Werff)
British Museum

Adriaen van der Werff
Portrait of a Gentleman
1694
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Adriaen van der Werff
The Flagellation
1710
oil on panel
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Adriaen van der Werff
Sarah bringing Hagar to Abraham
1699
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

from Letter to Lord Byron 

You lived and moved among the best society
     And so could introduce your hero to it
Without the slightest tremor of anxiety;
     Because he was your hero and you knew it, 
     He'd know instinctively what's done, and do it. 
He'd find our day more difficult than yours
For industry has mixed the social drawers.

We've grown, you see, a lot more democratic,
     And Fortune's ladder is for all to climb;
Carnegie on this point was most emphatic.
     A humble grandfather is not a crime,
     At least, if father made enough in time!
To-day, thank God, we've got no snobbish feeling
Against the more efficient modes of stealing.

The porter at the Carlton is my brother,
     He'll wish me a good evening if I pay,
For tips and men are equal to each other.
     I'm sure that Vogue would be the first to say
     Que le Beau Monde is socialist to-day;
And many a bandit, not so gently born
Kills vermin every winter with the Quorn.

Adventurers, though, must take things as they find them
     And look for pickings where the pickings are.
The drives of love and hunger are behind them,
     They can't afford to be particular:
     And those who like good cooking and a car,
A certain kind of costume or of face,
Must seek them in a certain kind of place. 

Don Juan was a mixer and no doubt
     Would find this century as good as any
For getting hostesses to ask him out, 
     And mistresses that need not cost a penny.
     Indeed our ways to waste time are so many,
Thanks to technology, a list of these
Would make a longer book than Ulysses.

– W.H. Auden (1936)