Whistler - Steichen - Wonder - McBean

James McNeill Whistler
The Violet Note
ca. 1885-86
colored chalks on paper
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

James McNeill Whistler
La Vieille aux Loques
1858
drypoint
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

James McNeill Whistler
Harmony in Blue and Pearl:
The Sands, Dieppe
ca. 1885
oil on panel
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

James McNeill Whistler
Lapis Lazuli
ca. 1885-86
colored chalks on paper
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Edward Steichen
Triptych of Nightgowns
ca. 1937
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Edward Steichen
Modernist Interior with Fashion Models
ca. 1935
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Edward Steichen
Eva Le Gallienne in Romeo and Juliet
1930
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Edward Steichen
Fashion Illustration
ca. 1932-34
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Pieter Christoffel Wonder
Portrait of writer Hendrik Gabriel Römer
ca. 1835-40
oil on panel
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Pieter Christoffel Wonder
Portrait of printmaker Laurens van Schaik
ca. 1810-11
drawing
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Pieter Christoffel Wonder
Portrait of printmaker Laurens van Schaik
1814
drawing
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Pieter Christoffel Wonder
Self Portrait
ca. 1814-15
drawing
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Angus McBean
Noel Coward and Margaret Leighton
on stage in The Applecart
1953
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Angus McBean
Katherine Hepburn on stage in The Millionairess
1952
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Angus McBean
Designer Loudon Sainthill
in the Stratford wardrobe for The Tempest
1951
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Angus McBean
Michael Redgrave on stage as Prospero
in The Tempest at Stratford
1951
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Paysage Moralisé 

Hearing of harvests rotting in the valleys,

Seeing at end of street the barren mountains,

Round corners coming suddenly on water,

Knowing them shipwrecked who were launched for islands,

We honour founders of these starving cities

Whose honour is the image of our sorrow, 

Which cannot see its likeness in their sorrow

That brought them desperate to the brink of valleys;

Dreaming of evening walks through learned cities

They reined their violent horses on the mountains,

Those fields like ships to castaways on islands,

Visions of green to them who craved for water. 

They built by rivers and at night the water

Running past windows comforted their sorrow;

Each in his little bed conceived of islands

Where every day was dancing in the valleys

And all the green trees blossomed on the mountains,

Where love was innocent, being far from cities.

But dawn came back and they were still in cities;

No marvellous creature rose up from the water;

There was still gold and silver in the mountains

But hunger was a more immediate sorrow,

Although to moping villagers in valleys

Some waving pilgrims were describing islands . . .

"The gods," they promised, "visit us from islands,

Are stalking, head-up, lovely, through our cities;

Now is the time to leave your wretched valleys

And sail with them across the lime-green water,

Sitting at their white sides, forget you sorrow,

The shadow cast across your lives by mountains."

So many, doubtful, perished in the mountains,

Climbing up crags to get a view of islands,

So many, fearful, took with them their sorrow

Which stayed them when they reached unhappy cities,

So many, careless, dived and drowned in water,

So many, wretched, would not leave their valleys. 

It is our sorrow. Shall it melt? Then water

Would gush, flush, green these mountains and these valleys,

And we rebuild our cities, not dream of islands. 

– W.H. Auden (1933)