Lucian Freud After Cézanne 1999-2000 oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Ruth Chrisman Gannett Cabbage ca. 1950 lithograph New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut |
Gerald Drexler Garston The Jaguar ca. 1970 screenprint New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut |
Christopher Gallego Interior with Three Rooms 1996-2000 oil on canvas New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut |
Bartolomeo Gagliardi (lo Spagnoletto) Baptism of Christ before 1620 drawing Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
Kristian Fredrikson Costume Design - Ravel's Scheherazade, Sydney Dance Co. 1980 gouache, ink and pastel on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Kristian Fredrikson Costume Design - Ravel's Scheherazade, Sydney Dance Co. 1980 gouache, ink and pastel on paper National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
Michael Frary After the Storm ca. 1955 oil on panel Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas |
Battista Franco after Pietro Paolo Galeotti Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba 1560 etching and engraving British Museum |
Marvin Garner Ochre & Red 2000 acrylic on canvas Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine |
Urbano Fos St Vincent Ferrer ca. 1648-50 oil on canvas Museo del Prado, Madrid |
Nita Forrest For Elizabeth ca. 1975 oil on canvas Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia |
Carl Fielgraf Portrait of Charlotte Müller 1822 oil on canvas Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
Janet Fisher Il Porcellino, Florence before 1920 color woodblock print National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
Antonio Forbera (Antonio Fort Bras) Le Chevalet de Peintre 1686 oil on canvas Musée Calvet, Avignon |
Steven Ford and David Forlano Brooch 2007-2008 polymer and silver Racine Art Museum, Wisconsin |
from Letter to Lord Byron
My last remarks were sent you from a boat.
I'm back on shore now in a warm bed-sitter,
And several friends have joined me since I wrote;
So though the weather out of doors is bitter,
I feel a great deal cheerier and fitter.
A party from a public school, a poet,
Have set a rapid pace, and make me go it.
We're starting soon on a big expedition
Into the desert, which I'm sure is corking:
Many would like to be in my position,
I only hope there won't be too much walking.
Now let me see, where was I? We were talking
Of Social Questions when I had to stop;
Of Social Questions when I had to stop;
I think it's time now for a little shop.
In setting up my brass plate as a critic,
I make no claim to certain diagnosis,
I'm more intuitive than analytic,
I offer thought in homoeopathic doses
(But someone may get better in the process).
(But someone may get better in the process).
I don't pretend to reasoning like Pritchard's
Or the logomachy of I.A. Richards.
I like your muse because she's gay and witty,
Because she's neither prostitute nor frump,
The daughter of a European city,
And country houses long before the slump;
I like her voice that does not make me jump:
And you I find sympatisch, a good townee,
Neither a preacher, ninny, bore, nor Brownie.
Neither a preacher, ninny, bore, nor Brownie.
A poet, swimmer, peer, and man of action,
– It beats Roy Campbell's record by a mile –
You offer every possible attraction.
By looking into your poetic style
And love-life on the chance that both were vile,
And love-life on the chance that both were vile,
Several have earned a decent livelihood,
Whose lives were uncreative but were good.
You've had your packet from the critics, though:
They grant you warmth of heart, but at your head
Their moral and aesthetic brickbats throw.
A "vulgar genius" so George Eliot said,
Which doesn't matter as George Eliot's dead,
But T.S. Eliot, I am sad to find,
Damns you with: "an uninteresting mind".
Damns you with: "an uninteresting mind".
A statement which I must say I'm ashamed at;
A poet must be judged by his intention,
And serious thought you never said you aimed at.
I think a serious critic ought to mention
That one verse style was really your invention,
A style whose meaning does not need a spanner,
You are the master of the airy manner.
– W.H. Auden (1936)