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| Anonymous Artist Portrait of an Artist ca. 1630 oil on panel Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille |
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| Anonymous Artist Portrait of Jacob van Driebergen 1502 oil on panel Centraal Museum, Utrecht |
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| Anonymous Artist The Paralytic healed by Christ ca. 1560-90 oil on panel National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Anonymous Artist The Creation ca. 1600 oil on panel North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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| Anonymous Artist The Gathering of Manna ca. 1510-20 oil on panel (wing of triptych) Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Anonymous Artist The Annunciation to the Shepherds ca. 1500-1525 oil on panel Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp |
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| Anonymous Artist St John the Evangelist 17th century oil on canvas Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica |
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| Anonymous Artist St Jerome in his Study ca. 1560-70 oil on panel North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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| Anonymous Artist St Peter freed from Prison by an Angel ca. 1625-35 oil on canvas North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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| Anonymous Artist Portrait of a Man ca. 1620-30 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
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| Anonymous Artist Portrait of a Woman ca. 1630-35 oil on canvas Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska |
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| Anonymous Artist Portrait of a Woman ca. 1540-50 oil on panel Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Anonymous Artist Cavaliers and Ladies at a Table ca. 1660-70 oil on canvas North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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| Anonymous Artist The Five Senses 1645 oil on panel Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève |
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| Anonymous Artist Vanitas Still Life ca. 1650-1700 oil on canvas Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama |
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| Anonymous Artist Hatchment of Adriana Gras 16th century oil on panel (funeral shield) Plantin-Moretus Museum, Antwerp |
Celestial Music
I have a friend who still believes in heaven.
Not a stupid person, yet with all she knows, she literally talks to god,
she thinks someone listens in heaven.
On earth, she's unusually competent.
Brave, too, able to face unpleasantness.
We found a caterpillar dying in the dirt, greedy ants crawling over it.
I'm always moved by weakness, by disaster, always eager to oppose vitality.
But timid, also, quick to shut my eyes.
Whereas my friend was able to watch, to let events play out
according to nature. For my sake, she intervened,
brushing a few ants off the torn thing, and set it down across the road.
My friend says I shut my eyes to god, that nothing else explains
my aversion to reality. She says I'm like the child who buries her head in the pillow
so as not to see, the child who tells herself
that light causes sadness –
My friend is like the mother. Patient, urging me
to wake up an adult like herself, a courageous person –
In my dreams, my friend reproaches me. We're walking
on the same road, except it's winter now;
she's telling me that when you love the world you hear celestial music:
look up, she says. When I look up, nothing.
Only clouds, snow, a white business in the trees
like brides leaping to a great height –
Then I'm afraid for her; I see her
caught in a net deliberately cast over the earth –
In reality, we sit by the side of the road, watching the sun set;
from time to time, the silence pierced by a birdcall.
It's this moment we're both trying to explain, the fact
that we're at ease with death, with solitude.
My friend draws a circle in the dirt; inside, the caterpillar doesn't move.
She's always trying to make something whole, something beautiful, an image
capable of life apart from her.
We're very quiet. It's peaceful sitting here, not speaking, the composition
fixed, the road turning suddenly dark, the air
going cool, here and there the rocks shining and glittering –
it's this stillness that we both love.
The love of form is a love of endings.
– Louise Glück (1990)