The Machine-Age Youth

Johann Carl Heinrich Kretschmar
Portrait of a Youth
ca. 1803
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pierre Lacour the Elder
Portrait of Pierre Lacour the Younger
ca. 1805
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Marie-Eléonore Godefroy
The Sons of Marshal Ney
1810
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous French Artist after Jacques-Louis David
Youth with Bow
ca. 1815
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Woutherus Mol
Sleeping Boy
ca. 1826
oil on canvas
Teylers Museum, Haarlem

Philippe Peyrane
Ernest and Léopold, sons of the artist
ca. 1838-42
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Léon Bonnat
Self Portrait at age seventeen
1850
oil on canvas
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Charlemagne Oscar Guet
The Countess and Cherubino
(Marriage of Figaro)
ca. 1860
oil on canvas
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Laughing Boy crowned with Vine Leaves
1873
bronze
Yale University Art Gallery

Otto Greiner
Studies for Ganymede
ca. 1897
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Wilhelm von Gloeden
Three Youths in Classical Garb
ca. 1900
albumen print
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Wilhelm von Gloeden
Taormina
1901
gelatin silver print
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Pablo Picasso
Head of a Youth
1905-1906
drawing over tempera on board
(originally owned by Gertrude Stein)
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Gabriele Münter
Head of a Boy
1908
oil on cardboard
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

George Bellows
Seated Boy
1915
drawing
(study for painting Riverfront)
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Fritz Wotruba
Large Prone Youth
1933
sandstone
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

C'était la nuit du 15. Il pouvait être onze heures. Corentin dormait. On frappa lourdement à la porte, rue des Haudriettes – il habitait toujours ce petit hôtel dont le corps principal donnait sur la rue, et qu'il avait acheté avec la grande commande de Marigny pour le château de Louveciennes, les vingt-cinq mille livres du roi, il y avait près de vingt ans. La petite (il n'avait plus de domestiques à demeure), la petite les entendit avant lui et accourut effrayée à son chevet. Il alla seul à la fenêtre, l'ouvrit, et vit les trois sans-culottes en bas, pacifiques, respectueux dans la mesure de leurs moyens de sans-culottes, qui lui dirent qu'on le demandait à la section, à l'instant même. L'un d'eux levait à bout de bras une grosse lanterne carrée de corps de garde. Leurs voix et ces visages levés que la pleine lumière embrasait lui étaient connus. Il fit signe à la petite qu'elle montât dans le galetas en toute discrétion et sécurité. Il s'habilla et descendit. 

– Pierre Michon, from Les Onze (Verdier, 2009)

Arbuses & Winogrands

Diane Arbus
Self Portrait in Mirror
1945
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

 

Diane Arbus
Girl with Governess with Baby Carriage, N.Y.C.
1962
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
A Castle in Disneyland, California
1962
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
A Husband and Wife in the Woods at a Nudist Camp, N.J.
1963
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Russian Midget Friends in a Living Room on 100th Street, N.Y.C.
1963
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Diane Arbus
A Flower Girl at a Wedding, Connecticut
1964
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Bishop by the Sea, Santa Barbara, California
1964
gelatin silver print
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Diane Arbus
A Family One Evening in a Nudist Camp, Pennsylvania
1965
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Woman with a Locket in Washington Square Park, New York
1965
gelatin silver print
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Diane Arbus
Two Ladies at the Automat, New York City
1966
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Diane Arbus
Woman in her Negligee, N.Y.C.
1966
gelatin silver print
Milwaukee Art Museum

Diane Arbus
A Woman with Pearl Necklace and Earrings, N.Y.C.
1967
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey
1967
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Man at a Parade on Fifth Avenue, N.Y.C.
1969
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Diane Arbus
This is Eddie Carmel, a Jewish Giant, with his Parents
in the Living Room of their Home in the Bronx, New York
1970
gelatin silver print
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Diane Arbus
Tattooed Man at a Carnival, Maryland
1970
gelatin silver print
Saint Louis Art Museum

Diane Arbus
Untitled (27)
1970-71
gelatin silver print
Princeton University Art Museum

Tod Papageorge
Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus at the Museum of Modern Art, New York
1967
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Garry Winogrand
Staten Island Ferry
1971
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Garry Winogrand
Beverly Hills, California
1979
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Garry Winogrand
Metropolitan Opera
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

from A Village Life

The death and uncertainty that await me

as they await all men, the shadows evaluating me

because it can take time to destroy a human being,

the element of suspense

needs to be preserved –

On Sundays I walk my neighbor's dog

so she can go to church to pray for her sick mother.

The dog waits for me in the doorway. Summer and winter

we walk the same road, early morning, at the base of the escarpment.

Sometimes the dog gets away from me – for a moment or two,

I can't see him behind some trees. He's very proud of this,

this trick he brings out occasionally, and gives up again

as a favor to me –

Afterward, I go back to my house to gather firewood.

I keep in my mind images from each walk:

monarda growing by the roadside;

in early spring, the dog chasing the little gray mice,

so for a while it seems possible

not to think of the hold of the body weakening, the ratio

of the body to the void shifting,

and the prayers becoming prayers for the dead.

Midday, the church bells finished. Light in excess:

still, fog blankets the meadow, so you can't see

the mountain in the distance, covered with snow and ice.

When it appears again, my neighbor thinks

her prayers are answered. So much light she can't control her happiness –

it has to burst out in language. Hello, she yells, as though

that is her best translation.

– Louise Glück (2009)

The Proto-Modern Youth

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Bacchus
ca. 1598
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Guido Reni
Young David
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Portrait Study of a Boy
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Prince Rupert, Count Palatine
Portrait of a Youth
1659
mezzotint
Yale Center for British Art

Wolfgang Lorenz Hopfer
Count Franz Ludwig of the Palatinate
ca. 1685
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Godfried Schalcken
Study Head of a Youth
ca. 1692-95
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum

Anonymous Artist working in Ferrara
David with the Head of Goliath
17th century
oil on canvas
(cut down on all four sides)
National Gallery of Slovenia, Ljubljana

Margaretha Wulfraet
Portrait of a Youth
ca. 1710
oil on panel
Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki

Jean Ranc
Portrait of Infante Don Felipe
1726
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Michel-François Dandré-Bardon
Half-Length Study of a Youth
ca. 1730
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jacques-François-Joseph Saly
Youth examining his Stocking
ca. 1754
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

Élisabeth Vigée-Le Brun
Portrait of the artist's brother Étienne
1773
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum

Angelica Kauffmann
Head of a Youth
ca. 1780
drawing
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Henry Raeburn
Portrait of James Hay
ca. 1790-95
oil on canvas
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

Jacques-Laurent Agasse
Young Pilgrim at Rest
ca. 1795
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Le tableau fut commandé en nivôse – et non pas en ventôse, comme on l'a dit, comme on continue à le dire, parce que l'Histoire arrange les dates à sa façon; parce que l'après-coup est grand seigneur et a tous les droits, Monseigneur l'Après-coup; parce que ventôse fut le mois le plus noir de cet hiver de l'an II où tombèrent les factions, où aussi furent élaborés et promulgués les arides Décrets de ventôse, terribles aux suspects, pleins de zèle compatissant pour les malheureux, désespérant les premiers, donnant aux seconds l'espérance fantôme de pain et de toit, donnant le la de la Grande Terreur; parce que ce fut aussi le mois le plus froid; parce que tapi dans ce grand froid et son cœur ayant froid Robespierre sortit le couteau pour raser de droite et de gauche, les modérantins et les exagérés, le beau couteau nommé Saint-Just; parce que le vent de ventôse sonne plus théâtralement que la neige qui gît doucement dans nivôse; parce qu'il n'y a pas de neige dans le tableau, mais comme un effet de grand vent, quoiqu'il n'y ait pas de vent non plus; parce que surtout vous le savez dans un amalgame hardi, romanesque, certains ont dès l'Empire appelé ce tableau définitif Le Décret de ventôse. Non, c'était avant. Il fut commandé dans les deux mois précédant ventôse, en nivôse an II, le 15 ou le 16 nivôse, soit autour du 5 janvier 1794, vers la ci-devant Épiphanie, jour des Rois.

   

– Pierre Michon, from Les Onze (Verdier, 2009)