Sinuosities - II

Domenico Campagnola
Venus in Landscape
1517
etching and engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Netherlandish Artist
Venus with Cupids
ca. 1528
oil on panel
Dallas Museum of Art

Domenico Beccafumi
Reclining Figure
ca. 1540-45
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Paris Bordone
Venus and Cupid in a Landscape
ca. 1545-50
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Taddeo Zuccaro
Sheet of Studies
ca. 1550-60
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

François Perrier
Hermaphrodite
(antique sculpture now in the Louvre)
1638
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jacob Adriaensz Backer
Recumbent Model
ca. 1645-46
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl
Diana at Rest
ca. 1660-70
oil on canvas
Sinebrychoff Art Museum, Helsinki

Carlo Cignani
Venus
ca. 1662-65
drawing
National Museum, Warsaw

Antonio Bellucci
Danaë
ca. 1695
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Gabriel de Saint-Aubin
The Private Academy
ca. 1755
oil on panel
Frick Collection, New York

Anonymous Artist
Académie
ca. 1780
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Mathias Skeibrok
Study for Mortuary Figure
1877
terracotta
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Carolus-Duran
Danaë
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Pierre-Albert Begaud
Leda and the Swan
ca. 1935
gouache on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Karl Sandels
Wrestling - Sweden versus Finland
1935
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

"Oh gods and spirits, if you do exist and hear our prayers, what great crime did we commit, to be overwhelmed by this avalanche of adversities?  Now you have put us in the hands of Egyptian bandits to deprive us even of sympathetic hearing.  A Greek bandit would respond to our speech, and his hard heart might melt at our prayers.  Speech often succeeds on its mission of mercy.  The tongue as go-between serves the beleaguered soul, conveys its point of view to the listener, and mollifies his angry spirit.  But now in what language will we frame our requests?  What solemn oaths can we offer?  If I were as persuasive as a Siren, still the butchers would not listen.  I can only communicate my cause by expressive gestures, display my desires in sign language.  O massive misfortunes!  Must I pantomime my miseries?"

– Achilles Tatius, from Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by John J. Winkler (1989)

Bellocq

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Minneapolis Institute of Art

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Art Institute of Chicago

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Art Institute of Chicago

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Milwaukee Art Museum

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

E.J. Bellocq
Storyville Portrait - New Orleans
ca. 1912
modern gelatin silver print from glass negative
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

from Willowware Cup

Plum in bloom, pagoda, blue birds, plume of willow –

Almost the replica of a prewar pattern –

The same boat bearing the gnat-sized lovers away,

The old bridge now bent double where her father signals

Feebly, as from flypaper, minding less and less,

Two smaller retainers with lanterns light him home.

Is that a scroll he carries? He must by now be immensely

Wise, and have given up earthly attachments, and all that.

Soon, of these May mornings, rising in mist, he will ask

Only to blend – like ink in flesh, blue anchor

Needled upon drunkenness while its destroyer

Full steam departs, the stigma throbbing, intricate –

Only to blend into a crazing texture.

– James Merrill (1972)

Sinuosities - I

Ancient Roman Artist
Bacchus
1st century BC
marble
Antikensammlung,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous German Artist
St Dorothea of Caesarea
ca. 1375-1400
sandstone
Bode Museum, Berlin

Andrea del Brescianino (Andrea Piccinelli)
Venus
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Marcello Fogolino 
Antique Statue of Goddess
ca. 1530-35
etching
(unique impression)
Kupferstich Kabinett, Gemäldegalerie, Dresden

Anonymous Italian Artist
Belvedere Antinoüs
ca. 1600-1650
bronze
(reduced copy after the antique)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Willem Panneels
Belvedere Antinoüs
ca. 1628-30
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst,
Copenhagen

François Perrier
Belvedere Antinoüs
1638
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Anonymous Artist after Michelangelo
Figure Study
17th century
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Anonymous Italian Artist
Christ Crucified
17th century
painted wood
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Fuseli
Creation of Eve
(illustration to Milton's Paradise Lost)
1791-93
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Auguste Renoir
Small Study for a Nude
1882
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Auguste Rodin
Torso
ca. 1910
drawing
Art Institute of Chicago

Charles Demuth
Bicycle Acrobats
ca. 1916-17
watercolor on paper
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Per Krohg
Woman ascending Stairs
1925
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Gunnar Sundgren
Bohemian
ca. 1928
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Horst P. Horst
Yves Saint-Laurent at Dior
1958
gelatin silver print
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Prometheus is caught in a painful convulsion: one side of his torso is contracted as he draws up his thigh towards himself, actually pressing the eagle deeper into his wound; his other leg is tautly stretched out, pointing downwards, narrowing to a point at the toes.  Signs of his agony are etched on his face: arching brows, lips twisted to expose the teeth.  You would have pitied the pain in this painting.

But Herakles comes to the rescue: he aims his bow at Prometheus's executioner.  The arrow is fitted to the bow; his left arm is held straight, gripping the handle of the bow; his right arm is bent at the elbow, drawing back the bowstring to his right nipple.  The design is an arrangement of interdependent angles, of bow, string, and arm: the bow is drawn back by the string; the string is plucked to a point by the arm; the arm is folded against the breast.

Prometheus is further torn by hope and despair: he stares both at his own wound and at Herakles, wanting to concentrate on the hero but forced to focus at least half of his attention on his own agony. 

– Achilles Tatius, from Leucippe and Clitophon (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by John J. Winkler (1989)

"In one sense the translator of an ancient novel is forced to read it rather as the ancient critics did than as modern ones do.  That is to say, modern critics and readers wonder, What is it? and give answers such as comedy, parody, an antiplatonic essay on eros, and so on.  The ancient reader, to judge by the extant remarks of Photios and Psellos and by analogous second-century literary discussions, placed the accomplishments of style and the excellence of individual, excerptible sentiments first in their program of reading.  To us this is part of a larger problem, that ancient literary criticism seems to be, with few exceptions, a territory dominated by scholars interested primarily in formal classification rather than by analysts of culture such as now control the field. But the translator is occupationally bound to approach the text asking not the modern question What does this mean (in a large sense)? but the ancient litterateur's question How does this read?"

Forrest Bess

Forrest Bess
The Prophecy (Sputnik)
1946
(painted in 1946 but not titled by the artist until after 1957)
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Asteroids #1
1946
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Asteroids #2
1946
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Asteroids #3
1946
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Asteroids #4
1946
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Search
1946
painted relief of wood, plastic and glass
Art Institute of Chicago

Forrest Bess
You Can't Have Me
1949
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
Untitled (The Crown)
1949
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Forrest Bess
Untitled (Meeting White Forms on Black)
ca. 1950
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

Forrest Bess
Untitled #44
1950
oil on canvas
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
Sticks
ca. 1950
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

Forrest Bess
The Bridge
1952
oil paint and silver leaf on panel
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Forrest Bess
The Hermaphrodite
1957
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

Forrest Bess
Drawings
1957
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Forrest Bess
The Candle
1958
oil on board
Dallas Museum of Art

Forrest Bess
Untitled (no. 7)
1959
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Forrest Bess
Untitled
1970
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

from In Nine Sleep Valley

 

Geode, the troll's melon

Rind of crystals velvet smoke meat blue

Formed far away under fantastic

Pressures, then cloven in two

By the taciturn rock shop man, twins now forever

Will they hunger for each other

When one goes north and one goes south?

I expect minerals never do.

Enough for them was a feast

Of flaws, the molten start and glacial sleep,

The parting kiss.

Still face to face in halfmoonlight

Sparkling comes easy to the Gemini.

Centimeters deep yawns the abyss.

– James Merrill (1972)