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attributed to Giorgione (Giorgio Barbarelli) Portrait of a Warrior ca. 1505-1510 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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Daniel van den Queborne Portrait of a Man ca. 1585-90 oil on canvas North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh |
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Filippo Napoletano (Filippo Angeli) Soldier in Motion (series, Capricci e Habiti Militari) before 1629 etching British Museum |
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Grégoire Huret Portrait of a Commander ca. 1645 engraving Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg |
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Arie de Vois Standard-Bearer of the Leiden Militia 1664 oil on panel Museum de Lakenhal, Leiden |
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Peter Boy Miniature Portrait of Prince Karl Philipp von Pfalz-Neuburg 1696 enamel on copper Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich |
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Antoine Pesne General Théodore Gigou de Briou ca. 1711 oil on canvas Bildgalerie von Sanssouci, Potsdam |
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Christian Albrecht Jensen Cadet Cosmus Bornemann 1828 oil on canvas Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden |
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William Strutt The Three Centurions ca. 1876 oil on canvas National Gallery of Australia, Canberra |
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Vincent van Gogh The Zouave 1888 drawing Guggenheim Museum, New York |
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Marie Spartali Stillman St George 1892 watercolor on paper Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington |
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Kenyon Cox Study for Mural Figure as Allegory of Force ca. 1899 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Leo Williams Sailor on the U.S.S. Paducah ca. 1910 collodion print Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts |
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Charles Demuth Two Sailors 1930 drawing Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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Louis Stettner Sailor on Train, Penn Station 1958 gelatin silver print Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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Jack Shadbolt Armour ca. 1970 watercolor and ink on paper Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia |
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Luc Tuymans Soldier 1999 oil on canvas Art Institute of Chicago |
from Lost in Translation
Out of the blue, as promised, of a New York
Puzzle-rental shop the puzzle comes –
A superior one, containing a thousand hand-sawn,
Sandal-scented pieces. Many take
Shapes known already – the craftsman's repertoire
Nice in its limitation – from other puzzles:
Witch on broomstick, ostrich, hourglass,
Even (surely not just in retrospect)
An inchling, innocently branching palm.
These can be put aside, made stories of
While Mademoiselle spreads out the rest face-up,
Herself excited as a child; or questioned
Like incoherent faces in a crowd,
Each with its scrap of highly colored
Evidence the Law must piece together.
Sky-blue ostrich? Likely story.
Mauve of the witch's cloak white, severed fingers
Pluck? Detain her. The plot thickens
As all at once two pieces interlock.
Mademoiselle does borders – (Not so fast.
A London dusk, December last.
Chatter silenced in the library
This grown man reenters, wearing gray.
A medium. All except him have seen
Panel slid back, recess explored,
An object at once unique and common
Displayed, planted in a plain tole
Casket the subject now considers
Through shut eyes, saying in effect:
"Even as voices reach me vaguely
A dry saw-shriek drowns them out,
Some loud machinery – a lumber mill?
Far uphill in the fir forest
Trees tower, tenses with shock,
Groaning and cracking as they crash groundward.
But hidden here is a freak fragment
Of a pattern complex in appearance only.
What it seems to show is superficial
Next to that long-term lamination
Of hazard and craft, the karma that has
made it matter in the first place.
made it matter in the first place.
Plywood. Piece of a puzzle." Applause
Acknowledged by an opening of lids
Upon the thing itself. A sudden dread –
But to go back. All this lay years ahead.)
– James Merrill (1976)