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Betty Parsons Bright Day 1966 acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Larry Rivers Duo: Head of a Woman and Woman standing at Foot of a Tree 1968 lithograph Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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Mark Rothko Blue Orange Red 1961 oil on canvas Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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Deborah Remington Saxon 1966-67 oil on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed #4A 1965 acrylic on canvas Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed #1D 1965 acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed Inside Out 1966 acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed Interchange #2 1966 acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed #8 1963 acrylic on canvas Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed Barcelona 1969 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Paul Reed 26B 1964 acrylic on canvas Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona |
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Clayton Pond My Grandmother's Fan Without Everything Else Around It 1968 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Clayton Pond Flower Man 1969 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Clayton Pond The Other Chair before 1969 screenprint Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC |
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Ednah Root Sound Barrier 1964 oil on canvas Whitney Museum of American Art, New York |
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Joseph Francis Plaskett Van Gogh's Asylum, St Remy, Provence ca. 1960 casein and pastel on paper Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario |
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Eduardo Paolozzi Metalisation of a Dream ca. 1964 screenprint Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
LONG and SHORT – are words which, until comparatively recently, have been taken as the bases of all prosodic analysis. They represent two values which, though no doubt by no means always identical in themselves, are invariably, unmistakably, and at once, distinguished by the ear; and the combining of which, in ordinary mathematical permutation, constitutes the feet, or lowest integers of metrical rhythm. This nomenclature – which presents no initial difficulties, is sufficient for all practical purposes, and commends itself at once to any unprejudiced intelligence – seems first to have excited question and suspicion towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is disagreeable to both accentual and syllabic prosodists, and it appears to disturb some who would not class themselves with either. It is indeed quite possible to work either system with "long" and "short," applied uncontentiously to the natural values of rhythmed speech in English poetry. But a punctilio arises as to the definition of the words. "Does length," some people ask, "really mean 'duration of time' in pronouncing?" This question, and others, seem to the present writer unnecessary. We need not decide what makes the difference between "long" and "short" – it is sufficient that this difference unmistakably exists, and is felt at once. Whether it is due to accent, length of pronunciation, sharpness, loudness, strength, or anything else, is a question in no way directly affecting verse. The important things are, once more, that it exists; that verse cannot exist without it; that it is partly, and in English rather largely, created by the poet, but that this creation is conditioned by certain conventions of the language, of which accent is one, but only one.
– George Saintsbury, from Historical Manual of English Prosody (1910)