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| Giovanni Segantini High Noon in the Alps 1892 oil on canvas Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan |
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| Peder Severin Krøyer Self Portrait 1897 oil on canvas Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen |
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| Achille Laugé Flowers and Fruit 1910 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne |
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| Willem de Kooning Figure in Marsh Landscape 1966 oil on canvas Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
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| Ernst Deger Portrait of a Young Woman 1835 oil on canvas Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| James Ensor The Savoy Cabbage 1894 oil on canvas Museum Folkwang, Essen |
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| Alexei von Jawlensky Face of the Savior: Death ca. 1919 oil on cardboard Pomeranian State Museum, Greifswald |
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| Urban Görtschacher The Susanna Legend ca. 1520 oil on panel Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Daniel Gran Allegory of Dawn 1723 oil on canvas (modello for cupola fresco destroyed in 1945) Belvedere Museum, Vienna |
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| Harald Dal Self Portrait 1951 gouache on cardboard Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Norway |
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| attributed to Gustave Courbet Waterfall ca. 1870 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims |
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| Albert André Plane Trees, Place de Loudun 1935 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau |
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| Johanne Hansen-Krone Couple and Hearts 1984 acrylic on canvas KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo |
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| Eugène Jansson Weightlifter 1911 oil on canvas Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm |
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| Robert Delaunay The Window 1912 oil on canvas Musée de Grenoble |
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| René-Xavier Prinet On the Channel, Normandy ca. 1920 oil on canvas Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai |
Watchman: I beg the gods to give me release from this misery – from my long year of watch-keeping, during which I've spent my nights on the Atreidae's roof, resting on my elbows like a dog, and come to know thoroughly the throng of stars of the night, and also those bright potentates, conspicuous in the sky, which bring winter and summer to mortals, observing them as some set and others rise. And now I'm looking out for the agreed beacon-signal, the gleam of fire bringing from Troy the word and news of its capture; for such is the ruling of a woman's hopeful heart, which plans like a man. But while I keep this night-walker's bed, wet with dew, this bed of mine not watched over by dreams – for it is Fear instead of Sleep that stands beside me, preventing me from closing my eyes firmly in sleep – but when I decide to sing or hum, applying this remedy to charm away sleep, then I weep, grieving over the fortunes of this house, which is not now admirably managed as it used to be. But now may there be a happy release from misery, by the appearance in the darkness of the fire that brings good news.
He suddenly leaps up in joy.
O welcome beacon, bringing to us by night a message of light bright as day, a message that will be the cause of many choral dances in Argos in response to this good fortune! Ahoy, ahoy! I proclaim plainly to the wife of Agamemnon that she should raise herself from her bed, as quickly as may be, and on behalf of the house raise a shrill, auspicious cy of triumph over this beacon, if indeed the city of Priam has been taken as the fire-signal vividly declares. And I will dance a prelude myself (skipping about in delight): I shall take advantage of the dice that have fallen well for my masters – this beacon-watch has thrown me a triple six! Well, anyway, may it come to pass that the master of the house comes home and that I clasp his well-loved hand in this hand of mine. About other matters I say nothing; a great ox has stepped upon my tongue. The house itself, were it to find voice, might speak very plainly: as far as I am concerned, I am deliberately speaking to those who know – and for those who do not, I am deliberately forgetting.*
– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)
*The Watchman is in effect saying (to imaginary listeners) "Do you know what I was talking about? If you do, I needn't tell you. If you don't, I can't tell you, because I've deliberately forgotten it myself!" The theatre audience, knowing the story well, will understand that he is alluding to the adultery of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.