Ornamental

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Ten of Columbines
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Queen of Columbines
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Nine of Hares
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Knave of Hares
ca. 1500
hand-colored engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Six of Parrots
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - King of Parrots
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Three of Carnations
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

Monogrammist P.W. of Cologne (German printmaker)
Playing Card - Ace of Roses
ca. 1500
engraving
British Museum

John Frederick Peto
A Closet Door
1904-1906
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Margaret Jordan Patterson
Garden Flowers
ca. 1920
color woodblock print
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

John Piper
Sunflowers at Marignac
1956
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Clayton Pond
Section of an English Façade
before 1970
screenprint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Melissa Ann Pinney
Barbara's Beauty Salon - Chicago, Illinois
1987
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Sigmar Polke
Office Party
1998
screenprint
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Ellen Phelan
Blue Rookwood
2001
digital print
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Liss Platt
New Look Liberty
2002
inkjet print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Elizabeth Peyton
Flower Ben
2003
color woodblock print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Thus while I sit and sigh the day

With all his spreading lights away

    Till night's black wings do overtake me,

Thinking on thee; thy beauties then,

As sudden lights do sleeping men,

    So they by their bright rays awake me. 

Thus absence dies, and dying proves

No absence can consist with loves

    That do partake of fair perfection,

Since in the darkest night they may

By their quick motion find a way

    To see each other by reflection. 

The waving sea can with such flood

Bathe some high palace that hath stood

    Far from the main up in the river:

Oh think not then but love can do

As much, for that's an ocean too,

    That flows not every day, but ever. 

– Owen Feltham (1661)

Horizon-Lines

Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig
Farmhouse near Laren
ca. 1912
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Claude Monet
Valley of the Creuse under Clouds
1889
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Hubert Robert
The Column
1789
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum

Ferdinand Hodler
Empfindung
ca. 1903-1904
tempera on paper, mounted on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

César de Cock
Landscape
1872
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Gustav Klimt
On Lake Attersee
1900
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Patrick Nilsson
The Big Darkness
2007
drawing
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Johann Wilhelm Schirmer
Breaking Waves with Distant Ships
1836
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Johan Christian Dahl
Cloud Study
1829
oil on paper
KODE (Art Museums Complex), Bergen, Norway

Mikhail Matyushin
Dunes
ca. 1910
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Anton Melby
By the Øresund
1852
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Edgar Degas
Landscape with Rocks
1892
pastel over monotype
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Wilhelm August Leopold Christian Krause
Pomeranian Coast
1828
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Frederick A. Greenleaf
Rapids of the Missouri River
ca. 1877-85
cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

William Christenberry
Palmist Building (Winter), Havana Junction, Alabama
1981
C-print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Arthur Segal
The Speaker
1912
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Emden

Chorus:

No mortal can complete his life

unharmed and unpunished throughout –
ah, ah!
Some troubles are here now, some will come later.

Orestes:  Now, so that you may know – for I have no idea how this will end: I am already, as a horse-driver might say, charioteering somewhat off the track; my mind is almost out of control and carrying me along half-overpowered, and Terror is near my heart, ready to sing and to dance to Wrath's tune –  but while I still have my wits, I make proclamation that I killed my mother, the polluted murderer of my father, hated by the gods.  And as my prime inducement to dare this deed I name Loxias, the prophet god of Pytho, whose oracle told me that if I did it I would be free from guilt and blame, but if I failed to – I shall not speak of the punishment: no archer could reach that height of suffering.*  And now see me, how, accoutred with this wreathed olive-branch, I will go as a suppliant to Loxias' domain, his abode at the central navel of earth, and to the light of the fire that is called immortal, and fleeing this kindred bloodshed: to no other hearth than that did Loxias bid me direct myself.  I call on all Argives to preserve in memory for me, as time goes by, how these evils were brought to pass, and to bear witness for me if Menelaus comes home.  Now I go into exile, a wanderer banished from this land, leaving behind me, in life and in death, this reputation – that in revenge for my father I killed my mother. 

– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*This metaphor is chosen because an arrow shot from a bow could fly higher in the air than anything else man had invented in Aeschylus' time.

Twentieth-Century Silhouettes

Haig Patigian
Isis
1907
bronze
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Erich Heckel
Franzi Reclining
1910
color woodblock print
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Henri
Portrait of Dorothy Wagstaff
1911
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Paul Outerbridge
Suspension Bridge (Brooklyn Bridge)
1923
platinum print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Mies van der Rohe (designer)
Side Chair
1926-27
chrome-plated steel frame with replaced upholstery
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

Anton Hanak
Study for Self Portrait
ca. 1931-32
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Paul Manship and Angelo Colombo
Pelican
1932
gilt bronze on lapis lazuli base
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Dorothea Lange
Andrew Furuseth
1934
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Helmut Newton
Fashion Shot with Model Smoking
ca. 1952
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Eduardo Paolozzi
Saint Sebastian no. 2
1957
bronze
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Mark Strizic
Lingerie Shop Window
Collins Street, Melbourne
ca. 1959
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ken Regan
Mark Spitz
1972
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Harold Tovish
Ceremonial Axe Head
1977
bronze
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Alex Katz
John Ashbery
1984
oil paint on shaped aluminum
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Thomas Struth
Musée d'Orsay, Paris 2
1989
C-print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Brigitte Lacombe
Naomi Campbell
1991
C-print
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

[The Favourite's Fall]

 

    Pow'r, ever envied, yet with ardour sought,

Has oft the proud to swift destruction brought;

Honours on honours heap'd to such a height,

The load immense has crush'd them with its weight;

Their statues from on high come thund'ring down,

And plunge thro' all the kennels of the town;

Wheels of triumphal cars to pieces fly,

And guiltless steeds with broken members lie.

Now the big bellows blow, the forges blaze,

The raging flames a roar tremendous raise;

Grim in the fire the precious noddle shews;

Off with a bounce the great Sejanus goes:

From that lov'd visage, godlike late esteem'd,

And second in the world's great empire deem'd,

Are fashion'd pots for water and for meat,

Platters for stews, and pans to wash the feet.

– Juvenal (AD 50-127), translated by Thomas Morris (1784)

Ornamental

Pesellino (Francesco di Stefano)
Triumphs of Fame, Time and Eternity
ca. 1450
tempera on panel (cassone)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Pesellino (Francesco di Stefano)
Triumphs of Love, Chastity and Death
ca. 1450
tempera on panel (cassone)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi)
Studies of Horses
ca. 1520
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Patanazzi Family (Urbino)
Pilgrim Flask
(Bacchus personifying Autumn)
ca. 1585-1600
maiolica
British Museum

Caspar Netscher
Woman with Parrot
1666
wash drawing (study for painting)
British Museum

Isaac de Moucheron
Walled Garden at the Château de Honselersdijk
1695
drawing
British Museum

Charles Parrocel
Dragoon of the King's Regiment (France)
before 1752
ink and watercolor on paper
British Museum

John Hamilton Mortimer
Enraged Monster
ca. 1760-70
drawing (print study)
British Museum

William Young Ottley
Studies of Roman Antiquities
1792
drawing
British Museum

Sigmund Ferdinand von Perger
Bellerophon and Pegasus
1809
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Samuel Palmer
Pear Tree in Walled Garden
ca. 1826
watercolor and gouache on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Georgia O'Keeffe
Music, Pink and Blue no. 2
1918
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Ben Nicholson
Still Life - Winter
1950
oil and graphite on hardboard
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1951
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Harry Nadler
Paintings / Drawings
1971
screenprint (exhibition poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Victor Pasmore
Stromboli
1980
aquatint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Pamela Pecchio
Habitation (Still Life with Bill Clinton)
2001
C-print
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Upon a Rare Voice

When I but hear her sing, I fare

Like one that, raised, holds his ear

To some bright star in the supremest round,

Through which, besides the light that's seen,

There may be heard from heaven within

The rests of anthems that the angels sound.

– Owen Feltham (1661)