Fertility - I

Simon Saint-Jean
The Gardener
1837
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Wilhelm Morgner
Astral Composition XI
1912
oil on canvas
Clemens Sels Museum, Neuss, Germany

Frank H. Leib
Utah's Best Crop
ca. 1908
halftone print (postcard)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Joachim Beuckelaer
Girl with Basket of Eggs
ca. 1560-70
oil on panel
National Museum, Warsaw

Johan Laurentz Jensen
Flowers on a Marble Ledge
1833
oil on panel
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Franz Marc
Green Study
1908
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Mannheim

Gustav Klimt
Pregnant Woman with Man
ca. 1903-1904
drawing (study for painting)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Edvard Munch
The Sons of Dr Linde
1903
oil on canvas
Museum Behnhaus, Lübeck

Franz Saver Petter
Still Life with Flowers, Fruit and Parrot
1833
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Severin Roesen
Still Life of Flowers and Fruit with River Landscape in the Distance
1867
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Anonymous German Artist
Portrait of Frederick I, Duke of Württemberg
and his Family
1605
oil on copper
Landesmuseum Württemberg

Hans Holbein the Elder
The Tree of Jesse
1501
tempera and oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Koloman Moser
Venus in the Grotto
ca. 1914
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Children in an Orchard
1871
oil on cardboard
Detroit Institute of Arts

Matthias Stom
Sarah bringing Hagar to Abraham
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Georgia O'Keeffe
Red Cannas
1927
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Chorus:

Zeus, Zeus, what shall I say?  Where should I begin 

making this prayer, this appeal to god,

and after speaking in loyalty,

neither too much nor too little, how should I finish?

For now the bloodstained edges

of man-slaughtering cleavers are either on the point

of bringing about the complete destruction

for ever of Agamemnon's house,

or he* will cause fire and light to be kindled

in honour of freedom, and will hold

the governing rulership of the city

and the great wealth of his fathers.

Such is the wrestling bout in which godlike Orestes,

after waiting out the previous round, is about to engage

alone against two opponents.  May it end in victory!

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

*Orestes