Friday, October 10, 2025

From Above - I

Jules-Léon Flandrin
Le Bal Bullier
1931
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Erich Heckel
Studio Scene
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Loes van der Horst
Window Seat 3
2002
watercolor on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Kristoffer Zetterstrand
The Game
2009
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Louis-Léopold Boilly
Trompe l'oeil Still Life
ca. 1808
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Pierre Bonnard
Fish on a Plate
1921
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Victor Arimondi
Harold G., model
1989
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Tor Bjurström
Still Life
ca. 1921
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Diego Rivera
Still Life with Liquor Bottle
1915
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Henri Matisse
The Red Carpet
1906
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Johann August Preusse
Coffee Table
ca. 1930-40
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Juan Gris
Siphon, Glass and Newspaper
1916
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Karl Andersson
Hepaticas
1939
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Ludwig von Hofmann
Southern Coast
ca. 1898-1900
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gustave Caillebotte
Man docking his Skiff
1878
oil on canvas
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Albin Egger-Lienz
Mountain Reapers
1907
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Chorus:

Let the tears fall loudly 
for our departed master
at this stronghold of the good, which averts
the abominable pollution of the wicked,
now the drink-offerings have been poured.
Hear, I pray you, revered one! Hear, my master,
in the gloominess of your heart!
Ototototototoi!
Oh, if only there would come a man, mighty with the spear,
to set the house free again, brandishing in his hands
Scythian weapons* in the work of war
and wielding a sword, of one piece with its hilt, for close fighting!

Electra: Now my father has the drink-offerings – the earth has swallowed them; but here is something new about which I want to share a word with you. 

Chorus: Speak out; my heart is leaping with fear.

Electra: [pointing to the lock left by Orestes] I see this cut lock of hair on the tomb.  

Chorus: From what man, or what slim-waisted maiden?

Electra: There is nobody who could have cut it except myself. 

Chorus: Yes, those who ought to have mourned him with hair-offerings are his enemies. 

Electra: [picking up the lock] And another thing – this looks very similar –  

Chorus: To whose hair? That's what I want to know.

Electra: That's easy for anyone to guess and form an opinion. 

Chorus: So how can I, old as I am, learn from someone younger? 

Electra: [holding the lock up next to her own head] It greatly resembles my own.

Chorus: You mean this was a secret gift from Orestes? 

Electra: It looks very much like his locks. 

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

*i.e. bow and arrows