Verticals - I

Siegfried Adam
Evening Light
1988
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Richard Gerstl
Mathilde Schönberg in the Garden
1908
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

August Macke
The Large Bright Shop Window
1912
oil on canvas
Sprengel Museum, Hannover

Henry Moore
Two Figures
1949
drawing, with added watercolor
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Charles Parrocel
Standing Figure
ca. 1720
drawing
Yale University Art Gallery

Pieter Schenck the Elder
Personification of Summer
ca. 1690
hand-colored mezzotint
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Comme des Garçons (Japan)
Ensemble with Blouse and Skirt
1997
nylon and polyester
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
City of Strasbourg
(opening from the Nuremberg Chronicle)
1493
woodcuts and letterpress
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Jeremias Paul Schweyer
after Bartholomeus Breenbergh
Ruinous Fragment of City Wall, Rome
ca. 1795
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Johann Jakob Schübler
Columns and Palms
ca. 1725
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Ian Hamilton Finlay
Urn (Garden Poem)
1986
lithograph
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Stephan Bundi
Così fan Tutte
2010
screenprint
(poster for Mozart opera)
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Georg Lemberger
Pillars of Bronze
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration from the "Luther" Bible)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Albert Haueisen
Hans with Sunflower
1931
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Mannheim

Wilhelm Friedrich Gmelin
Port of Brindisi seen from the end of the Appian Way
1788
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Moritz Bodenehr
Illuminated Obelisk
honoring the King and Queen of Sicily
ca. 1740
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Scene: The citadel of Thebes. A mound represents a shrine to the major gods of the city. One side-passage is imagined as leading to the lower town, the other to the walls and the battlefield. A crowd of armed Theban citizens is present. Eteocles (not in armour) enters, attended, from the town, to address them.

Eteocles:  Citizens of Cadmus' land, he who guards the city's fortunes, controlling the helm at its stern,* never letting his eyes rest in sleep, has to give the right advice for the situation.  For if we should be successful, the responsibility would be god's; but if on the other hand disaster were to strike (which may it not!) then Eteocles' name alone would be repeatedly harped on by the citizens throughout the town amid a noisy surge of terrified wailing – from which may Zeus the Defender, true to his title, defend the city of the Cadmeans!  This is the time when every one of you – including both those who have not yet reached the peak of young manhood, and those whom time has carried past it and who are feeding abundant bodily growth – must have a care for your city, as is right and proper, must come to its aid, to the aid of the altars of its native gods so as never to let their ties be obliterated, to the aid of your children, and to the aid of your Motherland, your most loving nurse; for when you were children crawling on her kindly soil, she generously accepted all the toil of your upbringing, and nurtured you, to become her shield-bearing inhabitants and be faithful to her in this hour of need.  And thus far, up to this day, god has inclined to the right side; we have been besieged within our walls all this time, but for the most part, thanks to the gods, the war is turning out well for us.  But now, as the prophet states – that shepherd of fowl, who with infallible skill observes birds of augury with his ears and his mind, without using fire** – this man, the master of this kind of prophecy, says that a great plan for an attack by the Achaeans upon the city is being discussed this night.  So get moving, all of you, to the battlements and gates of the walls – hurry, with your full armour!  Man the parapets, take your stand on the platforms of the walls, stand firm at the gate entrances, have good confidence, and don't be too afraid of this horde of foreigners.  God will bring success!

Exeunt citizens, making for the walls.

– Aeschylus, from Seven Against Thebes (467 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*as often in poetry, the city is imagined as a ship

**since the prophet is said to use his "ears and mind" he evidently does not see the flight of the birds, and the audience will readily identify him as the blind Tiresias making use of divination by augury as contrasted to "fire" (divination from the manner in which sacrifices burn on an altar)