Windows

Georg Friedrich Kersting
Volkmar Reinhard in his Study
ca. 1811
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ivar Jerven
Open Windows I
1986-87
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Barbara Bosworth
The View from the Living Room, Novelty, Ohio
2008
C-print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Caspar David Friedrich
View of the Elbe
from the artist's studio in Dresden
ca. 1805-1806
drawing
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Nicolas van Haften
Singers at a Window
before 1715
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Félix Vallotton
La Nuit
1895
woodcut
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

David Armstrong
Window, Berlin
1997
C-print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Lennart Durehed
Ithaca
1975
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Peter Joseph Krahe
Window Frame, Palazzo Farnese, Rome
ca. 1783-84
drawing
Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig

Carl Goebel
Antiquities Hall of the Lower Belvedere
1876
watercolor on paper
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Veslemøy Sparre Jansen
The Old Bank
2019
gouache on paper
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Wilhelm Schnarrenberger
Boulevard Montparnasse
1928
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Mannheim

Carl Schuch
Parisian Houses
ca. 1885-90
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Yannis Tsarouhis
Neon Cafe (Night)
1965-66
oil on canvas
National Gallery, Athens

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Coiffeur
1929
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Egon Schiele
Interior
1907
oil on card
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Eteocles:  You are praying for our walls to keep off the enemy attack? Then that will happen – so far as the gods are concerned. But then it is said that the gods of a captured city leave it. 

Chorus of Theban Maidens:  Never while I live may this assembled company

                                                  of gods desert us, nor may I behold this city

                                                  stormed through by the enemy, and its people

                                                  devoured by their fire.

Eteocles:  Please don't call on the gods while behaving imprudently. Obedience is the mother of Success and wife of the Saviour* – that's how the saying goes.   

Chorus:  True, but the power of god is even mightier:

                often amid troubles he sustains the helpless,

                even out of the direst straits when the clouds

                are hanging over their eyes. 

Eteocles:  This is the business of men, to offer slaughtered sacrifices to the gods when encountering the enemy; your business is to keep quiet and stay in your homes. 

Chorus:  It is thanks to the gods that we live in an unconquered city

                and that our wall keeps off the enemy horde. 

                What kind of resentment can find that offensive?

Eteocles:  I don't at all resent honouring the race of gods. But in order to avoid making our citizens lose heart, be calm and don't get too excessively frightened. 

Chorus:  As soon as I heard that unprecedented din
                I came in terrified fear to this citadel,
                this glorious divine abode. 

Eteocles:  Well then, if you learn of men wounded or dying, don't greet the news with wailing. That is what Ares feeds on – the killing of human beings. 

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

*i.e. Zeus (Soter)