Forces - I

Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Cave-in at Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
albumen silver print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Caspar Luyken
Scene of Devastation
ca. 1700
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Wolfgang Petrovsky and Frank Voigt
On German History (Vertical)
1984
mixed media on panel
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Axel Revold
Night
1927
oil on canvas
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø

Sigmar Polke
Untitled
1996
emulsion paint on fabric
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Anonymous Photographer
Promenade on Lake Michigan
ca. 1912
collotype (postcard)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Albert Bierstadt
Gathering Storm in the Valley
1891
oil on canvas
Nordsee Museum, Husum, Germany

Louis Garneray
Shipwrecked
ca. 1835
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

James Ensor
Christ on the Sea of Galilee
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels

Georg Baselitz
Volkstanz Marode (Weary Folkdance)
1989
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Henri Edmond Cross
The Glade
1906
oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Frederick A. Greenleaf
Sand Cliffs, Old Road, Helena to Benton
ca. 1877-85
cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Marsden Hartley
Earth Cooling
1932
oil on cardboard
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Christian Rohlfs
Cemetery Wall in Weimar
1889
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle zu Kiel

Pierre-Jacques Volaire
Eruption of Vesuvius
1771
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Luc Simon
Les Ateliers - La Chute des Anges
1983-85
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

I hate Love. For why does the severe god not attack animals, but shoots his arrows at my heart? What profit is it for a god to burn up a man? Or what cause does he have to boast in wresting a prize from my head?

If anyone blames me, a skilled servant of Love, because I go about, my eyes armed with bird lime for the hunt, he should know that Zeus, and Hades, and the lord of the sea were slaves to violent desires. If the gods are so, and they tell men to follow the gods, what wrong do I do in learning the deeds of the gods?

You fell in love when you were rich, Sosicrates, but now that you are poor you are in love no longer: such a remedy hunger holds. Menophila, who once called you "sweetie" and "darling Adonis," now asks your name. "What man art thou, and whence, thy city where?" Truly you learned the hard way the saying, "He who has nothing has no friends."

Son of illustrious Megistocles, do not – not even if he seems to you more precious than your own two eyes, even if he gleams from the bath of the Graces – do not buzz about the lovely boy. He is neither gentle nor innocent, but courted by many, and no novice in love. Beware, my friend, and do not fan the flame.

In the middle of the night I deceived my husband and came, soaked by the pounding rain. Was it for this that we sit idle, talking, and do not go to bed as lovers ought to go to bed?

– from Book V (Amatory Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, edited and translated by W.R. Paton (1916), revised by Michael A. Tueller (2014)