Proximate Picture Planes - I

William Henry Fox Talbot
Four Shelves of Books
1844
salted paper print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Andrea Palladio
Pantheon, Rome - Half-Section of Façade 
 (illustration to Quattro Libri dell'Architettura)
1581
anonymous woodcut after Palladio drawing
Hamburger, Kunsthalle

Joseph Beuys
Partitur / P für Aktion
ca. 1963-69
gouache on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Karl Ballenberger
Study of Gothic Stonework
ca. 1830
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Friedrich Maximilian Hessemer
Allegory of the Union of Upper and Lower Egypt
1829-30
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Robert Indiana
Love
1967
screenprint
Kunsthalle zu Kiel

Anonymous Artist after Polidoro da Caravaggio
Frescoes on the Façade of Palazzo Gaddi (later Palazzo Cesi) in Rome
ca. 1525-50
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jacques de La Villeglé
Rue Desprez Vercingétorix (La Femme)
1966
collage on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

John Melin and Anders Österlin
Moderna Museet
1961
offset-print (poster)
Röhsska Museet, Göteborg

Master of Grossgmain
Crucifixion with Saints
ca. 1475-80
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Joseph Santomaso
To Pontus
(presented to curator and collector Pontus Hultén)
1986
paint, chalk and collage on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Gilles-Marie Oppenord
Annotated Design for Paneling
before 1742
drawing, with added watercolor
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Koloman Moser
Design for Printed Textile
ca. 1905
drawing
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Maria Nordin
Untitled Shape
2017
watercolor on paper
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Franz von Zülow
Centaur
1953
paste-paper print
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Ad Reinhardt
Red Painting
1954
oil on canvas
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

How long, wretched soul, upborne by empty hopes nigh to the cold clouds, shalt thou build thee dream upon dream of wealth? Naught falls of its own accord into the possession of man. Pursue the gifts of the Muses, and leave these dim phantoms of the mind to fools.  

If Dionysus had come revelling with the Maenads and Satyrs to holy Olympus, looking just as Pylades the great artist played him in the ballet according to the true canons of the servants of the tragic Muse, Hera, the consort of Zeus, would have ceased to be jealous, and exclaimed: "Semele, thou didst pretend that Bacchus was thy son; 'twas I who bore him."

Page-eater, the Muses' bitterest foe, lurking destroyer, ever feeding on thy thefts from learning, why, black bookworm, dost thou lie concealed among the sacred utterances, producing the image of envy? Away from the Muses, far away! Convey not even by the sight of thee the suspicion of how they must suffer from ill-will.

I who once gushed with abundance of sweet water, have now lost my nymphs even to the last drop. For the murderer washed his bloody hands in my water, and tainted it with the stain. Ever since, the maidens have retired from the sunlight, exclaiming, "We nymphs mix with Bacchus alone, not with Ares."

All once counted Aristodice to be a proud mother, for six times had she been delivered of her womb's burden. But water vied with earth in afflicting her; for three sons perished by sickness, and the rest closed their eyes in the sea. The tearful woman is ever seen complaining like a nightingale by the gravestones, and upbraiding the deep like a halcyon.

Old Eubule, whenever she had set her heart on anything, used to pick up the nearest stone at her feet, as being Apollo's prophet, and try it in her hand. Whenever she did not want a thing, it was heavy; but if she wanted it, it was lighter than a feather. But she acted as it pleased her best, and if she came to grief she set down the unfairness of her hand's judgment to Phoebus.*

– from Book IX (Declamatory and Descriptive Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*this mode of seeking the counsel of the gods as to contemplated actions is mentioned also by Dio Chrysostom