Saturday, April 25, 2026

Dark Grounds - IV

Titian
Portrait of Guidobaldo II della Rovere, Duke of Urbino
1545
oil on panel
Yale University Art Gallery

El Greco
Portrait of humanist Antonio de Covarrubias
ca. 1597-1600
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Frans Pourbus the Younger
Portrait of Marie de Medici, Queen of France
1613
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Nicolas Tournier
An Apostle
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

Matthias Stom
St Gregory the Great
ca. 1635
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum Basel

Philippe de Champaigne
St Paul
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Musée Saint-Loup, Troyes

Elisabetta Sirani
Omphale, with the Club of Hercules
ca, 1660-61
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Rembrandt
Juno
ca. 1662-65
oil on canvas
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles

Jonathan Richardson, Senior
Portrait of Sir Andrew Fountaine
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Giacomo Ceruti (il Pitocchetto)
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1760
oil on canvas
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

Anton Graff
Portrait of Friedrich Johann Lorenz Meyer
ca. 1790
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Katharina Karolina Luja
Self Portrait
ca. 1828
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Dionysios Tsokos
Portrait of attorney Donatos Dimoulitsas of Corfu
ca. 1850
oil on paper
National Gallery, Athens

Gaston Casimir Saint-Pierre
Halima
ca. 1870-80
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Carolus-Duran
Head Study
ca. 1885
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Wilhelm Lachnit
Young Woman with Fur Coat
ca. 1925-26
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

On a Headless Statue – The work of art has lost what was required for judging it; for even it itself cannot inform us to whom it gave its head.

On a Statue of Priapus – Beware from afar off of the guardian set up in the kitchen garden.  I am such as thou seest me, O thou who goest past me, made of fig-wood, not polished with shagreen, nor carved by rule and measure, but by a shepherd's self-taught chisel.  Laugh foolishly at me, but take care not to damage Eucles' property or you may have to laugh grimly too.

On Tantalus carved on a Cup – He who once sat at the table of the gods, he who often filled his belly with nectar, now lusts for a mortal liquor, but the envious brew is ever lower than his lips.  "Drink," says the carving, "and learn the secret of silence; thus are we punished who are loose of tongue."

On a Monument on the Acropolis of Pergamus with Reliefs of the Labours of Heracles – Look, Heracles, thou of the countless labours, at these thy emprises, after achieving which thou didst go to Olympus, the house of the immortals; Geryon, the famous apples, the great task of Augeas, the horses, Hippolyte, the many-headed snake, the boar, the baying hound of Chaos, the wild beast of Nemea, the birds, the bull, the Maenalian hind.  But now, standing on the height of Pergamus, the inexpugnable city, defend the great sons of Telephus.

On Heracles and Antaeus – Who moulded this bronze that groans, and by the power of his art thus figured effort and daring?  The statue is alive, and I pity him who is in distress, and shudder at Heracles the bold and mighty; for he holds Antaeus sore pressed by the grip of his hands, and the giant doubled up seems even to be groaning. 

On a Portrait of King Lysimachus – Seeing the man's flowing locks, and the club, and the dauntless spirit in his eyes, and the fierce frown on his brow, seek for the lion's skin in the portrait, and if thou findest it, it is Heracles; but if not, this is the picture of Lysimachus. 

– from Book XVI (Epigrams of the Planudean Anthology) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1918)