Rapture

Anonymous French Artist
Pietà with God the Father, the Holy Spirit and Saints
18th century
oil on canvas
(altarpiece with modern plaster statue)
Église Sainte Marie de Sartène

Anonymous British Artist
Temporary Tomb erected for Lord Nelson
1805
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Anonymous American Photographer
The Silver Merchants
ca. 1850
daguerreotype
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous French Artist
Les trois dames de Gand
1800
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Artist
Sainte Valérie céphalophore, accompagnée de deux anges
ca. 1475-1500
limestone
Musée du Louvre

Diane Arbus
Thomas Hoving,
Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y.C.
1967
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Alessandro Longhi
Portrait of Almorò III Alvise Pisani and his Family
1758
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Alessandro Maganza
Study for Allegorical Scene 
before 1630
drawing
British Museum

René Magritte
Le Temps Menaçant
1929
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Master of the Giants (British painter)
Acrobatic Games
ca. 1780-1800
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Michael Menchaca
Three Figures confronting an Eagle Deity
2013
screenprint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Parrasio Micheli
Allegory on the Birth of the Infante
ca. 1575
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Andrea del Minga
Creation of Eve
ca. 1555-60
oil on panel
Galleria Palatina, Florence

Cathy de Monchaux
Cleft Foot
2000
brass, leather, mink, thread and chalk
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Giorgio Morandi
Natura Morta con Scatola
1957
watercolor and graphite on paper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Francesco Morandini (Il Poppi)
The Three Graces
ca. 1570
oil on copper
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Daidō Moriyama
Early Summer for the Young, Hayama, Japan
1966
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Lucy Ashton's Song

Look not thou on beauty's charming,

Sit thou still when kings are arming,

Taste not when the wine-cup glistens,

Speak not when the people listens,

Stop thine ear against the singer,

From the red gold keep thy finger,

Vacant heart and hand and eye,

Easy live and quiet die.

– Sir Walter Scott, from The Bride of Lammermuir (1819)

Earthen

John Michael Rysbrack
Edward Salter, aged six
1748
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Gustave Deloye
Young Woman of the 18th century
ca. 1870-80
terracotta
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Philippe-Laurent Roland
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1785-95
terracotta
Detroit Institute of Arts

Giuseppe Piamontini
Venus and Cupid
1711
terracotta
(modello for sculpture)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Giovanni Battista Foggini
David victorious over Goliath
1722
terracotta
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

attributed to Donatello
Madonna and Child
ca. 1410-15
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Italian Sculptor
Copy of the Belvedere Torso
16th century
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

workshop of Bartolomeo Ammanati
Bacchic Figure
ca. 1550
terracotta
Detroit Institute of Arts

Baccio da Montelupo
St John the Baptist
ca. 1500
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci)
Holy Family
ca. 1515
terracotta
(modello for painting)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Benedetto da Maino
Portrait of Filippo Strozzi
ca. 1475
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Pierre Puget
Hercules
ca. 1660
terracotta
Bode Museum, Berlin

Anonymous Austrian Sculptor
Lamentation
ca. 1515-20
terracotta relief
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jacopo Sansovino
Sacra Conversazione
ca. 1530-40
terracotta relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Amphoriskos
550 BC
terracotta
(miniature vessel excavated on Samos)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Louise Nevelson
Untitled
ca. 1947
painted terracotta, with metal rods
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

And Pericles the son of Xantippus, the principal man at the time of all Athens and most sufficient both for speech and action, gave his advice in such manner as followeth: "Men of Athens, I am still not only of the same opinion not to give way to the Peloponnesians (notwithstanding I know that men have not the same passions in the war itself which they have when they are incited to it but change their opinions with the events), but also I see that I must now advise the same things or very near to what I have before delivered.  And I require of you with whom my counsel shall take place that if we miscarry in aught, you will either make the best of it, as decreed by common consent, or if we prosper, not to attribute it to your own wisdom only.  For it falleth out with the events of actions, no less than with the purposes of man, to proceed with uncertainty, which is also the cause that when anything happeneth contrary to our expectation, we use to lay the fault on fortune.  That the Lacedaemonians, both formerly and especially now, take counsel how to do us mischief is a thing manifest.  For whereas it is said that in our mutual controversies we shall give and receive trials of judgment, and in the meantime either side hold what they possess, they never yet sought any such trial themselves, nor will accept of the same offered by us.  They will clear themselves of their accusations by war rather than by words, and come hither no more now to expostulate but to command."   

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Fifties Individuals

Philippe Halsman
Marlon Brando
1950
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philippe Halsman
Zsa Zsa Gabor
1951
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Richard Avedon
Buster Keaton
1952
gelatin silver print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

 

Elizabeth Catlett
Ethel Rosenberg
1952
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Carl Van Vechten
Leontyne Price
1952
photogravure
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Chim (David Seymour)
Kirk Douglas
1954
(inkjet print produced from original negative in 2006)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Gordon Parks
Gloria Vanderbilt, New York
1954
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Ben Shahn
J. Robert Oppenheimer
1954
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Leigh Wiener
Billie Holiday
1954
gelatin silver print
National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington DC

John Koch
Princess Margaret
1955
oil on panel
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Kay Bell Reynal
T.S. Eliot
1955
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Henry Koerner
Julie Harris
1955
oil on canvas
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Elmer Bischoff
Richard Diebenkorn
ca. 1956
ink on paper
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Leon Levinstein
West Side
1957
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Boris Artzybasheff
George Beadle
1958
tempera on panel
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Bernard Safran
Jean Thom
1958
oil on panel
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Man Ray
Naomi Savage
ca. 1959
color transparency back-coated with gouache
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from Near The New Whitney

In the Meatpacking District,

Not far from the new Whitney,

In a charming restaurant,

I showed how charming I can be.

I showed how blue my eyes can be. 

I showed I can be Dante first catching sight of Beatrice.

The maître d' was new to me.

The sudden sight of her, so gently lovely,

Threw me at the pressed-tin ceiling, where I stuck.

I asked her where I was, her name was Emily.

I don't know who the ceiling was.

I doubt pressed tin was what it was. 

I was moonstruck.

Now I could only look up.

American art used to be risky.

American art used to be frisky

And drink a lot of whisky.

I looked up at Emily, not far from the new Whitney.

Seventy years ago

There were violently drunkard painters downtown who,

Many of them, painted violently

In the Hamptons also.

Now they were in the splendid new Whitney, dead

Instead.

– Frederick Seidel (2018)