Cerulean

Jasper Johns
Tango
1955
encaustic on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Léonard Limosin
Portrait of Guy Chabot, Baron de Jarnac
ca. 1540-45
enamel on copper
Frick Collection, New York

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of a Youth in Antique Dress
17th century
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Romain Cazes
Ariadne Abandoned
1847
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Stuart Davis
Self Portrait
1919
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Giuseppe Devers after Ary Scheffer
The Muse Euterpe
ca. 1860
porcelain plaque
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Richard Diebenkorn
Untitled
1970
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Mark Gertler
Portrait of a Young Woman
(possibly Dora Carrington)
1912
tempera and oil on canvas
Huntington Library and Art Museum,
San Marino, California

Bertha E. Jaques
Seed Form of Jimson Weed
1909
cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Stephen Kaltenbach
The Starlight Bowl
1968-69
ink and crayon on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Christian Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski
Portrait of Leopold III, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau
1758
pastel on paper
Schloss Mosigkau, Dessau

Jan van Eyck
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1428-29
oil on panel
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Eugène Jansson
Dawn over Riddarfjärden
1899
oil on canvas
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Ferdinand Hodler-
Transfiguration
ca. 1904
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Karl Mediz
Cypresses
1898
oil on canvas
Kunstsammlungen, Chemnitz

Robert Glenn Ketchum
Bald Eagle
1985
C-print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

On a Portrait of Galen – There was a time, Galen, when, owing to thee, Earth received men mortal and reared them in immortality.  The halls of tearful Acheron were bereaved by the force of thy healing hand.

On a Picture of the Physician Iamblichus – This is Iamblichus, sweetest among men, who reached old age without knowing the converse of Aphrodite; but practising medicine and teaching his skill to others, he did not hold out his hand to receive even righteous gain.

On a Picture of the Physician Praxagoras – The son of Phoebus himself, anointing his hand with juice of the all-healing herb, rubbed into thy breast, Praxagoras, the pain-stilling science of medicine.  Therefore thou knowest from gentle Hepione herself all woes that spring from long fevers, and what drugs it is fitting to lay on flesh cut by the knife.  Had mortals had sufficient of such healers, the boat heavy with the dead would never have crossed the ferry.   

On Oribasius the Physician – This is the great physician of the Emperor Julian, divine Oribasius, right worthy of this pious gift; for he had a wise mind like a bee, gathering from this place and that the flowers of former physicians.

On a Statue of Time by Lysippus – A. "Who and whence was the sculptor?"  B. "From Sicyon."  A. "And his name?"  B. "Lysippus."  A. "And who art thou?"  B. "Time who subdueth all things."  A. "Why dost thou stand on tip-toe?"  B. "I am ever running."  A. "And why hast thou a pair of wings on thy feet?"  B. "I fly with the wind."  A. "And why dost thou hold a razor in thy right hand?"  B. "As a sign to men that I am sharper than any sharp edge."  A. "And why does thy hair hang over thy face?"  B. "For him who meets me to take me by the forelock."  A. "And why, in Heaven's name, is the back of thy head bald?"  B. "Because none whom I have once raced by on my winged feet will now, though he wishes it sore, take hold of me from behind."  A. "And why did the artist fashion thee?"  B. "For your sake, stranger, and he set me up in the porch as a lesson."

On a Statue of Arion – Periander set up here this statue of Arion and the dolphin of the sea that swum together with him when he was perishing.  The story says of Arion, "We are killed by men and saved by fish."

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