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)