Incarnations

Georg Petel
Venus and Cupid (detail)
ca. 1622-24
ivory
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Georg Petel
Venus and Cupid (detail)
ca. 1622-24
ivory
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Georg Petel
Venus and Cupid
ca. 1622-24
ivory
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Andrea Piccinelli (Andrea del Brescianino)
Venus
ca. 1520-25
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Lorenzo di Credi
Venus
ca. 1490
tempera and oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Anonymous French Artist (Fontainebleau)
Toilette of Venus
ca. 1550
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Christophe-Gabriel Allegrain
Venus emerging from the Bath
1767
marble
(given by Louis XV to Madame du Barry)
Musée du Louvre

Anonymous French Sculptor
Venus Marina
ca. 1550
bronze
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
Kansas City, Missouri

Guillaume Coustou the Younger
Venus
1769
terracotta
Musée du Louvre

Bertel Thorvaldsen
Vénus à la pomme
ca. 1805
marble
Musée du Louvre

John Beasley Greene
Venus de Milo on Rooftop in Paris
ca. 1852-53
waxed-paper negative
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Francisco Matto
Venus
1968
partly-painted wood
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Domenico Beccafumi
Venus and Cupid
1519
oil on panel
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, West Midlands

Benjamin West
Cupid stung by a Bee, comforted by Venus
1774
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Simone Peterzano
Venus and Cupid with Two Satyrs in a Landscape
ca. 1570-73
oil on panel
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

Jacob van Loo
Allegory with Venus and Cupid
1654
oil on copper
Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky

Annibale Carracci
Venus with Satyr and Amorini
ca. 1587-88
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

from Journey to Iceland

The blood moves also by crooked and furtive inches,

Asks all your questions: 'Where is the homage? When

        Shall justice be done? O who is against me?

        Why am I always alone?'

Present then the world to the world with its mendicant shadow;

Let the suits be flash, the Minister of Commerce insane;

        Let jazz be bestowed on the huts, and the beauty's

        Set cosmopolitan smile.

For our time has no favorite suburb; no local features

Are those of the young for whom all wish to care;

        The promise is only a promise, the fabulous

        Country impartially far. 

– W.H. Auden (1936)