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| Leopold Zinnögger Hazelnuts 1851 watercolor on paper Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Franz Théobald Horny Pumpkins, Pomegranates, Fig, Peach before 1824 watercolor and gouache on paper Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Georg Flegel Tulips ca. 1630 watercolor and gouache on paper Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin |
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| Anton Tomschik Studies of Apricots 1857 gouache on paper Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna |
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| August Rokert Ornithogalum umbellatum ca. 1840 watercolor on paper Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Katharina, Baroness von Röthlein Botanical Study 1819 watercolor on paper Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna |
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| Anonymous Dutch Artist Assorted Shells 17th century watercolor on paper Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden |
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| Bernd and Hilla Becher Cooling Towers 1963-72 gelatin silver prints Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands |
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| Jacques de Gheyn II Flies ca. 1600 drawing Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| Christo 56 Barrels 1977 acrylic paint on paper (design sketch for installation) Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands |
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| Jan Beutener Interior 1972 oil on canvas Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands |
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| Anonymous Printmaker Pressmark of Bartholomäus Westheimer (Basel) ca. 1540 woodcut (serpent and arrow) Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna |
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| Anonymous Printmaker Pressmark of Aldus Manutius (Venice) ca. 1500 woodcut and letterpress (dolphin and anchor) Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna |
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| Wenceslaus Hollar Muffs ca. 1645-46 etching Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig |
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| Laura Gilpin Nesting Tables made by Frank Gilpin ca. 1930 platinum print Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas |
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| Barnett Newman Tertia 1964 oil on canvas Moderna Museet, Stockholm |
In Ovid, Pygmalion is a sculptor who wants to fashion a woman after his own heart and falls in love with the statue he makes. He prays to Venus for a bride modeled after that image, and the goddess turns the cold marble into a living body. It is a myth that has naturally captivated the imagination of artists, the solemn and somewhat maudlin dreams of Burne-Jones no less than the irreverent mockery of Daumier. Without the underlying promise of this myth, the secret hopes and fears that accompany the act of creation, there might be no art as we know it. One of the most original young painters in England, Lucien [sic] Freud, wrote very recently: "A moment of complete happiness never occurs in the creation of a work of art. The promise of it is felt in the act of creation, but disappears towards the completion of the work. For it is then that the painter realizes that it is only a picture he is painting. Until then he had almost dared to hope that the picture might spring to life."
"Only a picture," says Lucien [sic] Freud. It is a motif we find in the whole history of Western art: Vasari tells of Donatello at work on his Zuccone, looking at it suddenly and threatening the stone with a dreadful curse, "Speak, speak – favella, favella, che ti venga il cacasangue!" And the greatest wizard of them all, Leonardo da Vinci, extolled the power of the artist to create. In that hymn of praise to painting, the Paragone, he calls the painter "the Lord of all manner of people and of all things." "If the painter wishes to see beauties to fall in love with, it is in his power to bring them forth, and if he wants to see monstrous things that frighten or are foolish or laughable or indeed to be pitied, he is their Lord and God."
– E.H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: a Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation (Princeton University Press, 1960).