Bathers

Charles Verlat
Bathing Woman spied on by Deer
before 1890
oil on panel
private collection

Carl Wilhelm Kolbe the Elder
Bathing Woman
before 1835
etching
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Benjamin West
Musidora and companions Sacharissa and Amoret at their bath
espied by Damon
1795
oil on canvas
private collection

Pablo Picasso
Bathers in a Forest
1908
watercolor and gouache on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Lodewijk de Vadder
Bathers
before 1655
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg

Anonymous Flemish Painter
Diana and Nymphs Bathing
late 16th century
oil on copper
Palazzo Barberini, Rome

Keith Vaughan
Bathers by a Grey Sea
1947
oil on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Hans Gasser
Bather in Niche
before 1868
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Étienne-Maurice Falconet
Bather
1757
marble
Musée du Louvre

František Kupka
Bather
1906
pastel on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Massimo Campigli
Bathers
1952
lithograph
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Giacomo Francia
St Elizabeth with young St John the Baptist
bathing the Christ Child supported by the Virgin
ca. 1510-20
engraving
British Museum

Joan Brown
Getting Ready for the Bath
1961
oil on canvas
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Antoine-Laurent Dantan
Bather with Dog
1833
marble
Musée du Louvre

Eugène Jansson
Navy Bathhouse
1907
oil on canvas
Thiel Gallery, Stockholm

Hans Unger
Stadtbad Aschersleben
1906
lithograph (poster for public baths)
private collection

Franz von Zülow
The Bath
1922
ink and pastel on paper
private collection

Song

The feathers of the willow

Are half of them grown yellow

    Above the swelling stream;

And ragged are the bushes,

And rusty now the rushes,

    And wild the clouded gleam.

The thistle now is older,

His stalk begins to mouler,

    His head is white as snow;

The branches all are barer,

The linnet's song is rarer,

    The robin pipeth now.

– Richard Watson Dixon (1864)

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1984)

Richard Slee
Bowl
1984
glazed earthenware
Art Institute of Chicago

Ralph Gibson
Untitled
1984
C-print
San Diego Museum of Art

Ralph Gibson
Untitled
1984
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Nancy Graves
5745
1984
screenprint
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Christie van der Haak
Madonna no. 8
1984
acrylic on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Willem De Kooning
Untitled IX
1984
oil on canvas
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas

Robert Motherwell
Elegy with Opening
1984
acrylic on canvas
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

Daido Moriyama
Rose
1984
gelatin silver print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Mark Morrisroe
Nymph-O-Maniac Promo Still, Spectacular Studios
1984
C-print
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Manuel Neri
Carrara no. 7
1984
watercolor on paper
San Diego Museum of Art

Louise Nevelson
Program Design for opera Orfeo ed Euridice
1984
watercolor on paper
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Diane Gamboa
Untitled
1984
screenprint
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Benjamin Cañas
Mujer sobre sofá rojo
1984
oil on canvas
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Judy Dater
Woman with Bomb #1
1984
gelatin silver print
San Jose Museum of Art, California

Jan Saudek
The Target (Death of a Soldier)
1984
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Jan Saudek
The Target (Death of a Soldier)
1984
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

from Shorts

Behold the manly mesomorph

Showing his bulging biceps off,

Whom social workers love to touch,

Though the loveliest girls do not care for him much.

Pretty to watch with bat or ball,

An Achilles, too, in a bar-room brawl,

But in the ditch of hopeless odds,

The hour of desertion by brass and gods,

Not a hero. It is the pink-and-white

Fastidious, almost girlish, in the night

When the proud-arsed broad-shouldered break and run,

Who covers their retreat, dies at his gun.

– W.H. Auden (ca. 1950)

Value

Hans Lesker
Self Portrait
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Lenbachhaus Munich

Lucas van Leyden
Self Portrait
ca. 1525-26
oil on panel
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Carl Goebel
Portrait of artist Josef Klieber
1844
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Govert Flinck
Head of a Man
ca. 1650
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giandomenico Tiepolo after Giambattista Tiepolo
Head Study
ca. 1772-73
etching and engraving
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Tobias Stimmer
Portrait of condottiero Ugoccione della Faggiuola
ca. 1570
woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg

Paul Cézanne
Self Portrait
ca. 1878-80
oil on canvas
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Wenceslaus Hollar after Karel Škréta
Head of a Young Man
1635
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Antonio Tempesta
Julius Caesar
1596
etching
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Henry Jones Thaddeus
Portrait of Corsican Fisherboy
1897
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Leopold Stolba
Spanish Nobleman
ca. 1890
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giambattista Moroni
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1550
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Ferdinand Heilbuth
The Reader
1856
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of artist Tommaso Salini
1625
etching
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Anonymous German Artist
Portrait Study of a Youth
ca. 1510-20
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Christoph Unterberger
Grotesque Mask
before 1798
watercolor and gouache on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Antony

     I thought how those white arms would fold me in,

     And strain me close, and melt me into love;

     So pleased with that sweet image, I sprung forwards,

     And added all my strength to every blow. 

Cleopatra

     Come to me, come, my soldier, to my arms!

     You've been too long away from my embraces;

     But when I have you fast, and all my own,

     With broken murmurs and with amorous sighs

     I'll say you were unkind, and punish you,

     And mark you red with many an eager kiss.

Antony

     My brighter Venus!

Cleopatra                      O my greater Mars!

Antony

     Thou join'st us well, my love!

     Suppose me come from the Phlegraean plains,

     Where gasping giants lay, cleft by my sword,

     And mountain tops pared off each other blow

     To bury those I slew.  Receive me, goddess!

     Let Caesar spread his subtle nets, like Vulcan:

     In thy embraces I would be beheld

     By Heaven and earth at once,

     And make their envy what they meant their sport.

     Let those who took us blush; I would love on

     With awful state, regardless of their frowns,

     As their superior god.

     There's no satiety of love in thee:

     Enjoyed, thou still art new; perpetual spring

     Is in thy arms; the ripened fruit but falls,

     And blossoms rise to fill its empty place,

     And I grow rich by giving.

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Derived

Piet Ouborg
Bright and Black Shining
1952
oil on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Louise Bourgeois
Untitled
1952
painted wood and plaster
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Raoul Dufy
Music and the Pink Violin
1952
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Charlotte Perriand for Ateliers Jean Prouvé
Maison de la Tunisie Bench-Bookshelf
1952
lacquered steel, aluminum and pine
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Henri Matisse
Memory of Oceania
1952
painted paper collage on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Jackson Pollock
No. 6
1952
oil and enamel on canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Grace Hartigan
The Persian Jacket
1952
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Robert Rauschenberg
Postcard Self Portrait - Black Mountain (II)
1952
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

François Morellet
Cercles et demi-cercles
1952
oil on panel
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Robert Motherwell
Castile (España)
1952
oil on panel
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Barbara Hepworth
Head (Elegy)
1952
wood and string
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

William Heick
Hats
1952
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Ben Nicholson
June 4 52 (tableform)
1952
oil on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Fernand Léger
Untitled
1952
glazed terracotta relief mounted on wood
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

René Magritte
Les Valeurs Personnelles
1952
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Ad Reinhardt
Abstract Painting (Red)
1952
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ellsworth Kelly
Fête à Torcy
1952
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

from Marvel of Marvels

O saints, my beloved, now mouldering to mould in the mould,

Shall I see you lift your heads, see your cerements unrolled,

See with these very eyes? who now in darkness and cold

Tremble for the midnight cry, the rapture, the tale untold . . .

– Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)