Forms

Jan Weenix
Merops apiaster (European Bee-eater)
ca. 1670
watercolor on paper
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Leonaert Bramer
Study of Camels
before 1674
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Cornelis Saftleven
Studies of Boar's Head
before 1681
drawing
British-Museum

Eugène Verboeckhoven
Sheep in Manger
1858
oil on panel
Haggin Museum, Stockton, California

James Ward
A Bat
before 1859
watercolor on paper
Yale Center for British Art

Louis Lumière
Peacock
ca. 1907
autochrome
Achenbach Foundation, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Louis Wain
Gothic Cat
ca. 1925
gouache on paper
Wellcome Collection, London

Giorgio de Chirico
Stampede
1935
watercolor on paper
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Francis Bacon
Study of a Dog
1953
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Kou Inose
Aomori
1983
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Daryl Trivieri
Map Turtle
1990
acrylic on canvas
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Anselm Kiefer
Untitled
before 2008
gouache on paper with photo-collage
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Kjell Torriset
Hare
2010
acrylic on canvas
private collection

Peter Tillberg
Untitled
ca. 2010
oil on canvas
private collection

David Pearce
Monkey at the Door
before 2012
acrylic on board
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Eugenie Vronskaya
Blue Horse
2024
watercolor on paper
private collection

Patricia Watwood
Requiem for a Black Squirrel
2024
oil on paper
private collection

Snow

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was

Spawning snow and pink roses against it

Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:

World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,

Incorrigibly plural.  I peel and portion

A tangerine and spit the pips and feel

The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world

Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –

On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands –

There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

– Louis MacNeice (1935)