Prospect

Julius Paulsen
In the Bedroom
1891
oil on canvas
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Michael Pacher
St Augustine disputing with Heretics
ca. 1480
oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

William Orpen
The Orpens arrive at the Conders' Party
1905
watercolor on paper
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Irving Penn
Max Ernst and Dorothea Tanning
1947
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Allegretto Nuzi
Imago Pietatis
ca. 1350-60
tempera and gold on panel
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Palma il Giovane
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and St Sebastian
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon

Anonymous Printmaker after Andrea Palladio
Ground Plan of the Pantheon, Rome
(illustration to Quattro Libri dell'Architettura)
1581
woodcut
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Bernard Picart
Académie
1723
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Pablo Picasso
Woman
1930
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Jean-Marc Nattier
Angélique Louise Sophie, marquise de Baglion
 as the goddess Flora
1746
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Franz Xaver Petter
Bouquet of Flowers
1845
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Lasse Persson
Lots of Stuff
1988-89
acrylic on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Nicholaes Eliasz Pickenoy
Portrait of a Lady
1633
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Art

Johann Andreas Benjamin Nothnagel
Rabbi Naphtali Ben Cohen with Pupils and Apparition
1778
drawing
(print study)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Statue of Jacob Cats
1922
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Agostino Musi after Baccio Bandinelli
News is brought to the Gods on Mount Olympus
ca. 1520-30
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

from Academic Discourse at Havana

Canaries in the morning, orchestras

In the afternoon, ballrooms at night. That is

A difference, at least, from nightingales,

Jehovah and the great sea-worm. The air

Is not so elemental nor the earth

So near.

              But the sustenance of the wilderness

Does not sustain us in the metropoles.

                         *          *        * 

Is the function of the poet here mere sound,

Subtler than the ornatest prophecy,

To stuff the ear? It causes him to make

His infinite repetition and alloys

Of pick of ebon, pick of halcyon.

It weights him with nice logic for the prim.

As part of nature he is part of us.

His rarities are ours: may they be fit

And reconcile us to our selves in those

True reconciling, dark, pacific words,

And the adroiter harmonies of their fall.

– Wallace Stevens (1935)