Slice

David Bailly
Portrait of artist Crispijn de Passe the Younger
1624
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Leandro Bassano
Prophets with Cherubs making Music in Clouds
before 1622
pastel on paper
Musée Calvet, Avignon

Jacopo de' Barbari
Figure of Victory among Trophies
ca. 1498-1503
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Édouard Baldus
Statues by Germain Pilon
(from a monument to Henri II and Catherine de' Medici)
ca. 1859
albumen print
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Johannes Baeck
The Prodigal Son
1637
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Irina Bäcksbacka
Still Life
1939
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Bartolomeo di David
Grotesque
before 1545
gouache on paper
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Yto Barrada
Rue de la Liberté, Tangier
2000
C-print on aluminum
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

Marco Basaiti
Virgin and Child
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Bacchiacca (Francesco Ubertini)
Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1540-50
oil on panel
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Derick Baegert
Blessed Gertrud von Altenberg distributing Alms
ca. 1490
tempera and oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund

Hans Baldung
Baptism of Christ
ca. 1518
tempera and oil on panel
(central panel of triptych)
Historisches Museum, Frankfurt

Frans Badens
St Sebastian
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

Jacob Adriaensz Backer
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Jacob Adriaensz Backer
Model posed as Dead Christ
ca. 1640
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Baccio Baldini after Sandro Botticelli
Dante and Virgil viewing Apparition of Beatrice
1481
engraving
(illustration to La Divina Commedia published at Florence)
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

To understand this psychological phenomenon, we have to remember two things about Suger that again place him in diametrical contrast to the highborn convert, St. Bernard.  First, Suger entered the monastery, not as a novice devoting himself to monastic life of his own free will, or at least with the comprehension of a relatively mature intelligence, but as an oblate dedicated to Saint Denis when a boy of nine or ten.  Second, Suger the schoolmate of young noblemen and princes of the blood, was born – no one knows where – of very poor and very lowly parents.  Many a boy would have developed into a shy or bitter person under such circumstances.  The future abbot's extraordinary vitality resorted to what is known as overcompensation.  Instead of either yearningly clinging to or drastically breaking away from his natural relatives, Suger kept them at a friendly distance and, later on, made them participate, in a small way, in the life of the Abbey.  Instead of either concealing or resenting his humble birth, Suger almost gloried in it – though only to glory all the more in his adoption by St. Denis.  "For who am I, or what is my father's house?" he exclaims with young David.  And his literary works as well as his official documents fairly bristle with such phrases as: "I, insufficient with regard to family as well as knowledge"; or: "I, who succeeded to the administration of this church against the prospects of merit, character, and family"; or (in the words of Hannah, mother of Samuel): "I, the beggar, whom the strong hand of the Lord has lifted up from the dunghill."   . . .   This Suger, conceiving of himself as the adopted child of St. Denis, came to divert to the Abbey the whole amount of energy, acumen and ambition nature had bestowed upon him.  Completely fusing his personal aspirations with the interests of the "mother church," he may be said to have gratified his ego by renouncing his identity: he expanded himself until he had become identical with the Abbey. 

– Erwin Panofsky, from Abbot Suger on the Abbey Church of St. Denis and its Art Treasures (1946)