Aloft

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Princess Karoline von Liechtenstein as Iris
1793
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Girolamo Rossi after Pier Leone Ghezzi
Putto with Banderole
1712
etching and engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Luca Giordano after Pietro da Cortona
Allegorical Figure
(copied from ceiling fresco at Palazzo Barberini)
ca. 1675
drawing
Musée Calvet, Avignon

Max Slevogt
Sketch for Arabian Nights Title-Page Illustration
ca. 1900
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist
Design for Cupid with Moose-Antlers as Wings
16th century
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Nicolas Bertin
Perseus and Andromeda
ca. 1720
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Ruggiero rescuing Angelica
(illustration to Ariosto's Orlando Furioso)
1757
etching and engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Anonymous Artist after Lodovico Carracci
Jupiter welcoming Hercules to Olympus
ca. 1575
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Annibale Carracci
The Angelelli Resurrection
1593
oil on canvas
(altarpiece seized as Napoleonic loot from Bologna)
Musée du Louvre

Pietro Faccini
Assumption of the Virgin
before 1602
drawing
Musée Calvet, Avignon

Eustache Le Sueur
Presentation in the Temple
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille

Pinturicchio and workshop
Mars and the Warriors
1492-94
fresco
Sala delle Sibille, Appartamento Borgia,
Musei Vaticani, Rome

Cornelis van Poelenburgh
Glorification of St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Cornelis Cort
Pentecost
1573
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Walter Ditz
South German Flight
1912
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jupp Wiertz
In 2 Days to North America!
1937
offset print (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Idiom of the Hero

I heard two workers say, "This chaos

Will soon be ended."

This chaos will not be ended,

The red and the blue house blended,

Not ended, never and never ended,

The weak man mended,

The man that is poor at night

Attended

Like the man that is rich and right.

The great men will not be blended . . .

I am the poorest of all.

I know that I cannot be mended,

Out of the clouds, pomp of the air,

By which at least I am befriended. 

– Wallace Stevens (1942)