Opaque

Anonymous Artist after Andrea del Sarto
Angel announcing the Birth of St John the Baptist
ca. 1625-35
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Eric Gill
Torso
1916
Bath Stone
Wellcome Collection, London

Théodore Géricault
Sheet of Studies
before 1824
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Otto Lange
Exhibition of Dresden Art
1925
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Otto Lange
Exhibition of Dresden Art
1925
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Antoine Coypel
Study for The Triumph of Venus
ca. 1698-1700
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Domenico Beccafumi
Scene at a Forge
ca. 1530-35
woodcut
(illustration to De la Pirotechnia
by Vannoccio Biringuccio)
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Albrecht Dürer
Designs for Pendant Jewels
(Serpent and Lion)
ca. 1515-17
drawing
British Museum

Francesco Francia (Francesco Raibolini)
Apollo Belvedere
ca. 1510
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gerrit van Honthorst
Christ healing the Sick
ca. 1630
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Jacopo da Empoli (Jacopo Chimenti)
Figure Study
ca. 1590
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Ioannis Kossos
Psyche
1858
marble
National Gallery, Athens

Karl von Blaas
Anatomical Study of Cadaver
1832
drawing
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Erhard Altdorfer
The Great Fir Tree
ca. 1530-35
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Peter Flötner
Design for a Bed
before 1546
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Axel Fridell
Self Portrait III
1917
drypoint
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Poem Written at Morning

A sunny day's complete Poussiniana

Divide it from itself. It is this or that

And it is not. 

             By metaphor you paint
A thing. Thus, the pineapple was a leather fruit,
A fruit for pewter, thorned and palmed and blue,

To be served by men of ice.

                                             The senses paint

By metaphor. The juice was fragranter

Than wettest cinnamon. It was cribled pears

Dripping a morning sap. 

                                       The truth must be

That you do not see, you experience, you feel,

That the buxom eye brings merely its element 

To the total thing, a shapeless giant forced

Upward.

              Green were the curls upon that head.

– Wallace Stevens (1942)