Acid Tones - II

Rufino Tamayo
Profile of a Man
1964
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Per Krohg
Woman in Grey with Gold
1919
oil on canvas
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø

Anonymous French Artist
Shelves with Art Supplies
19th century
oil on canvas
Musée de la Chartreuse, Douai

Anonymous American Artist
Western Insurance Co. of Buffalo
ca. 1866-71
chromolithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Jean-François Bony
Fruit and Flowers
1815
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Armand Cambon
Galel
ca. 1864
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

William Christenberry
Grave with Egg-Carton Cross
Hale County
1975
C-print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Gustaf Wernersson Cronquist
Untitled (Peaches)
ca. 1920
autochrome
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Paul-Elie Gernez
Nu au Coquillage
1934
pastel on paper
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Auguste Herbin
Still Life with Coffee-Grinder
ca. 1912-13
watercolor on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Berlin Street Scene
ca. 1914
drawing (colored chalks)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Maximilien Luce
Bread Line
ca. 1918
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Marc Lafargue
Small Library
ca. 1920-25
oil on cardboard
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Master of Grossgmain
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1480
oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Albert Marquet
Apples on a Plate
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Stephan Bundi
Tartuffe
2008
screenprint (poster)
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Chorus:

We shall soon know about the beacon-watches and fire-relays of the traveling light-signals, whether they are indeed telling the truth or whether the coming of this joyful light has beguiled our minds like a dream.  I see, coming here from the seashore, a herald, his head shaded with a wreath of olive; and the thirsty dust, the sister and neighbour of mud, testifies to me that he will not signal voicelessly with fire-smoke, kindling a flame with mountain timber, but will say something that will either more definitely proclaim rejoicing for us, or – but I abhor speaking of the opposite alternative: may this be a happy addition to the apparently happy news already come – and whoever expresses his prayer for this city differently, may he himself reap the fruit of his mind's perversity!

Enter Herald. He falls down and kisses the ground.

Hail, soil of my fathers, land of Argos!  On this day, after nearly ten years, I have come back to you, achieving one of my hopes, after the shipwreck of so many: for I never thought that I would die in this Argive land and be able to share my beloved family tomb.  Now greeting to my land, [raising his hands to sun and sky] greeting to the light of the sun and to Zeus supreme over the land, to the Pythian lord – and please no longer shoot the shafts of your bow at us; you showed us quite enough hostility by the Scamander; but now, lord Apollo, become a saviour and a healer.  And I address all the Assembled Gods, and especially the protector of my own office, Hermes, the Herald whom heralds love and revere, and the heroes who sent us forth, praying that they may receive back with favour the army, or what the war has spared of it.  

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

Acid Tones - I

Anonymous Printmaker
Meteorite Crater near Winslow, Arizona
ca. 1930
postcard
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Stephan Bundi
Macbeth
2002
screenprint (poster)
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Alban Chambon
Decorative Tile
ca. 1905
glazed ceramic
Musée Fin-de-Siècle, Brussels

Richard Diebenkorn
Berkeley No. 38
1955
oil on canvas
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Espen Gleditsch
Faded Remains (Ilioneus)
2017
pigment print
KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo

Paul Graeb
Biedermeier Interior
ca. 1885
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Wil Howard
Künstler Redoute
1914
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Henri-Gabriel Ibels
Figures in a Meadow
ca. 1905
oil on cardboard
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Fernand Léger
Composition with Profile
1926
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Koloman Moser
Venus in the Grotto
ca. 1914
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Simon Saint-Jean
Still Life in a Landscape
ca. 1850-60
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Paul Outerbridge
Party Mask with Shells
1936
tricolor carbro print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Andy Warhol
Marilyn
1967
screenprint
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Jan Wiegers
Portrait of Anton Constandse
1924
oil on canvas
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Ventura Salimbeni
Holy Trinity with St Peter and St Bernard
ca. 1695
oil on canvas (altarpiece)
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

Johann Georg Platzer
Samson's Revenge
ca. 1730-40
oil on copper
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Chorus:

The talk of the citizens, mixed with anger, is a dangerous thing:

it is the equivalent of a publicly ordained curse:

I have an anxiety that waits to hear 

of something happening under cover of night.

For the gods do not fail to take aim

against those who have killed many, and in time

the black Furies enfeeble him

who has been fortunate against justice,

reversing his fortune and corroding

his life, and when he comes

to the land of the unseen, he has no protection.

And to be excessively praised

is dangerous: a thunderbolt

is launched from the eyes of Zeus.

I prefer a prosperity that attracts no envy:

may I neither be a sacker of cities,

nor myself be captured and see

my life subjected to another. 

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

Heavy Titles - IV

Kerstin Bernhard
Signage going up in Berlin for Greta Garbo
starring in the film Queen Christina
1934
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Paul Baudry
Sketch for an Allegorical Figure of Jurisprudence
1880
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Eugène Carrière
Priam imploring Achilles for the Body of Hector
(scene from the Iliad)
1876
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Heinrich Anton Dahling
Käthchen von Heilbronn and Count Wetter vom Ray
(scene from The Trial by Fire, drama by Heinrich von Kleist)
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
Saint Richardis of Swabia,
widow of Charles le Gros, taking the Veil
ca. 1790
etching
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Christian Berentz
Still Life with Relief Fragment
from the Ara Pacis Augustae, Rome
ca. 1715-20
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Abraham Bloemaert
Apollo disguised as a Shepherd,
with Mercury and Battus approaching
(scene from the Metamorphoses of Ovid)
ca. 1587-88
drawing
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Hugo Birger
Interior of the Parlor
of Pontus and Göthilda Fürstenberg,
illuminated by Electricity
1902
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Philippe de Champaigne
Adam and Eve mourning the Death of Abel
ca. 1656
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Carlo Crivelli
Enthroned Virgin and Child giving Keys
to the Apostle Peter, attended by Saints
ca. 1488
tempera on panel
(altarpiece)
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Nils Jakob Blommér
After defeating Loki, Heimdall returns Brisingamen (necklace of fire) to Freyja
(scene from Norse mythology)
1846
oil on canvas
Malmö Konstmuseum, Sweden

Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Family of Beggars in the Ruins of the Colosseum
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Franz Ludwig Catel
Pompey's Visit to Cicero's Villa near Pozzuoli
1828-29
oil on canvas
Bildgalerie von Sanssouci, Potsdam

Thomas Blanchet
Design for Allegorical Fountain
honoring the Duc de Bourgogne
ca. 1682
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Simone Cantarini (il Pesarese)
Jupiter, Pluto and Neptune honoring the Arms of Cardinal Scipione Borghese
ca. 1630
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Brassaï
Couple d´amoureux
dans un petit café parisien, Quartier Italie
ca. 1930
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

In the course of time their athletic contest, the Games of the Dead, took place.  The judges were Achilles, who was holding the office for the fifth time, and Theseus, holding it for the seventh.  I shall summarize the events; a full report would take a long time.  The wrestling was won by Caprus the Heraclid, who beat Odysseus for the title.  The boxing was a draw between Areius the Egyptian, who is buried in Corinth, and Epeius.  They have no pancratium, and I cannot now recall who won the race.  In poetry, Homer was really much the best; Hesiod won, though.  The prize for every winner was a garland of peacock feathers plaited.

Just after the games were finished, news was brought that those who were being punished in the abode of the wicked had broken their chains and overpowered their guard and were advancing upon the island, under Phalaris of Acragas, Busiris the Egyptian, Diomede the Thracian, and Sciron and Pityocamptes and their followers.  On hearing this, Rhadamanthus marshaled the heroes on the beach, giving the command to Theseus, Achilles and Ajax the son of Telamon (now restored to sanity).  

– Lucian, from A True Story (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by B.P. Reardon (1989)

Heavy Titles - II

Hans Rottenhammer
Phaethon driving the Sun-Chariot awry and scorching the Earth
1604
oil on copper
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Franz Radziwill
The Fatal Crash of Karl Buchstätter
1928
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Bertel Thorvaldsen
Dante and Virgil touring Hell on the back of Geryon
(scene from the Inferno)
ca. 1800
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pietro Testa
Personifications of the Heavenly Spheres surrounding the Earth
ca. 1642-44
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Knut Rumohr
Aggressive Form
1972
tempera on canvas
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Paul Scheurich
Modeausstellung der Bekleidungsindustrie
1912
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Henri Rousseau
Representatives of Foreign Powers
assembled to honor the French Republic
1907
oil on canvas
Musée Picasso, Paris

Piero di Cosimo
Virgin and Child enthroned
with St Dominic, St Peter, St John the Baptist and St Nicolas of Bari
ca. 1481-85
tempera and oil on panel
(altarpiece)
Saint Louis Art Museum

Thomas Rowlandson
Interior of Library with a Meeting of the Bluestocking Club
ca. 1810
drawing, with added watercolor
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Max Slevogt
Requiem Mass for deceased Knights of Saint George
1908
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Wilhelm Tischbein
Two Ancient Heroes returning Home with Spoils of the Hunt
1786
watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Neal Preston
A Star is Born - Photography and Rock since Elvis
2010
exhibition poster
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Roman Empire
Julia Domna, Septimius Severus and sons Geta and Caracalla
(Geta defaced after his murder by Caracalla in 212)
AD 200
tempera on panel
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Adalbert Franz Seligmann
Demonstration in the Surgical Theater
at Vienna General Hospital
ca. 1888-90
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Luc Simon
Les Ateliers - A part toi je n'ai plus rien à dire
1983-85
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Charley Toorop
Clown in the Ruins of Rotterdam
1940-41
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

I should like to describe the novel and unusual things I noticed during my stay on the Moon.  First of all, they are born not of woman but of man; their marriages are of male with male, and they do not even know the word "woman" at all.  Up to the age of twenty-five they all act as female partners, and thereafter as husbands.  Pregnancy occurs not in the womb but in the calf of the leg, for after conception the calf grows fat.  After a time they cut it open and bring out a lifeless body, which they lay out with its mouth open facing the wind and bring to life.  I imagine that this is the origin of the Greek word "calf,"* inasmuch as on the Moon it is this part of the body that produces young, and not the belly.  But I shall tell you about something more marvelous yet.  There is on the Moon a kind of men called Treemen, and the manner of their generation is as follows.  They cut off a man's right testicle and plant it in the ground; from it there grows an enormous tree of flesh, like a phallus.  It has branches and foliage, and its fruit is acorns as long as the forearm.  When they are ripe, they harvest them and carve men from them, adding genitals of ivory, or of wood for the poorer ones; these are what they use to consummate their male marriages.

*the Greek word for "calf of the leg" is literally "belly of the leg"

– Lucian, from A True Story (2nd century AD), translated from Greek by B.P. Reardon (1989)