Rites

attributed to Alessandro Maganza
Scene of Pagan Sacrifice
before 1630
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

workshop of Peter Paul Rubens
Interpreting the Sacrifice
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Jan Steen
Sacrifice of Iphigenia
1671
oil on canvas
Leiden Collection, New York

Virgil Solis
Iphigenia rescued from Sacrifice
ca. 1550-60
woodcut
(illustration to the Metamorphoses of Ovid)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Louis Billotey
Study for Sacrifice of Iphigenia
1935
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Virgil Solis
Sacrifice of Polyxena
ca. 1550-60
woodcut
(illustration to the Metamorphoses of Ovid)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Pietro Antonio Novelli
Allegorical Scene of Pagan Sacrifice
ca. 1780-90
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Jacopo de' Barbari
Sacrifice to Priapus
ca. 1501-1503
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Johann Anton Ramboux
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
ca. 1820
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Clemens-Sels Museum, Neuss, Germany

Georg Lemberger
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to the "Luther" Bible)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Paul Troger
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
before 1762
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Kerstiaen de Keuninck
Landscape with Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
ca. 1600
oil on panel
Kunstmuseum Basel

Antoine Coypel
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
ca. 1700
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Giulio Cesare Procaccini
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
before 1625
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Pietro Palmieri the Elder
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac
ca. 1795
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Matthias Stom
Abraham's Sacrifice of Isaac 
ca. 1630-40
oil on canvas
Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica

The same winter, the Potidaeans, unable any longer to endure the siege, seeing the invasion of Attica by the Peloponnesians could not make them rise and seeing their victual failed and that they were forced, amongst divers other things done by them for necessity of food, to eat one another, propounded at length to Xenophon the son of Euripides, Hestiodorus the son of Arisocleidas, and Phanomachus the son of Callimachus, the Athenian commanders that lay before the city, to give the same into their hands.  And they, seeing both that the army was already afflicted by lying in that cold place and that the state had already spent two thousand talents upon the siege, accepted of it.  The conditions agreed on were these: "to depart, they and their wives and children and their auxiliary soldiers, every man with one suit of clothes and every woman with two, and to take with them everyone a certain sum of money for his charges by the way." Hereupon a truce was granted them to depart; and they went, some to the Chalcideans and others to other places as they could get to.  But the people of Athens called the commanders in question for compounding without them, conceiving that they might have gotten the city to discretion, and sent afterwards a colony to Potidaea of their own citizens.  These were the things done in this winter.  And so ended the second year of this war, written by Thucydides.

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Vaulted

Hans Thoma
Marine Miracle
1881
oil on canvas
Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig

Mauro Antonio Tesi
Sketch of Vaulted Interior
before 1766
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of Countess Vassilievna Skavronskaya
1796
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Lambert Doomer
Boppard on the Rhine
1663
drawing
British Museum

Sanzo Wada
South Wind
1907
oil on canvas
National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo

Mauro Antonio Tesi
Altar Design
before 1766
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of Madame du Barry
1781
oil on panel
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Lambert Doomer
Cleves viewed from the South
1663
drawing
British Museum

Giorgio Vasari
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
ca. 1551
oil on canvas
(installed in Vasari's family chapel)
Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie, Arezzo

Mauro Antonio Tesi
Design for Sepulchral Monument
before 1766
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of painter Joseph Vernet
1778
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Lambert Doomer
Figures under Trellis
ca. 1663
drawing
British Museum

Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida
Return from Fishing
1904
oil on canvas
Museo Frugone, Genoa

Mauro Antonio Tesi
Design for Sepulchral Monument
before 1766
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun
Portrait of Madame Molé-Reymond
de la Comédie-italienne
1786
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Lambert Doomer
Ferry Boat
ca. 1663
drawing
British Museum

Paul Thek
Untitled (Raft Stars Moon)
ca. 1984
acrylic on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

from The Rape of the Lock

      Poets themselves must fall, like those they sung;

Deaf the praised ear, and mute the tuneful tongue.

Even he, whose soul now melts in mournful lays,

Shall shortly want the generous tears he pays;

Then from his closing eyes thy form shall part,

And the last pang shall tear thee from his heart;

Life's idle business at one gasp be o'er,

The Muse forgot, and thou beloved no more

– Alexander Pope (1714)

Approaches to Ornament - I

Hellenistic Greek Culture
Griffin
(acroteric figure from roof of the Pergamon Altar)
175-150 BC
marble
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Roman Empire
Candelabrum Motif
AD 14-37
detached wall fresco (fragment)
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Roman Empire
Altar with Bucrani and Garlands
1st century AD
marble
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Roman Empire
Eros supporting Garlands
AD 100-125
marble frieze fragment
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Johannis da Ravenna (scribe)
Biblia Latina
ca. 1350-60
vellum manuscript from Naples
bound in velvet with silver-gilt fittings
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Tullio Lombardo
Study for Frieze with Siren and Acanthus
ca. 1480-90
drawing
Harvard Art Museums

Sandro Botticelli
Madonna of the Pavilion
ca. 1490
tempera on panel
Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

Benedetto Bordone
Portable Fountain pulled by Nymph
1499
woodcut illustration
(from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna
published in Venice by Aldus Manutius)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

workshop of Antonello Gagini
Pilaster
ca. 1500-1525
marble relief
Detroit Institute of Arts

Anonymous Italian Artist
Oil Lamp with Boy on Ass's Head
ca. 1500-1525
bronze
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Pinturicchio (Bernardino di Betto)
Putti with Banderoles
ca. 1509
detached fresco
(ceiling panel)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

workshop of Giovanni della Robbia
Tabernacle Support, with Pelican feeding Young
ca. 1510-20
enameled terracotta
Detroit Institute of Arts

Anonymous Netherlandish Artist
Female Figure
ca. 1520
painted wood
(fragment of chandelier)
Bode Museum, Berlin

Agostino Musi (Agostino Veneziano)
Ewer with Tall Handle
1531
engraving
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Severo da Ravenna
Oil Lamp on Claw Foot
ca. 1535
bronze
Bode Museum, Berlin

Perino del Vaga (Pietro Buonaccorsi)
Ornamental Design for a Vessel
ca. 1540-50
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

A Still Noise

There once occurred a silence,

all dark and odorless, that commanded me

to halt and listen. How could I refuse?

And now after so many years ago

how can I remember what I heard?

I have waited too long: the dead

have become too many and too explicit,

and the living suspect nothing.

– Ernest Sandeen (1994)

Greek Things

Ancient Greek Culture in the Islands
Cycladic Idol (male)
2400-2200 BC
marble statuette
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Ancient Greek Culture in Attica
Calyx Krater with Athletes 
500 BC
painted terracotta
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Altar with Griffin
4th century BC
terracotta with relief
Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam

Ancient Greek Culture
Column Krater
5th century BC
painted terracotta
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Greek Culture in South Italy
Venus and Neptune
3rd century BC
terracotta statuette group
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Ancient Greek Culture in Attica
Amphora with Wrestlers
490 BC
painted terracotta
Rijksmuseum van Oudheden, Leiden

Ancient Greek Culture in Attica
Lekythos
375-350 BC
marble with funerary relief
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Oinochoe with Charioteer driving Team
310 BC
painted terracotta
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Ancient Greek Culture
Peplophore
425-400 BC
marble (half life-size)
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Ancient Greek Culture
Column Krater with Bacchantes and Satyrs
470 BC
painted terracotta
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Ancient Greek Culture in Egypt
Torso of Aphrodite
2nd century BC
marble statue fragment
Seattle Art Museum

Ancient Greek Culture in Attica
Amphora with Horse and Attendant
520-500 BC
painted terracotta
Menil Collection, Houston

Ancient Greek Culture at Pergamon in Ionia
Draped Woman
150-125 BC
marble statue fragment
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture in Attica
Psykter with Gigantomachy
515-510 BC
painted terracotta
Menil Collection, Houston

Ancient Greek Culture
Goddess
50 BC-AD 20
marble (half life size)
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Ancient Greek Culture in South Italy
Volute Krater with Suppliants upon Altar
350 BC
painted terracotta
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Retreating Light

You were like very young children,

always waiting for a story.

And I'd been through it all too many times,

I was tired of telling stories. 

So I gave you the pencil and paper. 

I gave you pens made of reeds

I had gathered myself, afternoons in the dense meadows.

I told you, write your own story.

After all those years of listening

I thought you'd know

what a story was. 

All you could do was weep.

You wanted everything told to you

and nothing thought through yourselves.

Then I realized you couldn't think

with any real boldness or passion;

you hadn't had your own lives yet,

your own tragedies.

So I gave you lives, I gave you tragedies,

because apparently tools alone weren't enough.

You will never know how deeply

it pleases me to see you sitting there

like independent beings,

to see  you dreaming by the open window,

holding the pencil I gave you

until the summer morning disappears into writing.

Creation has brought you

great excitement, as I knew it would,

as it does in the beginning.

And I am free to do as I please now,

to attend to other things, in confidence

you have no need of me anymore.

– Louise Glück (1992)