Value

Paul Nash
Nocturnal Landscape
1938
oil on canvas
Manchester Art Gallery

Giovanni Battista Naldini
Figure Studies
before 1591
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Jean-Marc Nattier
Venus withholding Cupid's Bow
ca. 1745
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille

Eglon van der Neer
The Nursery Visit
1664
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Cesare Nebbia
Women and Child with Harvest
ca. 1590
drawing
(study for fresco)
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jost de Negker
Capture of Belgrade by the Turks
1522
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Universitätsbibliothek, Heidelberg

Niccolò Nelli
Emperor Claudius
ca. 1550-70
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Ole Jørgen Ness
Portrait
1998
oil on canvas
Stortingets Kunstsamling, Oslo

Ben Nicholson
Feb 18, 54 (Azure)
1954
oil on canvas
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Harbor Head at Vlissingen
1927
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Georg Netzband
Demons at the Grave
(illustration to Faust)
1949
woodcut
Bibliotheca Hertziana, Rome

Werner Neuhaus
Happiness and Envy
ca. 1925
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Niccolò di Segna
St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1340
 tempera on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Domenico Nicolini of Venice
1579
woodcut and letterpress
(angel with laurel wreath)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

attributed to Nicoletto da Modena
The Spinario
(after antique sculpture)
ca. 1500-1510
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Axel Nilsson
Amaryllis and Woman
1940
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

In defining a work of art as a "man-made object demanding to be experienced aesthetically" we encounter for the first time a basic difference between the humanities and natural science.  The scientist, dealing as he does with natural phenomena, can at once proceed to analyze them.  The humanist, dealing as he does with human actions and creations, has to engage in a mental process of a synthetic and subjective character: he has mentally to re-enact the actions and to re-create the creations.  It is in fact by this process that the real objects of the humanities come into being.  For it is obvious that historians of philosophy or sculpture are concerned with books and statues not in so far as those books and statues exist materially, but in so far as they have a meaning.  And it is equally obvious that this meaning can only be apprehended by re-producing, and thereby, quite literally, "realizing" the thoughts that are expressed in the books and the artistic conceptions that manifest themselves in the statues.

Thus the art historian subjects his "material" to a rational archaeological analysis at times as meticulously exact, comprehensive and involved as any physical or astronomical research.  But he constitutes his "material" by means of an intuitive aesthetic re-creation,* including the perception and appraisal of "quality," just as any "ordinary" person does when he or she looks at a picture or listens to a symphony.

*However, when speaking of "re-creation" it is important to emphasize the prefix "re."  Works of art are both manifestations of artistic "intentions" and natural objects, sometimes difficult to isolate from their physical surroundings and always subject to the physical processes of aging.  Thus, in experiencing a work of art aesthetically we perform two entirely different acts which, however, psychologically merge with each other into one Erlebnis: we build up our aesthetic object both be re-creating the work of art according to the "intention" of its maker, and by freely creating a set of aesthetic values comparable to those with which we endow a tree or a sunset.  When abandoning ourselves to the impression of the weathered sculptures at Chartres, we cannot help enjoying their lovely mellowness and patina as an aesthetic value; but this value, which implies both the sensual pleasure in a peculiar play of light and color and the more sentimental delight in "age" and "genuineness," has nothing to do with the objective, or artistic, value with which the sculptures were invested by their makers.  From the point of view of the Gothic stone carvers the processes of aging were not merely irrelevant but positively undesirable: they tried to protect their statues by a coat of color which, had it been preserved in its original freshness, would probably spoil a good deal of our aesthetic enjoyment.  

– Erwin Panofsky, from The History of Art as a Humanistic Discipline (1940)

Alto

Anonymous Russian Artist
Astronomical Diagram
1917
lithograph
(poetic text by Vasily Kamensky)
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Walter Dexel
Bridge of Stars
1919
woodcut
Städtisches Museum, Braunschweig

Hans Burgkmair the Younger
Stars falling from the Sky
ca. 1550
drawing
(Bible illustration - Apocalypse)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Conrad Martin Metz
Centaur Chiron instructing Achilles in Astronomy
1804
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist
Suns and Moons with Faces
ca. 1575
woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Hans Wolff Glaser
Miraculous Face in the Moon over Nuremberg, seen by Many
1561
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Hans Schäufelein
Earthquake and Fire from Heaven
1523
woodcut
(Bible illustration - Apocalypse)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Monogrammist IB
Sol
(series, Seven Planets)
1528
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Monogrammist IB
Mercury
(series, Seven Planets)
1528
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Monogrammist IB
Venus
(series, Seven Planets)
1528
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Étienne Delaune
Venus
(series, Seven Planets)
1557
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Anonymous German Artist
Mars
(series, Seven Planets)
ca. 1550-75
woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Jan Sadeler the Elder after Marten de Vos the Elder
Astronomy
(series, Seven Liberal Arts)
ca. 1590
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Jacques de Gheyn II
Portrait of astronomer Tycho Brahe
ca. 1595
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Johann Theodor de Bry
Portrait of astrologer Luca Gaurico
ca. 1615
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous German Artist
Geometer and Astronomer
16th century
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

But the contrary faction to the traitors being superior in number, whereby the gates were not opened presently, both they and Eucles the general, who was then there for the Athenians to keep the town, sent unto the other general, Thucydides, the son of Olorus, the writer of this history, who had charge in Thrace, and was now about Thasos (which is an island and a colony of the Parians, distant from Amphipolis about half a day's sail), requiring him to come and relieve them.  When he heard the news, he went thitherwards in all haste with seven galleys, which chanced to be with him at that time.  His purpose principally was to prevent the yielding up of Amphipolis; but if he should fail of that, then to possess himself of Eion before Brasidas' coming.

Brasidas, in the meantime, fearing the aid of the galleys to come from Thasos, and having also been informed that Thucydides possessed mines of gold in the parts of Thrace thereabouts, and was thereby of ability amongst the principal men of the continent, hasted by all means to get Amphipolis before he should arrive, lest otherwise at his coming the commons of Amphipolis, expecting that he would levy confederates both from the sea-side and in Thrace, and relieve them, should thereupon refuse to yield.  And to that end offered them a moderate composition.  . . .  When the commons heard this, their minds were turned; and the rather, because the Athenians amongst them were but few, and the most were a promiscuous multitude; and the kinsmen of those that were taken without flocked together within.  And in respect of their fear, they all thought the proclamation reasonable; the Athenians thought it so because they were willing to go out, as apprehending their own danger to be greater than that of the rest, and withal, not expecting aid in haste; and the rest of the multitude, as being thereby both delivered of the danger, and withal to retain their city with the equal form of government.  Insomuch that they which conspired with Brasidas now openly justified the offer to be reasonable; and seeing the minds of the commons were now turned and that they gave ear no more to the words of the Athenian general, they compounded, and upon the conditions proclaimed received him.  Thus did these men deliver ujp the city.  Thucydides with his galleys arrived in the evening of the same day at Eion.*

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

*This is a very impersonal statement of Thucydides' great failure as a military commander.  As he records later, he was disgraced for his failure to save Amphipolis and was banished from Athens. 

Popes

Gianlorenzo Bernini
Portrait of Pope Innocent X Pamphili
ca. 1648-50
marble
Palazzo Doria-Pamphili, Rome

Hans Burgkmair the Elder
Portrait of Pope Julius II della Rovere
1511
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Agostino Carracci
Studies for a Portrait of Cardinal Camillo Borghese,
later Pope Paul V
ca. 1595
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Cornelis Galle the Elder
Portrait of Pope Urban VIII Barberini
ca. 1640
engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
Pope Alexander VI Borgia
1493
woodcut and letterpress
(illustration from the Nuremberg Chronicle)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous  German Artist
Allegory mocking the Pope and the Emperor
ca. 1475-85
hand-colored woodcut (broadside)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

workshop of Lucas Cranach the Elder
The Pope riding a Pig
(with verses by Martin Luther)
1545
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Carlo Maratti
Portrait of Pope Clement IX Rospigliosi
1669
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Portrait of Pope Benedict XIV Lambertini
1740
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Domenico Cresti (il Passignano)
Dream of Pope Innocent 
(St Francis carrying the Church on his shoulders)
before 1638
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist after Giulio Romano
Pope Sylvester with Figure of Fortitude
ca. 1520
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Daniel Hopfer
Double Portrait of Pope Leo X Medici
and Giuliano de' Medici, duc de Nemours
ca. 1515
etching
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

attributed to Antonio and Lorenzo Cialli
Pope Pius VI Braschi on Horseback
ca. 1785
tin-glazed earthenware (maiolica)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Étienne Baudet after Pietro da Cortona
Allegorical Portrait of Pope Clement IX Rospigliosi
ca. 1667
engraving
Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich

Anonymous French Artist after Gaspard de Crayer
Coronation in 1530 of Emperor Charles V
by Pope Clement VII Medici in Bologna
17th century
oil on canvas
Musée Ingres Bourdelle, Montauban

Michael Pacher
St Lawrence taking leave of Pope Sixtus II
ca. 1465
tempera on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

This year, by confession of all men, was of all other, for other diseases, most free and healthful.  If any man were sick before, his disease turned to this; if not, yet suddenly, without any apparent cause preceding and being in perfect health, they were taken first with an extreme ache in their heads, redness and inflammation of the eyes; and then inwardly, their throats and tongues grew presently bloody and their breath noisome and unsavoury.  Upon this followed a sneezing and hoarseness, and not long after the pain, together with a mighty cough, came down into the breast.  And when once it was settled in the stomach, it caused vomit; and with great torment came up all manner of bilious purgations that physicians ever named.  Most of them had also the hickyexe which brought with it a strong convulsion, and in some ceased quickly but in others was long before it gave over.  Their bodies outwardly to the touch were neither very hot nor pale but reddish, livid, and beflowered with little pimples and whelks, but so burned inwardly as not to endure any the lightest clothes or linen garment to be upon them nor anything but mere nakedness, but rather most willingly to have cast themselves into the cold water.  And many of them that were not looked to, possessed with insatiate thirst, ran into the wells, and to drink much or little was indifferent, being still from ease and power to sleep as far as ever.  As long as the disease was at its height, their bodies wasted not but resisted the torment beyond all expectation; insomuch as the most of them either died of their inward burning in nine or seven days whilst they had yet strength, or, if they escaped that, then the disease falling down into the bellies and causing there great exulcerations and immoderate looseness, they died many of them afterwards through weakness.  For the disease, which took first the head, began above and came down and passed through the whole body; and he that overcame the worst of it was yet marked with the loss of his extreme parts; for breaking out both at their privy members and at their fingers and toes, many with the loss of these escaped; there were also some that lost their eyes.  And many that presently upon their recovery were taken with such an oblivion of all things whatsoever, as they neither knew themselves nor their acquaintance. 

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

Letter and Image - V

Anonymous Printmaker
Ex Libris
ca. 1700
hand-colored engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Ex Libris
ca. 1650-1700
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Giovanni Antonio and Jacopo de' Franceschi, Venice
1606
woodcut and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Printmaker
Colophon with Pressmark of Lucantonio Giunti, Venice
1500
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Christoph Froschauer, Zürich
ca. 1520-30
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Erhardt Ratdolt, Augsburg
1487
color woodblock print and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Lorenz Stör
Title-Page - Perspective Studies
1567
chiaroscuro woodcut and letterpress
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Hans Wolff Glaser
Halo observed around the Sun and interpreted as Divine Warning
1556
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Georg Mack
Sighting of a Comet
1577
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Alfred Rethel
Marginal Ornaments in Faux-Gothic Style
ca. 1840-50
drawing
(colored ink on detached incunabulum leaf)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff
Thracian Landscape
(illustration page from the Nuremberg Chronicle)
1493
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Bernhard Jobin
Malchopapo
(anti-Papal broadside)
1577
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Wenceslaus Hollar after Leonardo da Vinci
Title-Page - Varie Figurae
1645
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jacques Floris
Pecuniosus Damnari Non Potest
(aphorism of Cicero quoted by Erasmus)
1556
woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Men learned in the stars say I am short-lived.  I am, Seleucus, but I care not.  There is one road down to Hades for all, and if mine is quicker, I shall see Minos all the sooner.  Let us drink, for this is very truth, that wine is a horse for the road, while foot-travellers take a by-path to Hades. 

O Boeotian Helicon, once didst thou often shed from thy springs the water of sweet speech for Hesiod. But still for us does the boy who bears thy name pour out Italian wine from a fountain that causes less care. Rather would I drink one cup only from his hand than a thousand of Castalia from thine.

Seven years added to thirty are gone already like so many pages torn out of my life; already, Xanthippe, my head is sprinkled with grey hairs, messengers of the age of wisdom. But still I care for the speaking music of the lyre and for revelling, and in my insatiate heart the fire is alive. But ye Muses, my mistresses, bring it to a close at once with the words, "Xanthippe is the end of my madness." 

Dead, five feet of earth shall be thine and thou shalt not look on the delights of life or on the rays of the sun. So take the cup of unmixed wine and drain it rejoicing, Cincius, with thy arm round they lovely wife. But if thou deemest wisdom to be immortal, know that Cleanthes and Zeno went to deep Hades. 

Though thy life be always sedentary, and thou hast never sailed on the sea or traversed the high roads of the land, yet set thy foot on the Attic soil, that thou mayest see these long nights of Demeter's holy rites, whereby while thou art among the living thy mind shall be free from care, and when thou goest to join the greater number it shall be lighter.

Rough, sweet-scented dust of Sorrento, hail, and hail, thou earth of Pollenza most honied and Asta's soil thrice desired, from which the triple band of Graces knead for Bacchus the clay that is akin to wine! Hail, common possession of wealth and poverty, to the poor a necessary vessel, to the rich a more superfluous instrument of luxury!*

– from Book XI (Convivial and Satirical Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*He addresses the different soils from which the clay considered most suitable for wine-jars came.