Charity

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Confident
1954
oil on panel
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Robert Frank
Charity Ball, New York City
1956
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Achille Etna Michallon
Taormina - Ruins of Ancient Theater
1820
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Caricature Studies
ca. 1840
drawing
British Museum

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Silent Hall
1961
oil on panel
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Robert Frank
Georgetown, South Carolina
1955
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Canaletto
Capriccio with Classical Ruins, Rome
before 1768
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Henry Tonks
Next please!
(caricature of Herbert Henry Asquith hypnotizing Lloyd George)
1915-16
ink and watercolor on paper
British Museum

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Starting
1968
oil on panel
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Robert Frank
Man resting aboard the Congressional Limited
1955
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

John Sell Cotman
Ruined House
1808
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Alfred J. Frueh
Caricature of Jack Dempsey
1920
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: Two Whites between Two Yellows
1958
oil on panel
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Robert Frank
From the Bus, New York
1958
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous German Artist
Ruins on the Palatine Hill
19th century
oil on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Alfred J. Frueh
Caricature of silent film star Alla Nazimova
ca. 1910
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Josef Albers
Homage to the Square: White Monument
1951
oil on panel
Museum of Modern Art, New York

from In Time of War

He looked in all His wisdom from the throne

Down on the humble boy who kept the sheep,

And sent a dove; the dove returned alone:

Youth liked the music, but soon fell asleep.

But He had planned such future for the youth:

Surely His duty now was to compel;

For later he would come to love the truth,

And own his gratitude. The eagle fell.

It did not work: His conversation bored

The boy who yawned and whistled and made faces

And wriggled free from fatherly embraces;

But with the eagle he was always willing

To go where it suggested, and adored

And learnt from it the many ways of killing.

– W.H. Auden (1938)

Letter and Image - IV

Christoph Murer and Tobias Stimmer
Three Wild Boars
1605
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

André Gill
Caricature of Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès
(left-wing politician)
1868
lithograph
Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg

Giovanni Brun
Map of Rome
1785
engraving
Max Planck Institute for Art History, Florence

Hans Holbein the Younger
Pressmark of Michael Isingrin, Basel
1539
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Christoph Plantin, Antwerp
1565
woodcut and letterpress
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Boneto Locatelli, Venice
1490
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Vincent Le Sueur
Pressmark of Marc-Michel Bousquet, Geneva
1726
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of François Regnault, Paris
1533
woodcut and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous Printmaker
Pressmark of Denis Roce, Paris
ca. 1490-1510
woodcut, metal cuts and letterpress
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

Anonymous Venetian Printmaker
Monstrous Birth in Venice
1575
woodcut and letterpress
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Bernhard Peters
Monstrous Animal-Human Births
1578
hand-colored woodcut and letterpress
(broadside)
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Anonymous German Printmaker
Man at age 80
16th century
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jan Sadeler the Younger
Allegorical Half Title-Page
1637
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Raphael Custos after Lucas Kilian
Ornamental Title-Page
1632
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
French and German Title-Pages for Almanac
1781
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Anonymous Austrian Artist
Wiener Künstler - Diskos
ca. 1900-1910
gouache on paper (print study)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Silence is man's chief learning. The sage Pythagoras himself is my witness. He, knowing himself how to speak, taught others to be silent, having discovered this potent drug to ensure tranquility.

It is a proverb, that no woman who has been a slave should ever become a mistress. I will tell you something similar. "Let no man who has been advocate ever become a judge, not even if he be a greater orator than Isocrates. For how can a man who has served for hire in a fashion no more respectable than a whore judge a case otherwise than dirtily?"

That we see murderers blest by fortune does not surprise me much. It is the gift of Zeus. For he would have killed his father, whom he hated, had Cronos chanced to be mortal. Now, instead of killing him, he punishes him in the same place as the Titans, casting him bound like a robber into the pit.

Fortune knows neither reason nor law, but rules men despotically, carried along without reason by her own current. She is rather inclined to favour the wicked, and hates the just, as if making a display of her unreasoning force.

Where, I ask, is that vast insolence? And where have they suddenly departed, the crowds of flatterers who used to walk by your side? Now you are gone to exile far from the city, and Fortune has made those whom you formerly pitied judges to condemn you. Great thanks to thee, Fortune, performer of glorious deeds, for that thou ever mockest all alike, and we have that to amuse us. 

A certain Theodorus rejoices because I am dead. Another shall rejoice at his death. We are all owed to death.

– from Book X (Hortatory and Admonitory Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Peggy Bacon

Charles Roswell Bacon
Sketch of young Peggy Bacon by her Father
ca. 1900
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Art Supply Store
1918
drypoint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
The Elevated
(figure at right in profile is self portrait)
1919
drypoint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Soichi Sunami
Portrait of Peggy Bacon
ca. 1920
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Peggy Bacon and Alexander Brook at Street Fair with their Children
ca. 1920
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Frenzied Effort
(life drawing session at Whitney Studio Club, New York)
1925
drypoint
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
The Patroness
1927
drypoint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Caricature of New York socialite Louise Hellstrom
1927
pastel on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Study of journalist Heywood Broun
1930
lithograph
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Self Portrait Studies
ca. 1932
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Self Portrait
1932
pastel on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
The artist's husband Alexander Brook at work
ca. 1934
drawing
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Caricature of writer Djuna Barnes
1934
drawing
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Peggy Bacon
Tired Eyes
1935
drypoint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Isabella Howland
Portrait of Peggy Bacon
ca. 1945-50
charcoal on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Alexander Brook
Portrait of Peggy Bacon
ca. 1945-50
lithograph
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Wallace Herndon Smith
Portrait of Peggy Bacon
(based on a youthful photograph)
1960
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

from Europa

    Into the Mead he comes, nor (seen) doth fright;

The Virgins to approach him all delight,

And stroke the lovely Bull, whose divine smell

Doth far the Meads perfumed breath excell:

Before unblam'd Europa's feet he stood

Licking her neck, and the Maid kindly woo'd:

She stroak'd and kiss'd him; and the foam that lay

Upon his lip wip'd with her hand away:

He softly bellow'd, such a humming sound

Forth breathing as Mygdonian Pipes resound.

Down at her feet he kneels viewing the Maid

With writhed neck, and his broad back displai'd,

When she to th' fair-haird Virgins thus doth say;

Come hither dear companions, let us play

Securely with this Bull, and without fear;

Who like a Ship all on his back will bear.

He tame appears to sight, and gently kind,

Diff'ring from others, a discursive mind

Bearing like Men, and onely voice doth lack. 

    This said, she smiling gets upon his back;

Which the rest off'ring, the Bull leaps away,

And to the Sea bears his desired prey;

She cals with stretch'd out hands, she turns to view

Her friends, alas unable to pursue;

Down leaps he, Dolphin-like glides through the Seas:

Up from the deep rise the Nereides,

Mounted on Whales to meet her on the way:

Whilst hollow-sounding Neptune doth allay

The waves, and is himself his brother's guide

In this Sea-voyage . . .

– Moschus (mid-2nd century BC), translated by Thomas Stanley (1651)