L'Escargot

Hans Süss von Kulmbach
Virgin of the Annunciation
ca. 1513
oil on panel
(altarpiece fragment)
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Nicolaus Kremer
Portrait Study of a Man
1543
watercolor and colored chalks on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Johann Ladenspelder
St John the Evangelist on Patmos
(receiving dictation from the Virgin)
1549
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Cornelis Ketel
Portrait of a Man
1596
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

attributed to Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1610
oil on canvas
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Jean Langlois after Louis Boullogne the Younger
Allegorical Figure with Portrait of architect Jacopo Barozzi Vignola
1699
engraving (book frontispiece)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel

François Le Moyne
Study for Head of Hercules
ca. 1733
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jean-Jacques Lagrenée
The Finding of Moses
ca. 1785
oil on canvas
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Jean-Louis Laneuville
Portrait of Pierre-Charles Ruamps de Surgères
(French Revolutionary politician)
1792
oil on canvas
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska

Joseph Anton Koch
Sacrifice of Noah
1814
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Edwin Landseer
Portrait Sketch of Niccolò Paganini
before 1840
drawing
British Museum

Louis Kolitz
On the Edge of Staatspark Karlsaue, Kassel
ca. 1890-1900
oil on paper
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Ragnhild Keyser
Still Life
ca. 1925
watercolor and gouache on paper
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

František Kupka
L'Escargot
1926
linocut
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami

Mark Kolthoff
Rolls of Wallpaper
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Louise Lawler
Grieving Mothers (Attachment)
2005
C-print
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston

Annie Leibovitz
Anna Wintour, New York City (age 66)
2015
pigment print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

from Ye goat-herd Gods

Strephon.  Meseems I see the high and stately mountains

    Transform themselves to low dejected valleys;

    Meseems I hear in these ill-changèd forests

    The nightingales do learn of owls their music;

    Meseems I feel the comfort of the morning

    Turned to the mortal serene of an evening.

Klaius.  Meseems I see a filthy cloudy evening

    As soon as sun begins to climb the mountains;

    Meseems I feel a noisome scent, the morning

    When I do smell the flowers of these valleys;

    Meseems I hear, when I do hear sweet music,

    The dreadful cries of murdered men in forests. 

– Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586)

The Heads

Frank Auerbach
Head of E.O.W. I
1960
oil on panel
Tate Modern, London

Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
Head of a Woman
ca. 1495-97
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Henry Perronet Briggs
Idealized Male Head
1838
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

attributed to Cesare da Sesto
Head of a Woman
before 1523
drawing
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Wilhelm Füssli
The Ludovisi Juno
(colossal antique head, Palazzo Altemps, Rome)
1863
drawing
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek, Zürich

Gaetano Gandolfi
Study Head
ca. 1770
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Hood Museum of Art,
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire

Alberto Giacometti
Head
1934
bronze
Art Institute of Chicago

Charles Dana Gibson
Head of a Woman
ca. 1905
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Ancient Greek Culture
Colossal Head of Persian King
475-400 BC
limestone
(statue fragment, excavated on Cyprus)
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Joy Hester
Head
ca. 1955
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Ambrosius Holbein
Head of a Young Man
ca. 1517-19
drawing
British Museum

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Head of a Woman
ca. 1909
colored chalk on paper
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Aristide Maillol
Head of a Woman
1898
bronze
Phillips Collection, Washington DC

David Park
Head
1959
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Head of Bearded Man
ca. 1523-25
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Pablo Picasso
Head of a Woman
1957
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Bernardino Poccetti (Bernardino Barbatelli)
Winged Head
before 1612
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Rufino Tamayo
Head of Colossus
1964
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

from The Day of the Eclipse

Summer, until today, burned thought

Away like dross, refined or stunned

Into a life mask golden blind

The face fixed upward with eyes shut;

On either lid a rose-red coin was put;

And upon water rapt and sheer

A single eye of fire held sway;

A single rower just off shore

Could sit becalmed day after day,

A world from oar to dripping oar;

 

While any one who walked at noon

Upon the mirror of the tide's 

Retreat, turned every drunken sun

His bare feet tarnished, to a stepping-stone,

Or, sped by glares from the banked pride

Of light as heel, put dunes between

Himself and town (the wharves, the saltbox inn,

One lamp above its door lit even

In sunshine, like a freethinker in heaven)

And came back with red skies beneath his skin.

Today is different.

– James Merrill (1959)

White Garments - III

Louis-Périn Lié
Portrait of the courtesan La Duthé
1778
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Angelica Kauffmann
Bacchante
1785
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anatole Devosge
Study for Portrait of Young Woman
ca. 1800-1810
oil on cardboard
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon

Constance-Marie Charpentier
Melancholy
1801
oil on canvas
Musée de Picardie, Amiens

Jacques-Louis David
Alexandrine-Thérèse Nardot, comtesse Daru
1810
oil on canvas
Frick Collection, New York

Thomas Lawrence
Portrait of Lady Sarah Ingestre
ca. 1827-28
oil on canvas
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Narcisse Diaz de la Peña
Marquérite in Church, with Mephistopheles looming
(scene from Goethe's Faust)
ca. 1850
oil on panel (sketch)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Amaury-Duval
Woman of Saint-Jean-de-Luz
ca. 1866
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Berthe Morisot
Lady with a Fan
(Portrait of Madame Marie Hubbard)
1874
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Jean Béraud
In the Wings at the Paris Opéra
1889
oil on panel
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Charles Chaplin
Le Sommeil
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Édouard Vuillard
The Fitting
ca. 1892
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Edvard Munch
Study of Model
1893
drawing
(colored chalks on brown paper)
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Dudley Hardy
A Gaiety Girl
1894
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ottilie Roederstein
Portrait of Frau Kost
1912
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Anonymous French Maker
Nightdress
ca. 1910
silk sarcenet and lace
Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Ce qui s'est réellement passé dans cette nuit où la chance a délié de sa ceinture sa bourse prodigue et en a sorti la possibilité des Onze, on ne le sait pas, Monsieur. Est-on même sûr que c'était la nuit? Ce qu'on sait seulement, savoir ou légende, ce sont les effets scéniques, le manteau couleur de fumée d'enfer qui passe en coup de vent, l'aplomb de quatre hommes sous des bicornes, la nef vide et les chevaux dans la nef, les cloches déposées, le tas d'or et les os embrasés des saintes: les trois personnages qui sont des types, Collot dans le rôle de Macbeth, Bourdon en Iago, Proli en Shylock; et devant ces stéréotypes Corentin éberlué entre l'or répandu et le bruit fantôme des cloches tient le rôle de saint Matthieu, qui n'est pas dans Shakespeare. On le voit ainsi. 

– Pierre Michon, from Les Onze (Verdier, 2009)