Reduce

Anonymous Photographer
Hot Springs, Arkansas
ca. 1900-1910
gelatin silver print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Adolphe-François Appia
Espace Rythmique - À la Lisière
1909-10
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Heinrich Buergel-Goodwin
Einar Nerman as Pierrot
1915
gelatin silver print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Eugène Carrière
The Tin Mug
ca. 1889
oil on canvas
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Robert Cremean
#1
(series, Fourteen Stations)
1966
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

James Drummond
Lady descending from a Sedan Chair
ca. 1855
drawing
(study for painting)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Standing Model
1840
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Rudolf Eickemeyer
River in Winter
1904
platinum print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Vilhelm Hammershøi
Interior
1890
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Baroness Betty de Rothschild
ca. 1848
drawing
(study for painted portrait)
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

John Miller
Roman Bust
1763
engraving
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

Amedeo Modigliani
Atlante
1911
drawing
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Lilo Raymond
Two Pillows
1976
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Ulrik Samuelson
Figure Study
ca. 1955
drawing
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Karl von Schintling
Study of Alder Tree
1910
photogravure
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Kjell Torriset
Annex
1994
acrylic paint and collage on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

from The Man with the Blue Guitar

Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,

Of the torches wisping in the underground, 

Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.

There are no shadows in our sun,

Day is desire and night is sleep. 

There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare.

There are no shadows. Poetry

Exceeding music must take the place

Of empty heaven and its hymns . . . 

– Wallace Stevens (1937)

Ritual

workshop of Peter Paul Rubens
Consecration of Decius Mus
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

workshop of Jacob Jordaens after Peter Paul Rubens
Obsequies of Decius Mus
ca. 1616-17
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
The Oath of Hannibal
before 1684
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

attributed to Benedetto Bordone
Triumphal Procession
1499
woodcut and letterpress
(from the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili of Francesco Colonna
published by Aldus Manutius in Venice)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Giulio Campi
Roman Triumph
ca. 1545
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Vincenzo Camuccini
The Continence of Scipio
1808-11
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne
Emperor Augustus receiving Ambassadors from India
ca. 1672-75
oil on canvas
Château de Versailles

Max Klinger
The Ruler
1911
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
The Four Seasons
bringing Fruit and Flowers to Flora
ca. 1790
etching (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Edward Burne-Jones
Dream of the Nine Muses
1871
gouache on canvas
(reportedly the record of an actual dream)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Cornelis de Vos
The Anointing of Solomon
ca. 1630
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Johann Wolfgang Baumgartner
The Circumcision of Isaac
ca. 1755-60
oil on canvas
(study for mezzotint)
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Jan Victors
Jacob blessing the Sons of Joseph
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Jan Victors
Jacob blessing the Sons of Joseph
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Alessandro Tiarini
St John the Evangelist giving Communion to the Virgin
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum Hannover

Georg Lemberger
Opening of the Book by the Lamb
1524
hand-colored woodcut
(illustration to the "Luther Bible")
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

A Postcard from the Volcano 

Children picking up our bones
Will never know that these were once
As quick as foxes on the hill;

And that in autumn, when the grapes
Made sharp air sharper by their smell
These had a being, breathing frost;

And least will guess that with our bones
We left much more, left what still is
The look of thing, left what we felt

At what we saw. The spring clouds blow
Above the shuttered mansion-house,
Beyond our gate and the windy sky

Cries out a literate despair.
We knew for long the mansion's look
And what we said of it became

A part of what it is . . . Children,
Still weaving budded aureoles,
Will speak our speech and never know,

Will say of the mansion that it seems
As if he that lived there left behind
A spirit storming in blank walls,

A dirty house in a gutted world,
A tatter of shadows peaked to white,
Smeared with the gold of the opulent sun.

– Wallace Stevens (1936)

Odorless Ages

Luca Cambiaso
Caritas
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
Study for Evangelist in Spandrel
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
The Road to Calvary
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
Virgin and Child
ca. 1560
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Childe Hassam
Isles of Shoals
1907
oil on panel
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Childe Hassam
Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir
1909
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Childe Hassam
Walk in the Park
ca. 1889-90
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum, Colorado

Childe Hassam
New England Road
ca. 1902
oil on canvas
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Kenneth Lochhead
Park Excursion
2002
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
By the Orchard
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
The Duchess
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
Two Ladies and a Gentleman
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
The Annunciation
ca. 1530-35
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Battle Scene with Lions
ca. 1530-40
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Musical Contest of Apollo and Marsyas
ca. 1527-30
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Sheet of Studies
before 1540
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

from Part One of The Age of Anxiety 

Rosetta thought:

     I see in my mind a besieged island,

     That island in arms where my home once was.

     Round green gardens, down grooves between white

     Hawthorn-hedges, long hospital trains

     Smoothly slide with their sensitized freight

     Of mangled men, moving them homeward

     In pain through pastures. In a packed hall

     Two vicious rivals, two virtuosos

     Appear on one platform and play duets

     To war-orphans and widowed ladies,

     Grieving in gloves; while to grosser ears

     In clubs and cabarets crooners wail

     Some miserere modern enough

     In its thorough thinness. I think too of

     The conquered condition, countries where

     Arrogant officers, armed in cars,

     Go roaring down roads on the wrong side,

     Courts martial meet at midnight with drums,

     And pudgy persons pace unsmiling

     The quays and stations or cruise the nights

     In vans for victims, to investigate

     In sound-proof cells the Sense of Honor,

     While in turkish baths with towels round them

     Imperilled plotters plan in outline

     Definitions and norms for new lives,

     Half-truths for their times. As tense as these,

     Four who are famous confer in a schloss

     At night on nations. They are not equal:

     Three stand thoughtful on a thick carpet

     Awaiting the Fourth who wills they shall

     Till, suddenly entering through a side-door,

     Quick, quiet, unquestionable as death,

     Grief or guilt, he greets them and sits down,

     Lord of this life. He looks natural,

     He smiles well, he smells of the future,

     Odorless ages, an ordered world

     Of planned pleasures and passport-control,

     Sentry-go, sedatives, soft drinks and

     Managed money, a moral planet

     Tamed by terror: his telegram sets

     Grey masses moving as the mud dries.

     Many have perished; more will.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)

Music

Matthias Stom
Music Makers
ca. 1640-50
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Josse van Craesbeeck
Lute Concert
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Marcantonio Raimondi after Francesco Francia
Young and Old Shepherds making Music
ca. 1510
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Francesco Francia
Three Musicians in Landscape
ca. 1490
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Benno Joachim Theodor Fischer
Young Men playing Violin Duet
1850
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Minya Dièz-Dürhkoop
Women at the Piano
1908
platinum print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Karl Müller
Woman at the Piano
ca. 1880-90
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Félix Vallotton
Le Piano
ca. 1895
drawing
(print study for Les Instruments de Musique)
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Johann Elias Ridinger
Bassoon Player
ca. 1740
mezzotint
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Albrecht Dürer
Bagpiper
1514
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Marcantonio Raimondi
Orpheus playing to Animals
ca. 1505-1506
engraving
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Dirck Hals
Violin Player
1629
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Félix Vallotton
Le Violon
ca. 1895
drawing
(print study for Les Instruments de Musique)
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques
des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Anonymous French Artist
King David making Music before the Lord
ca. 1470-80
pigment and ink on vellum
(manuscript leaf from Psalter)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Georges de La Tour 
Le Vieilleur
1631
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

Franz Brun
The Muse Euterpe
ca. 1580
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Antony

     Enough: my life's not long enough for more.

     Thou say'st thou wilt come after: I believe thee,

     For I can now believe whate'er thou say'st,

     That we may part more kindly.

Cleopatra                                      I will come:

     Doubt not, my life, I'll come, and quickly too;

     Caesar shall triumph o'er no part of thee.

Antony

     But grieve not, while thou stay'st,

     My last disastrous times:

     Think we have had a clear and glorious day,

     And Heaven did kindly to delay the storm

     Just till our close of evening. Ten years' love,

     And not a moment lost, but all improved

     To th'utmost joys: what ages have we lived!

     And now to die each other's; and so dying,

     While hand in hand we walk in groves below,

     Whole troops of lovers' ghosts shall flock about us,

     And all the train be ours.

Cleopatra

     Your words are like the notes of dying swans,

     Too sweet to last. Were there so many hours

     For your unkindness, and not one for love?

Antony

     No, not a minute. – This one kiss – more worth

     Than all I leave to Caesar.                                                   (Dies)

Cleopatra

     Oh tell me so again,

     And take ten thousand kisses for that word.

     My Lord, my Lord: speak, if you yet have being;

     Sigh to me, if you cannot speak, or cast

     One look. Do anything that shows you live.

Iras

     He's gone too far to hear you,

     And this you see, a lump of senseless clay,

     The leavings of a soul. 

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)