Living Color

Charles Cushman
Republican National Convention, Hilton Hotel, San Francisco
1964
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Market & 2nd, San Francisco
1957
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Housing to be Demolished, Gough & Ellis, San Francisco
1959
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Demolition of Wells Fargo Building,
Market & Post, San Francisco
1966
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Up O'Farrell from Buchanan, San Francisco
1960
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Lyon & Pacific, San Francisco
1953
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Rhododendron Week, Union Square, San Francisco
1962
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Telegraph Hill, San Francisco
1957
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Haight Street, San Francisco
1967
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Hydrangea, Sea Cliff, San Francisco
1958
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Aeonium Holochrysum, Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco
1955
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Rhododendron, Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco
1953
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Magnolia, Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco
1960
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Cherry Blossoms, Strybing Arboretum, San Francisco
1953
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

Charles Cushman
Clouds, San Francisco
1955
Kodachrome slide
Indiana University Library, Bloomington

And to me it seemeth that Agamemnon got together that fleet, not so much for that he had with him the suitors of Helen bound thereto by oath to Tindareus as for this, that he exceeded the rest in power.  For they that by tradition of their ancestors know the most certainty of the acts of the Peloponnesians say that first Pelops, by the abundance of wealth which he brought with him out of Asia to men in want, obtained such power amongst them, as, though he were a stranger, yet the country was called after his name; and that this power was also increased by his posterity.  For Eurystheus being slain in Attica by the Heracleidae, Atreus, that was his uncle by the mother, and was then abiding with him as an exiled person for fear of his father for the death of Chrysippus, and to whom Eurystheus, when he understood the expedition, had committed Mycenae and the government thereof, for that he was his kinsman; when as Eurystheus came not back (the Mycenians being willing to it for fear of the Heracleidae, and because he was an able man and made much of the common people) obtained the kingdom of Mycenae, and of whatsoever else was under Eurystheus, for himself; and the power of the Pelopides became greater than that of the Perseides.  To which greatness Agamemnon succeeding, and also far excelling the rest in shipping, took that war in hand, as I conceive it, and assembled the said forces, not so much upon favour as by fear.  For it is clear that he himself both conferred most ships to that action and that some also he lent to the Arcadians.  And this is likewise declared by Homer (if any think his testimony sufficient), who, at the delivery of the scepter unto him, calleth him, "of many isles and of all Argos king."  Now, he could not, living in the continent, have been lord of the islands, other than such as were adjacent which cannot be many, unless he had also had a navy.  And by this expedition we are to estimate what were those of the ages before it. 

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

Various Clouds

Titian
Virgin and Child in Glory with Saints
1522-26
oil on panel, transferred to canvas
(altarpiece)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Maurice de Vlaminck
Landscape with Haystacks
ca. 1910
oil on canvas
Romanian National Museum of Art, Bucharest

Jan Sadeler the Elder after Theodor Bernard
Personification of Evening
1582
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Jan Sadeler the Elder after Theodor Bernard
Personification of Dawn
1582
engraving
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Virgil Solis
Fortitudo
before 1562
etching and engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Karel Dujardin
Return from the Flight into Egypt
1662
oil on canvas
Detroit Institute of Arts

Eugène Boudin
The Shore at Deauville
1897
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Ferdinand Hodler
The Weisshorn viewed from Montana
1915
oil on canvas
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Jacob van Ruisdael
Dam Square in Amsterdam
ca. 1670-80
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Hans Thoma
St George
1889
oil on cardboard
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Italian Artist
Figure seated on Clouds
16th century
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Domenico Mondo
Allegorical Scene
ca. 1780-85
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Giordano
Allegorical Figure riding Pegasus and scattering Rose Petals
before 1705
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Gustave Doré
Scottish Landscape
1881
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen

Enrico Prampolini
Diver among Clouds
ca. 1930
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Kolomon Moser
Cloud Study
ca. 1913
oil on card
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

It is a lying fable, Theocles, that the Graces are good and that there are three of them in Orchomenus; for five times ten dance round thy face, all archeresses, ravishers of other men's souls. 

Now thou givest me these futile kisses, when the fire of love is quenched, when not even apart from it do I regard thee as a sweet friend.  For I remember those days of thy stubborn resistance.  Yet even now, Daphnis, though it be late, let repentance find its place.

What delight, Heliodorus, is there in kisses, if thou dost not kiss me, pressing against me with greedy lips, but on the tips of mine with thine closed and motionless, as a wax image at home kisses me even without thee?

If I do you a wrong by kissing you, and you think this an injury, kiss me too, inflicting the same on me as a punishment.  

If you were still uninitiated in the matter about which I go on trying to persuade you, you would be right in being afraid, thinking it is perhaps something formidable.  But if your master's bed has made you proficient in it, why do you grudge granting the favour to another, receiving the same?  For he, after summoning you to the business, dismisses you, and being your lord and master, goes to sleep without even addressing a word to you.  But here you will have other enjoyments, playing on equal terms, talking together, and all else by invitation and not by order. 

How, Dionysius, shall you teach a boy to read when you do not even know how to make the transition from one note to another?  You have passed so quickly from the highest note to a deep one, from the slightest rise to the most voluminous.  Yet I bear you no grudge; only study, and striking both notes say Lambda and Alpha* to the envious.

 – from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

*Probably, as the commentators explain, having some sort of sexual meaning. There is double meaning in all the rest of the epigram, but it is somewhat obscure – and had best remain so.  

Looking Up

Henry Lyman Sayen
Clouds
ca. 1910-12
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jean-Michel Cels
Cloud Study, Late Afternoon
1840
oil on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Genevieve Hafner
Untitled
2001
digital print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Thomas Nilsson
Untitled
2001
digital print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

William Eggleston
Santa Monica
1974
dye transfer print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Christo (Christo Javacheff)
Over the River: Project for Arkansas River, State of Colorado
2010
collage, graphite, paint, fabric and photo on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

attributed to Giuseppe Franchi
Lion
ca. 1775-1800
marble
(carved in Rome after antique Medici lions)
Musée du Louvre

Fillia (Luigi Colombo)
Mistero Aereo
ca. 1930-31
oil on canvas
Museo dell'Aeronautica Gianni Caproni, Trento

Graciela Iturbide
Jardín Botánico de Oaxaca
1999
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Matteo Rosselli
Allegory of Strength
ca. 1620-25
ceiling fresco
Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence

Anonymous Florentine Painter
Assumption of the Virgin
17th century
fresco
Basilica di Santo Spirito, Florence

Mauro Antonio Tesi
Study for Ceiling Decoration
before 1766
ink and watercolor on paper
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Domenico del Frate
Winged Victories
before 1792
oil on paper
(bozzetto for overdoor painting)
Palazzo Mansi, Lucca

Rollie McKenna
Palazzo Chiericati, Vicenza
1951
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Weegee
U.S. Hotel
ca. 1949
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Thornton Utz
Portrait of Mrs Harry Lynde Bradley
ca. 1973
acrylic and oil on panel
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Annibale Carracci
Boy Drinking
ca. 1582-83
oil on canvas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio

Everthing's laughter

            everything dust

                        everything nothing.

Out of unreason comes

            everything that exists.

– from the Greek Anthology, translated by Peter Jay

Horizon-Lines

Ferdinand Hart Nibbrig
Farmhouse near Laren
ca. 1912
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Claude Monet
Valley of the Creuse under Clouds
1889
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Hubert Robert
The Column
1789
oil on canvas
Saint Louis Art Museum

Ferdinand Hodler
Empfindung
ca. 1903-1904
tempera on paper, mounted on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

César de Cock
Landscape
1872
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Gustav Klimt
On Lake Attersee
1900
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Patrick Nilsson
The Big Darkness
2007
drawing
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Johann Wilhelm Schirmer
Breaking Waves with Distant Ships
1836
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Johan Christian Dahl
Cloud Study
1829
oil on paper
KODE (Art Museums Complex), Bergen, Norway

Mikhail Matyushin
Dunes
ca. 1910
oil on canvas, mounted on panel
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Anton Melby
By the Øresund
1852
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Edgar Degas
Landscape with Rocks
1892
pastel over monotype
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Wilhelm August Leopold Christian Krause
Pomeranian Coast
1828
oil on panel
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Frederick A. Greenleaf
Rapids of the Missouri River
ca. 1877-85
cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

William Christenberry
Palmist Building (Winter), Havana Junction, Alabama
1981
C-print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Arthur Segal
The Speaker
1912
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle Emden

Chorus:

No mortal can complete his life

unharmed and unpunished throughout –
ah, ah!
Some troubles are here now, some will come later.

Orestes:  Now, so that you may know – for I have no idea how this will end: I am already, as a horse-driver might say, charioteering somewhat off the track; my mind is almost out of control and carrying me along half-overpowered, and Terror is near my heart, ready to sing and to dance to Wrath's tune –  but while I still have my wits, I make proclamation that I killed my mother, the polluted murderer of my father, hated by the gods.  And as my prime inducement to dare this deed I name Loxias, the prophet god of Pytho, whose oracle told me that if I did it I would be free from guilt and blame, but if I failed to – I shall not speak of the punishment: no archer could reach that height of suffering.*  And now see me, how, accoutred with this wreathed olive-branch, I will go as a suppliant to Loxias' domain, his abode at the central navel of earth, and to the light of the fire that is called immortal, and fleeing this kindred bloodshed: to no other hearth than that did Loxias bid me direct myself.  I call on all Argives to preserve in memory for me, as time goes by, how these evils were brought to pass, and to bear witness for me if Menelaus comes home.  Now I go into exile, a wanderer banished from this land, leaving behind me, in life and in death, this reputation – that in revenge for my father I killed my mother. 

– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*This metaphor is chosen because an arrow shot from a bow could fly higher in the air than anything else man had invented in Aeschylus' time.