Loves

Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend (Italian painter)
Daphne asleep discovered by Apollo
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

Master of the Apollo and Daphne Legend (Italian painter)
Daphne fleeing Apollo
ca. 1500
oil on panel
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

Vincent Sellaer
Antiope and her twins Amphion and Zethus
with Jupiter as Satyr in background
ca. 1535-45
oil on panel
Musée du Louvre

Jacopo Tintoretto
Leda and the Swan
ca. 1550
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Lazzaro Tavarone
Abduction of Europa
ca. 1595
drawing (fresco study)
British Museum

Denys Calvaert
Danaë
1614
oil on canvas
Palazzo Mansi, Lucca

Jacob Jordaens after Peter Paul Rubens
Vertumnus and Pomona
1638
oil on canvas
Museu Nacional de Arte Antiga, Lisbon

Gerbrand van den Eeckhout
Vertumnus and Pomona
ca. 1645
drawing
British Museum

Giacinto Gimignani
Danae
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Museo Civico di Pistoia

Anonymous German Sculptor
Leda and the Swan
ca. 1700-1715
ivory
Musée du Louvre

Jean-François de Troy
Abduction of Europa
1716
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jean Thierry
Leda and the Swan
1717
marble
Musée du Louvre

Giambattista Tiepolo
Abduction of Europa
ca. 1725
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

François-Joseph Bosio
Hyacinth, beloved of Apollo
1817
marble
Musée du Louvre

Charles Nègre
Leda
1850
collotype
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Charles Dufresne
Abduction of Europa
1924
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Cy Twombly
Leda and the Swan, Rome
1962
oil paint, graphite and crayon on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

The latest ferrule now has tapped the curb

And the night's tiny noises everywhere

Beat vivid on the owl's developed ear,

Vague in the watchman's, and in wards disturb

The cases counting sheep.  Blessing this moon

Like treasures touching sides, how many lie,

Successful lovers who were once as I;

But in your northern house you sleep alone.

All the hot stars beyond me and the sun,

Down the great trackways where our tribe is nothing

And meaningless a change from love to loathing,

Their fast involuntary errands run:

And I find nothing sensible to do,

But, shivering, look towards the north and you.

– W.H. Auden (1933)

Headgear

attributed to Masaccio
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1425-27
tempera on panel
Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston

Master of Frankfurt
St Barbara
ca. 1490
oil on panel (altarpiece fragment)
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Hans Holbein the Elder
Portrait of Sister Veronika Vetter
ca. 1499
drawing (study for painted donor figure)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Lucas van Leyden
Old Woman with Bunch of Grapes
ca. 1523
engraving
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Guido Reni
Portrait of a Woman as a Sibyl
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence

Anonymous French Makers
Nightcap
18th century
embroidered silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Louis Leloir
Un Raffiné
1881
etching
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Alexei Jawlensky
Helene with Colored Turban
1910
oil on board
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Georges Lepape
Les Choses de Paul Poiret
1911
collotype and pochoir (fashion illustration)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

John Singer Sargent
Betty Wertheimer (Mrs. Arthur Ricketts)
ca. 1910-12
watercolor on paper
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Nickolas Muray
Gloria Swanson
ca. 1920
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Stanlaws Penrhyn
Cover Design for Collier's Weekly
1924
pastel on prepared canvas
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Anonymous Makers
Bride's Cap
1929
lace trimmed with pearls and wax orange-blossom
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

René Piot
Head of a Woman
before 1934
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Harry Warnecke
Irene Dunne
1944
tricolor carbro print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Roger Medearis
Judith
1968
acrylic and tempera on panel
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Ricky Maynard
Ambrose
2015
gelatin silver print
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

from Divine Epigrams

        

        The sicke implore St. Peter's shadow.

Under thy shadow may I lurke a while,

    Death's busie search I'le easily beguile:

Thy shadow Peter, must shew me the Sun,

    My light's thy shadowes shadow, or 'tis done. 

– Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple (1648)

Forces - I

Timothy H. O'Sullivan
Cave-in at Comstock Mine, Virginia City, Nevada
1868
albumen silver print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Caspar Luyken
Scene of Devastation
ca. 1700
engraving (book illustration)
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Wolfgang Petrovsky and Frank Voigt
On German History (Vertical)
1984
mixed media on panel
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Axel Revold
Night
1927
oil on canvas
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø

Sigmar Polke
Untitled
1996
emulsion paint on fabric
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Anonymous Photographer
Promenade on Lake Michigan
ca. 1912
collotype (postcard)
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Albert Bierstadt
Gathering Storm in the Valley
1891
oil on canvas
Nordsee Museum, Husum, Germany

Louis Garneray
Shipwrecked
ca. 1835
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

James Ensor
Christ on the Sea of Galilee
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels

Georg Baselitz
Volkstanz Marode (Weary Folkdance)
1989
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Henri Edmond Cross
The Glade
1906
oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Frederick A. Greenleaf
Sand Cliffs, Old Road, Helena to Benton
ca. 1877-85
cyanotype
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Marsden Hartley
Earth Cooling
1932
oil on cardboard
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Christian Rohlfs
Cemetery Wall in Weimar
1889
oil on canvas
Kunsthalle zu Kiel

Pierre-Jacques Volaire
Eruption of Vesuvius
1771
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest

Luc Simon
Les Ateliers - La Chute des Anges
1983-85
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

I hate Love. For why does the severe god not attack animals, but shoots his arrows at my heart? What profit is it for a god to burn up a man? Or what cause does he have to boast in wresting a prize from my head?

If anyone blames me, a skilled servant of Love, because I go about, my eyes armed with bird lime for the hunt, he should know that Zeus, and Hades, and the lord of the sea were slaves to violent desires. If the gods are so, and they tell men to follow the gods, what wrong do I do in learning the deeds of the gods?

You fell in love when you were rich, Sosicrates, but now that you are poor you are in love no longer: such a remedy hunger holds. Menophila, who once called you "sweetie" and "darling Adonis," now asks your name. "What man art thou, and whence, thy city where?" Truly you learned the hard way the saying, "He who has nothing has no friends."

Son of illustrious Megistocles, do not – not even if he seems to you more precious than your own two eyes, even if he gleams from the bath of the Graces – do not buzz about the lovely boy. He is neither gentle nor innocent, but courted by many, and no novice in love. Beware, my friend, and do not fan the flame.

In the middle of the night I deceived my husband and came, soaked by the pounding rain. Was it for this that we sit idle, talking, and do not go to bed as lovers ought to go to bed?

– from Book V (Amatory Epigrams) of the Greek Anthology, edited and translated by W.R. Paton (1916), revised by Michael A. Tueller (2014)