Showing posts with label crowds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crowds. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 9, 2025

Weegee

Weegee
Max the Bagel Man
1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago


Weegee
Crowd at Coney Island
1940
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Weegee
The Human Cannonball
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Untitled
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Couple Kissing in a Bar
ca. 1940
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Weegee
Not a Sunday Driver
1942
gelatin silver print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Weegee
Rehearsal, Yiddish Theater
1943
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Simply Add Boiling Water
1943
gelatin silver print
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Weegee
An Incident in the Snowstorm
1944
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Billie Dauscha and Mabel Sidney,
Bowery Entertainers

ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Frank Sinatra
ca. 1944
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Celebration at End of War
1945
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Weegee
Self Portrait
ca. 1950
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Queen Ball, San Francisco
ca. 1952
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Leslie Caron
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Weegee
Self Portrait
ca. 1955
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Weegee
Concert, Greenwich Village
ca. 1956
gelatin silver print
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

from Aetna

For when the rushing Winds begin to blow
And threat an angry Deluge far below,
A rocking Earthquake shakes the solid Ground,
And sullen Groans, and Murmurs dire resound,
And Flakes of livid Flames burst forth around:
Then to some distant Hill's securer Height,
With utmost Speed precipitate your Flight,
For hissing Streams o'erflow the ruin'd Coast,
And Fragments of the Rock aloft are tost,
And Loads of Sand are wildly whirl'd on high, 
With hideous Roar, and blacken all the Sky.
These horrid Inmates thus dismist, the Hill
Relents, and its convulsive Pangs are still.
    The Tempest past, huge Heaps are seen around
Of mingled Ruins, that o'erspread the Ground;
Like slaughter'd Soldiers, prostrate on the Plain,
Before the Ramparts they assail'd in vain.
    The stones, thus burnt, in a coarse Scurf expire,
Like the base Dregs of Metals purg'd by Fire;
And the dire Deluge of the mingled Mass
Of molten Flints, shot thro' the narrow Pass,
(For in the Mountain's Womb the raging Flame
Dissolves them, as the Forge's heated Frame)
In copious Streams do's from the Summit flow,
And rapid rolling ruin all below;
Twelve Miles in Length extends their wasteful Course,
Nor rising Mounds retard their fatal Force;
If Forests, or high Hills oppose, with Scorn
The Hills they master, and the Forests burn,
Sweep all before them with resistless Sway,
And th' unctuous Soil recruits them in the Way. 

– Anonymous(before 63 AD), translated by Jabez Hughes (before 1731)

Saturday, August 23, 2025

Densely Composed - IV

François Fontaine
Beautiful Company
1981
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Girolamo Miruoli
Intervention of the Sabine Women
ca. 1570
detached fresco
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Hugo Birger
Scandinavian Artists' Luncheon at Café Ledoyen, Paris
1886
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Jules-Alexandre Grün
Friday Gathering at the Salon
1911
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Meeting of Abraham and Melchizedek
(wing of triptych)
ca. 1510-20
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1550
oil on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Marx Reichlich
The Last Judgment
ca. 1490
tempera and oil on panel
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Grace Hartigan
#29 Pastorale
1953
screenprint
Dayton Art Institute, Ohio

Clara Peeters
Flowers in a Basket and on a Silver Tazza
ca. 1615
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Francesco Solimena
Boreas abducting Oreithyia
ca. 1727-28
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Maerten de Vos
Temptation of St Anthony
1594
oil on panel
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Henri Cueco
Capturing the Rhinoceros
1970
acrylic and lacquer on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Jean-Philippe Charbonnier
La Bibliothèque Municipale, Issoudun
1951
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anton Faistauer
Still Life with Coffee Cups
1912
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Lyubov Popova
Portrait of a Woman (Relief)
1915
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Maurice Prendergast
The Merry-Go-Round
ca. 1902-1906
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Read: the twenty-four books of Antonius Diogenes' romance The Wonder Beyond Thule.  Its narrative is uncluttered and so pure that there is no lack of clarity even in the digressions.  It is most agreeable in the ideas that it expresses because, though verging on the mythical and the incredible, it is altogether credible in the contrivance and elaboration of its episodes.

The story, then, opens with Dinias, who along with his son Demochares has wandered from his homeland in search of information.  After passing over the Black Sea and away from the Caspian, or Hyrcanian Sea, they reached what are called the Rhipaean Mountains and the source of the river Tanais.  There, because of the extreme cold, they turned back towards the Scythian Sea and then struck out in the direction of the east to the quarter of the rising sun, skirting the exterior sea for a long time in complicated wanderings.  

– Antonius Diogenes, from The Wonders Beyond Thule, written in Greek, 1st-2nd century AD.  A detailed summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The original text by Antonius Diogenes was subsequently lost; only the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).  

Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Densely Composed - I

Charley Toorop
Portrait of H.P. Bremmer and his Wife with Artists of their Time
1936-38
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Jackson Pollock
Unformed Figure
1953
oil and enamel on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Jacob de Backer
The Last Judgment
ca. 1580-85
oil on canvas
National Museum, Warsaw

Josef Abel
The merchant Johann Christian Edler von Bruchmann
with his Family

1810
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Alfred Leslie
N.Y. 10 N.Y.
1961
oil on canvas
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Giorgio Morandi
Bottles
1915
etching
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Kjartan Slettemark
Polaroid Necklace
1988
mounted Polaroids
Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum, Norway

Master of Frankfurt
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1505
oil on panel
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Auguste Herbin
Landscape at Céret
1919
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Alessandro Allori
Coronation of the Virgin
1593
oil on panel
Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence

Hans Canon
The Circle of Life
1885
oil on canvas
(modello for mural)
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller
Still Life with Flowers, Fruit,
and Covered Silver Goblet

1838
oil on panel
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Léon Frédéric
Abundance
1897
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Anonymous Artist
The Mocking of Christ
15th century
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Luc Simon
Les Ateliers - Je n'ai plus peur
1984
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Werner Rohde
Mannequins
1934
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

After the young man's departure, King Antiochus called for his reliable steward Thaliarchus and said to him: "Thaliarchus, as my trusted confidant, you know that Apollonius of Tyre has found the solution to my riddle.  Board a ship immediately and go in pursuit of the young man.  When you reach his native Tyre, you will find an enemy of his to kill him with a sword or poison.  After you return, you will have your liberty."

After hearing this, Thaliarchus took money and poison, boarded a ship, and set sail for Apollonius's homeland.  Apollonius, however, reached his homeland first, unharmed.  He entered his house, opened the bookcase, and studied the riddles of all the philosophers and astrologers.  When he found nothing except what he had already discerned, he said to himself: "What are you doing, Apollonius?  You have solved the king's riddle, you have not won his daughter.  You've been fobbed off only to be killed later."

And he ordered that ships be loaded with grain.  Apollonius himself with a few of his most trustworthy slaves accompanying him secretly boarded a ship.  Taking with him a great amount of gold and silver and an abundance of clothing, he entrusted himself to the high seas during the deep silence of midnight.

The next day the citizens of his city came to greet him, but he was not to be found.  The entire city resounded with the shouts of grief and wailing.  So great was his subjects' love for him that for a long time the barbershops were without customers, the public entertainments were suspended, and the baths were closed. 

– from The Story of Apollonius, King of Tyre, after anonymous Latin manuscripts of the 5th-6th century AD translating a lost Greek text of the 2nd-3rd century AD, and translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989) 

Monday, June 30, 2025

Groups - I

Max Ernst
Au Rendez-Vous des Amis
1922
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Barent Fabritius
St Peter in the House of Cornelius
(portrait historié of the painter's family)
1653
oil on canvas
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Lovis Corinth
Die Logenbrüder
1898-99
oil on canvas
Lenbachhaus, Munich

Johann Gottfried Schadow
Eleven Portrait Heads
ca. 1800-1803
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anders Kristensson
Truck Drivers, Viscariagruvan, Kiruna
1992
C-print
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Nils Forsberg
Acrobat Family before the Circus Manager
1878
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Cornelis de Vos
Family Portrait
ca. 1617-18
oil on canvas
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jacob Jordaens
Self Portrait (at left, playing lute) 
with the artist's wife Catharina van Noort and her Family

ca. 1616
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

R.B. Kitaj
Casting
1967
oil on canvas
Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Abraham van Strij
Interior with the Family of Hendrik Weymans
1816
oil on panel
Dordrechts Museum

Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder
The Artist with his Family
1836
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum, Mainz

Peder Severin Krøyer
Portrait of arts patron Heinrich Hirschsprung with his Family
1881
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Gerhard Keil
Gymnasts
1939
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Henri IV receiving the Spanish Ambassador
1817
oil on canvas
Musée du Petit Palais, Paris

Louis Faurer
Opening of Cleopatra (film) at Palace Theater, NYC
1963
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Cornelis Bisschop
Portrait of the Weinhändlers Family
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

"He drew out a little pouch that he carried beneath his arm and opened it to reveal a prodigious display of precious stones: pearls the size of small nuts, perfectly spherical and glistening the purest white; emeralds and sapphires, the former as green as grass in springtime, their depths glowing with a luster as clear and soft as olive oil, the latter exactly the color of the sea in the shadow of a tall cliff, sparkling on the surface and a deep violet beneath.  In short, all these gems, with their blend of scintillating hues, were a sight to gladden the eye.  But one glance was enough." 

– Heliodorus, from The Aethiopica, or, Theagenes and Charikleia (3rd or 4th century AD), translated from Greek by J.R. Morgan (1989)