Foregathered

Liberale da Verona
Triumph of Fame
ca. 1470
tempera on panel
Museo del Settecento Veneziano, Ca' Rezzonico, Venice

Anonymous French Artist - School of Fontainebleau
Triumph of Chastity
ca. 1560
oil on canvas
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco

Jacob Hoefnagel
Triumph of Autumn
1605
oil on copper
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Dirck Hals (figures) and Dirck van Delen (architecture)
Festive Company in Renaissance Interior
1628
oil on panel
Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem

Gerard van Opstal
Lidded Mug with Triumph of Silenus
ca. 1640
ivory with gilt-bronze mount
Musée du Louvre

Angelo Trevisani
Triumph of Scipio
ca. 1700-1725
oil on canvas
Newport Mansions Preservation Society, Rhode Island

Edme Bouchardon
Masquerade
ca. 1723-32
drawing (print study)
Musée du Louvre

Hugues Taraval
The Waking of Cupid
1781
oil on canvas (overdoor)
Wallace Collection, London

Felice Giani
Altar erected by the invading French in St Peter's Square for Napoleonic festival
1798
oil on canvas
Museo di Roma a Palazzo Braschi

 

Anonymous Italian Printmaker
Masquerade in Rome
1813
etching
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Eugène Boudin
Concert at the Casino, Deauville
1865
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Bernardo Ferrándiz Bádenes
Festival in Málaga
1872
oil on canvas
Colección Bellver, Sevilla

Simeon Solomon
Greek Festival
1873
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin

Camille Pissarro
Study of Outdoor Market
ca. 1900-1901
ink, gouache and wash on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Domenico Cucchiari
Parish Festival
1926
oil on canvas
Palazzo Cybo Malaspina, Carrara

Felix Nussbaum
Masquerade
ca. 1939
oil on canvas
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago

Max Beckmann
Baccarat
1947
oil on canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Commendatory Verse, printed in the first edition (1623) of The Duchess of Malfi

In the most worth of that well-deserver, Mr. John Webster, and upon this masterpiece of tragedy.

        In this thou imitat'st one rich, and wise,

        That sees his good deeds done before he dies;

        As he by works, thou by this work of fame,

        Hast well provided for thy living name.

        To trust to other's honourings is worth's crime –

        Thy monument is rais'd in thy life-time;

        And 'tis most just; for every worthy man

        Is his own marble, and his merit can

        Cut him to any figure and express

        More art than Death's cathedral palaces,

        Where royal ashes keep their court. Thy note

        Be ever plainness, 'tis the richest coat:

        Thy epitaph only the title be –

        Write, 'Duchess', that will fetch a tear for thee,

        For who e'er saw this duchess live, and die,

        That could get off under a bleeding eye?

– Thomas Middleton

Organizing Many Figures

Charles Dana Gibson
Her poise, her unconsciousness, the winning simplicity of her manner were noticed everywhere.
1910
drawing
Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachusetts

Irving Penn
Hippie Group, San Francisco
1967
platinum-palladium print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

John Edward Costigan
Picnic along the Brook
1952
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Joseph von Führich
Marriage at Cana
1841
etching
British Museum

Jan de Bisschop
Adoration of the Shepherds
ca. 1660
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Anonymous Artist
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Don Freeman
Casting for Character
1934
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Domenico del Barbieri after Francesco Primaticcio
Banquet of Alexander the Great
ca. 1540-50
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Anonymous Artist
A Bed-Room Bombardment
ca. 1870
hand-colored lithograph
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

Anonymous Photographer
Hans Hofmann with his Modern Art class at UC Berkeley
1930
gelatin silver print
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

Gerard Hoet
The Earth before the Flood
ca. 1728
drawing (print study)
British Museum

Dirck Hals
Merry Company
ca. 1620
oil on panel
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Camille Pissarro
Uprising in Paris
1870
drawing
Dallas Museum of Art

Johann Maria Monsorno
Gathering of Olympian Gods
1796
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Vicente Borrás y Abella
Vaccinating Children
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Museo de Málaga, Spain

Winslow Homer
Bell-Time
(series, New England Factory Life)
1868
wood-engraving (published in Harper's Weekly)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Charles Nègre
Famille de Charles Nègre
ca. 1859
collodion print from salted paper negative
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

from The Birds

 

Ye Children of Man! whose life is a span,

Protracted with sorrow from day to day,

Naked and featherless, feeble and querulous,

Sickly calamitous creatures of clay!

Attend to the words of the Sovereign Birds,

(Immortal, illustrious, lords of the air)

Who survey from on high, with a merciful eye,

Your struggles of misery, labour, and care. 

Whence you may learn and clearly discern

Such truths as attract your inquisitive turn,

Which is busied of late, with a mighty debate,

A profound speculation about the creation,

And organical life, and chaotical strife,

With various notions of heavenly motions,

And rivers and oceans, and valleys and mountains,

And sources of fountains, and meteors on high,

And stars in the sky . . . We propose by and by,

(If you'll listen and hear) to make it all clear.

– Aristophanes (445-385 BC), translated by John Hookham Frere (1839)

Organizing Many Figures

Annibale Carracci
St Roch distributing Alms
ca. 1594-95
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Marcel Dzama
Where All Harmonies Are Tuned
2011
inkjet print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Cecil Buller
Market, Concarneau
ca. 1915
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Diane Gamboa
Lost and Found
1994
screenprint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

José García-Ramos
Leaving a Masked Ball
1905
oil on canvas
Museo Carmen Thyssen, Málaga

Shirin Neshat
Rapture Series
1999
C-print
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

attributed to Frans Verbeeck
Burlesque Feast
ca. 1550
oil on panel
Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao

George Bellows
Tennis
1920
lithograph
Reynolda House Museum of American Art,
Winston-Salem, North Carolina

Giovanni Jacopo Caraglio
Ancient School of Philosophy
ca. 1520
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anonymous German Artist
Baptism of Christ
18th century
watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Ambrosius Francken the Elder
Triumph of the Christ Child
ca. 1605-1610
oil on panel
private collection

Arthur Devis
Family of Sir Joshua Vanneck
1752
oil on canvas
Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh

Winslow Homer
Station House Lodgers
1874
wood-engraving (magazine illustration)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Andreas Gursky
Singapore Stock Exchange
1997
C-print
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Sebastian Vrancx
The Fête
ca. 1605
oil on canvas
Princeton University Art Museum

Mario Giacomelli
La Gente del Sud: Puglia
1958
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Noël Hallé
Achilles discovered among the Daughters of Lycomedes
1763
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

from The Clouds

[Chorus of Clouds]

Cloud-maidens that float on for ever,

    Dew-sprinkled, fleet bodies, and fair,

Let us rise from our Sire's loud river,

    Great Ocean, and soar through the air

To the peaks of the pine-covered mountains where the

                pines hang as tresses of hair.

Let us seek the watchtowers undaunted,

    Where the well-watered cornfields abound,

And through murmurs of rivers nymph-haunted

    The songs of the sea-waves resound;

And the sun in the sky never wearies of spreading his

                radiance around.

        Let us cast off the haze

            Of the mists from our band,

        Till with far-seeing gaze

            We may look on the land.

– Aristophanes (445-385 BC), translated by Oscar Wilde (1890)