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

Paula Scher

Paula Scher
One on One - Bob James, Earl Klugh
1979
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Manhattan Records
ca. 1985
offset-lithograph (sample record labels)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Manhattan Records
ca. 1987
offset-lithograph (record label)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
The big A
1991
screenprint
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
The Public Theater - New York
1994
offset-lithograph (flyer)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Simpatico - The Public Theater - New York
1994
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Him - The Public Theater - New York
1994
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
New York Shakespeare Festival in Central Park
1994
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
The Public Theater - New York
1996
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
The Best of Tappan Zee
ca. 1997
offset-lithograph (record sleeve)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Space - The Public Theater - New York
1999
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Ballet Tech - The Joyce Theater - New York
1999
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Book of the Dead (Second Avenue)
The Public Theater - New York
2000
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Shakespeare in the Park - The Public Theater - New York
2007
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Public - San Francisco
2012
offset-lithograph
(advertising poster for brand of bicycles)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
Sundance Film Festival
2013
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paula Scher
You, Me - for Poster House, New York
2020
digital poster
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

from The Consolation of Philosophy

    Alas! what laws can Lovers awe?

Love is it self the greatest Law!

Or who can such hard bondage brook

To be in Love, and not to Look?

Poor Orpheus almost in the light

Lost his dear Love for one short sight;

And by those eyes, which Love did guide,

What he most lov'd unkindly dyed!

    This tale of Orpheus and his Love

Was meant for you, who ever move

Upwards, and tend into that light,

Which is not seen by mortal sight.

For if, while you strive to ascend,

You droop, and towards Earth once bend

Your seduc'd Eyes, down you will fall

Ev'n while you look, and forfeit all.

– Boethius (AD 476-524), translated by Henry Vaughan (1678)

Max Beckmann

Max Beckmann
Fastnacht (Carnival)
1920
oil on canvas
Tate Modern, London

 

Max Beckmann
Women's Bath
1922
drypoint
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Max Beckmann
Portrait of composer Frederick Delius
1922
lithograph
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Max Beckmann
Portrait of Frau H.M.
1923
woodcut
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Max Beckmann
Youth with Lobster
1926
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Portrait of Marie Swarzenski
ca. 1927
pastel on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Paris Society
1931
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Max Beckmann
The Murder
1933
watercolor and ink on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Two Women Reading
ca. 1937-38
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Self Portrait
1938
gouache on paper
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Max Beckmann
Woman reading at the Beach
1939
oil on canvas
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Max Beckmann
Faust Sleeping
1943-44
drawing
(print study for book illustration)
Goethe Haus, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
The Murder
1945
watercolor and ink on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Self Portrait
1946
lithograph
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Max Beckmann
Models
1947
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

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

Max Beckmann
Portrait of Wally Barker
1948
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Max Beckmann
Large Still Life with Pigeons
1950
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

from Afterword

I hadn't moved. I felt the desert

stretching ahead, stretching (it now seems)

on all sides, shifting as I speak,

so that I was constantly

face-to-face with blankness, that

stepchild of the sublime,

which, it turns out,

has been both my subject and my medium.

What would my twin have said, had my thoughts

reached him?

Perhaps he would have said

in my case there was no obstacle (for the sake of argument)

after which I would have been

referred to religion, the cemetery where

questions of faith are answered.

– Louise Glück (2014)