The Ground Layer (Sombre) - IV

Alexandre-Denis-Abel de Pujol
Portrait of Madame Adolphe Blanqui
ca. 1840
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Christoph Unterberger
Tobit burying the Dead
ca. 1780
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Orazio Borgianni
Christ among the Doctors
ca. 1609
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Bartolomeo Cavarozzi
Holy Family with St Catherine
ca. 1617-19
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

attributed Luca Giordano
Philosopher
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Bernardo Strozzi
St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1615
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Franz Sigrist
Flight into Egypt
ca. 1763
oil on copper
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Amable-Louis-Claude Pagnest
The Gladiator
1813
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Friedrich Karl Hausmann
Interior
1849
oil on paper
Alte Nationalgalerie,
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giulio Romano
Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1518-20
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Gaspar de Crayer
Portrait of Nicolas Triest, Count d'Auweghem
1620
oil on canvas
Harvard Art Museums

Honoré Daumier
Wrestler
ca. 1852
oil on panel
Ordrupgaard, Art Museum Copenhagen

Karel Dujardin
Hagar and Ishmael in the Wilderness
ca. 1662
oil on canvas
John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota

Valentin de Boulogne
Moses
ca. 1628
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Anonymous Italian Artist
Deposition
17th century
oil on canvas
Princeton University Art Museum

Orazio Riminaldi
David with the Head of Goliath
ca. 1617-20
oil on canvas
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

"As you know, I am in my seventeenth year and for the past year have been deemed to have entered manhood.  Until now I have been but an ignorant child.  If I had not experienced Aphrodite, I would count myself blessed in my firmness.  But now that I have become your daughter's prisoner, not dishonorably but with the consent of you both, how long shall I deny I am her captive?  Men of my age are clearly ready for marriage: for how many of them have remained chaste until their fifteenth year?  I am the victim of a law not written but sanctioned by foolish convention: that among us young women usually marry at the age of fifteen.  Who in his right mind would deny that natural feelings are the best sanction for this kind of union?  Girls of fourteen conceive, and indeed some give birth to children.  Will  your daughter not even marry?  We should wait two years, you will say.  Suppose we do wait – will our Fortune also wait?  I am a mortal man engaged to a mortal girl.  I am subject not only to the common lot of mankind – to illnesses and to the destiny that often carries away even those who sit quietly at home beside the hearth; but voyages and war after war await me; and I am not without daring or one to wrap myself in a veil of cowardice to keep me from harm, but am, to put it directly, as you know me to be.  Let my kingship, my passion, let the insecurity and uncertainty of what awaits me – let all these hasten our marriage and let the fact that we are only children in our families be reason for anticipation and forethought, so that if Fortune should will some disaster on us we may leave you the pledges.  Perhaps you will say that I am shameless in discussing these matters.  I would have been shameless if I had seduced her secretly and surreptitiously taken advantage of her with the aid of night, drink, and the complicity of servant and nurse to satisfy our mutual passion.  It is not shameless to speak to a mother about her daughter's earnestly desired marriage and to demand what you have granted and to ask that the wishes of our two households and of the entire kingdom not be delayed until some occasion that will not lie within your grasp." 

– from Ninus, an anonymous romance fragment written in Greek between the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989)

Philip Pearlstein

Philip Pearlstein
Uprooted Tree
1956
ink and wash on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Landscape
ca. 1960-65
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Untitled
ca. 1962
ink on paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Male and Female Nudes with Red and Purple Drape
1968
oil on canvas
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Female Model on Oriental Rug with Mirror
1968
oil on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Untitled
1970
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Untitled
1970
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Untitled
1970
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Untitled
1970
lithograph
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Portrait of Anne Arnold and Ernest Briggs
1971
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Study for Two Reclining Female Models
1972
ink and wash on paper
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Philip Pearlstein
Portrait of Henry Kissinger
1979
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Portrait of Mark Strand
1983
watercolor on paper
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Portrait of Beth Levine
1985
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Jack Mitchell
Philip Pearlstein
1986
gelatin silver print
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Self Portrait
1996
collage of printed paper and crayon on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Philip Pearlstein
Two Female Models sitting with Legs Crossed
and Kazak Rug
2013
oil on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

from The First Satyr of Aulus Persius Flaccus,
in Dialogue betwixt the Poet and His Friend, or Monitor

Friend: Your Satyrs, let me tell you, are too fierce;
The Great will never bear so blunt a Verse.
Their Doors are bar'd against a bitter flout:
Snarl, if you please, but you shall snarl without.
Expect such Pay as railing Rhymes deserve,
Y'are in a very hopeful way to starve.

Persius: Rather than so, uncensur'd let them be:
All, all is admirably well for me.
My harmless Rhyme shall scape the dire disgrace
Of Common-shores, and ev'ry pissing place.
Two painted Serpents shall, on high, appear;*
'Tis Holy Ground, you must not Urine here.'
This shall be writ to fright the Fry away,
Who draw their little Bawbles, when they play.
    Yet old Lucilius never fear'd the times;
But lash'd the City, and dissected Crimes.
Mutius and Lupus both by Name he brought;
He mouth'd em, and betwixt his Grinders caught.
Unlike in method, with conceal'd design,
Did crafty Horace his low numbers joyn;
And with a sly, insinuating Grace,
Laugh'd at his Friend, and look'd him in the Face.
Would raise a Blush, where secret Vice be found;
And tickle, while he gently prob'd the Wound.
With seeming Innocence the Crowd beguil'd;
But made the desperate Passes** when he smil'd.

– Persius (AD 34-62), translated by John Dryden (1693)

*on places to be protected from defilement snakes were painted in warning
**lunges, thrusts (a fencing term)

Practical Foreshortening - II

Édouard Manet
Plum Brandy
ca. 1877
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Palma il Giovane
St Jerome
before 1628
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Alexandre-Denis-Abel de Pujol
Seated Model
1834
drawing
(study for painting, Apotheosis of Alexander)
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Pablo Picasso
Kneeling Nude
1907-1908
drawing
(study for painting, Three Women)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giuseppe Rolli
Figure in Clouds
ca. 1660
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Benedetto Luti
Supper at Emmaus
ca. 1695
oil on panel
Princeton University Art Museum

Jacob Matthias Schmutzer
Académie
ca. 1770-80
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jacob Jordaens
Study of Figure in Priestly Vestments
ca. 1650
drawing
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Henry Fuseli
Figure Study
(made at the Royal Academy, London)
1800
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Anton Kolig
Large Kneeling Figure
1922
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Théodore Géricault
Académie
ca. 1812
oil on canvas
(test patch cleaned, lower right corner)
National Museum, Warsaw

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)
Foreshortened Figure
ca. 1640
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Federico Barocci
Figure Studies
ca. 1580-83
drawing
(studies for painting, Martyrdom of St Vitalis)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Pompeo Batoni
Académie
1768
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

attributed to Aert de Gelder
Model arranging her Hair
ca. 1690
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

 

Federico Zuccaro
Putto
ca. 1580
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Overcome by hunger, Rhodanes and his companion lick the honey off themselves, are stricken with diarrhea, and fall as if dead at the side of the road.  Worn out from fighting the bees, the soldiers flee; all the same, they pursue Rhodanes and his companion, and, seeing their quarry collapsed, they pass them by, taking them to be truly dead.  . . .  While Rhodanes and Sinonis are lying collapsed at the side of the road, the soldiers as they are passing follow the custom of their country in throwing shrouds in the form of tunics over what they take to be corpses, and whatever they happen to have, and pieces of meat and bread.  In this way the soldiers pass by.  The couple made unconscious by the honey wake up with difficulty; Rhodanes is awakened by the sound of crows quarreling over the pieces of meat, and he wakes up Sinonis.  They get up and travel in the direction opposite to that taken by the soldiers so as to improve their chances of not being recognized as the fugitives.  Finding two asses, they mount them and load them with what they retained from the things that the soldiers who supposed that they were dead threw over their bodies.  They then turn into an inn, flee from there, and take lodgings at another one around midday.

– Iamblichus, from A Babylonian Story, written in Greek, 2nd century AD.  A summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  Except for fragments, the original text by Iamblichus was subsequently lost, but the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).

Practical Foreshortening - I

Peter Paul Rubens
Minerva overcoming Ignorance
ca. 1632-34
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

Wilhelm Traut after Lucas Kilian
Ecce Homo
ca, 1636
woodcut
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Per Christian Brown
Army Play
2005
C-print
KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo

Francesco Incarnatini
The Drunkenness of Noah
1642
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Max Slevogt
Danaë
1895
oil on canvas
Lenbachhaus, Munich

Vittorio Manini
Study of Recumbent Model
1910
oil on canvas
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Portrait of painter Suzanne Valadon
1884
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Paul Wilhelm
Couple with Fruit
1910
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Adolph Menzel
Worker Washing
ca. 1872-74
drawing
(study for painting)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Group of Figures
ca. 1526-27
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Annibale Carracci
River God
ca. 1593-94
oil on canvas
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Evaristo Baschenis
Still Life with Musical Instruments
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Anonymous French Artist
Head of Horse
18th century
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Otto Dill
Horsemen
1917
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Friedrich Gauermann
Homeward Bound
ca. 1850
oil on panel
(cabinet miniature)
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Théodore Géricault
Acrobat on Trapeze
before 1824
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

Rhodanes and his companion are almost captured in a field by their pursuer, Damas: for there was a fisherman who gave information about the shepherds, who when tortured finally point out the field – Rhodanes found in it gold that had been revealed by the inscription on a leonine stele.  A goatlike specter falls in love with Sinonis.  For this reason Rhodanes and his companion leave the meadow.  Finding Sinonis's garland of wild meadow flowers, Damas sends it to Garmus to console him.  In their flight Rhodanes and his companion come upon an old woman in a hut.  They hide in a cave that is dug right through for over three miles and is blocked at the mouth by a thicket.  Damas suddenly arrives, and the old woman is questioned and faints on seeing the drawn sword.  The horses on which Rhodanes and Sinonis were riding are seized; the troop of soldiers takes up position around the spot where Sinonis and Rhodanes are hiding; the bronze shield of one of the soldiers breaks on top of the cave; disclosure of the fugitives is caused by the empty sound of the echo; holes are dug around the cave, and Damas shouts all over; those within hear and flee to the innermost parts of the cave and make their escape in the direction of its other opening.  Swarms of savage bees come from the cave and attack those who are digging there, and honey drops down onto the fugitives; both the bees and the honey are poisonous because the bees have fed on snakes; attacking those who have turned towards the cave, the bees seriously injure some and kill others.

– Iamblichus, from A Babylonian Story, written in Greek, 2nd century AD.  A summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  Except for fragments, the original text by Iamblichus was subsequently lost, but the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).