Ornament

Heinrich Aldegrever
Panel with Putto and Mermaid
1528
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Anonymous German ARtist
Printer's Ornament
18th century
woodcut
(excised from printed book)
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Barthel Beham
Ornamental Panel
ca. 1530
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jean Bérain the Elder
Ornamental Design
1703
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Niccolò Billy and Pietro Cerini
Acanthus Ornaments
1725
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Niccolò Billy and Pietro Cerini
Acanthus Ornaments
1725
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Niccolò Billy and Pietro Cerini
Acanthus Ornaments
1725
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Niccolò Billy and Pietro Cerini
Acanthus Ornaments
1725
engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Raphael Custos after Lucas Kilian
Ornamental Panel
1632
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Angelo Falconetto
Panel with Acanthus Scroll and Satyr Family
before 1567
etching
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Peter Flötner
Panel with Grotesque Ornament after the Antique
before 1546
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Agostino Musi (Agostino Veneziano)
Acanthus Ornament
in Basilica San Silvestro, Rome
caa. 1510-20
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Georg Pencz
Ornamental Panel with Satyress and Satyr
ca. 1535
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Susanne Maria von Sandrart after Jean Le Pautre
Variations on Architectural Ornaments
1678
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jörg Seld
Panel with Pomegranates and Acanthus
1514
woodcut
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Antonio Tempesta
Panel with Grotesque Ornament surrounding Apollo
before 1630
etching and engraving
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

But Nicias, seeing the Athenians to be in a kind of tumult against Cleon, for that when he thought it so easy a matter he did not presently put it in practice, and seeing also he had upbraided him, willed him to take what strength he would that they could give him and undertake it.  Cleon, supposing at first that he gave him this leave but in words, was ready to accept it; but when he knew he would give him the authority in good earnest, then he shrunk back and said that not he but Nicias was general, being now indeed afraid and hoping that he durst not have given over the office to him.  But then Nicias again bade him do it and gave over his command to him for so much as concerned Pylus and called the Athenians to witness it.  They (as is the fashion of the multitude), the more Cleon declined the voyage and went back from his word, pressed Nicias so much the more to resign his power to him and cried out upon Cleon to go.  Insomuch as not knowing how to disengage himself of his word, he undertook the voyage, and stood forth saying that he feared not the Lacedaemonians, and that he would not carry any man with him out of the city but only the Lemnians and Imbrians that then were present and those targetiers that were come to them from Aenus and four hundred archers out of other places; and with these, he said, added to the soldiers that were at Pylus already, he would within twenty days either fetch away the Lacedaemonians alive or kill them upon the place.  This vain speech moved amongst the Athenians some laughter, and was heard with great content of the wiser sort.  For of two benefits, the one must needs fall out: either to be rid of Cleon (which was their greatest hope) or, if they were deceived in that, then to get those Lacedaemonians into their hands. 

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Acanthus

Anonymous American Maker
Study of the Cast of an Acanthus Ornament
1919
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous British Makers
Art Nouveau Scrolling Acanthus
ca. 1895-1910
block-printed and embossed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Makers
Acanthus and Seaweed
ca. 1830
block-printed wallpaper border
Cooper-Hewitt-Smithsonian-Design-Museum

Anonymous French Makers
Acanthus Leaves alternating with Acanthus Bosses
ca. 1815
block-printed wallpaper border
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Makers
Acanthus Rinceau
ca. 1825-35
block-printed and flocked wallpaper border
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous French Makers
Floral Baskets with Vining Acanthus
ca. 1875-1900
block-printed and embossed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Italian Maker
Acanthus Scrollwork
ca. 1540-50
drawing
(formerly in the Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo in Rome)
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anonymous Italian Maker
Design for Crozier with Acanthus Motif
17th century
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean Le Pautre
Ornamental Frieze with Acanthus Rinceaux
ca. 1640-50
etching
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean Le Pautre
Ornamental Frieze with Acanthus Rinceaux
ca. 1640-50
etching
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Jean Le Pautre
Ornamental Frieze with Acanthus Rinceaux
ca. 1640-50
etching
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

William Morris
Acanthus
1887
block-printed wallpaper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Alexis Peyrotte
Acanthus and Fretwork Ornament Design
ca. 1750-60
etching
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Alexis Peyrotte
Floral and Acanthus-Leaf Design
ca. 1750-60
etching
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Séguin et Cie (Lyon)
Textile Panel with Acanthus Motif
ca. 1805
silk satin brocaded with gold-wrapped thread
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Séguin et Cie (Lyon)
Textile Border with Acanthus Motif
ca. 1805
silk satin brocaded with gold-wrapped thread
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Ken Druse
Acanthus
ca. 2020
digital photograph
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Ken Druse
Acanthus
ca. 2020
digital photograph
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

from The Birds

 Before the creation of Æther and Light,

Chaos and Night together were plight,

In the dungeon of Erebus foully bedight.

Nor Ocean, or Air, or substance was there,

Or solid or rare, or figure or form,

But horrible Tartarus rul'd in the storm:

    At length, in the dreary chaotical closet

Of Erebus old, was a privy deposit,

By Night the primæval in secresy laid;

A Mystical Egg, that in silence and shade

Was brooded and hatch'd; till time came about:

And Love, the delightful, in glory flew out,

In rapture and light, exulting and bright,

Sparkling and florid, with stars in his forehead,

His forehead and hair, and a flutter and flare, 

As he rose in the air, triumphantly furnish'd

To range his dominions, on glittering pinions,

All golden and azure, and blooming and burnish'd:

    He soon, in the murky Tartarean recesses,

With a hurricane's might, in his fiery caresses

Impregnated Chaos; and hastily snatch'd

To being and life, begotten and hatch'd,

The primitive Birds: but the Deities all,

The celestial Lights, the terrestrial Ball,

Were later of birth, with the dwellers on earth,

More tamely combin'd, of a temperate kind;

When chaotical mixture approach'd to a fixture.

    Our antiquity prov'd, it remains to be shown

That Love is our author, and master alone,

Like him, we can ramble, and gambol and fly

O'er ocean and earth, and aloft to the sky:

And all the world over, we're friends to the lover,

And when other means fail, we are found to prevail,

When a Peacock or Pheasant is sent as a present.

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

Huszár - Hunt - Humphrey - Heward

Vilmos Huszár
Composition - De Stijl
ca. 1950-55
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Vilmos Huszár
Composition with White Head
1917
encaustic on panel
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Vilmos Huszár
Dancers
ca. 1939
oil on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Vilmos Huszár
Hammer and Saw (Still-Life Composition)
ca. 1917
oil on panel
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

William Henry Hunt
An Apple, Grapes and a Hazelnut on a Mossy Bank
before 1864
watercolor on paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

William Henry Hunt
Bird's Nest
ca. 1850
watercolor on paper
Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh

William Henry Hunt
Cottages in an extensive Landscape
ca. 1825-30
watercolor on paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

William Henry Hunt
Fishermen's Cottages at Hastings
ca. 1815-25
watercolor on paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

David Humphrey
Crowded Body
1984
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum

David Humphrey
On the Couch
2014
acrylic on canvas
private collection

David Humphrey
Posing
2014
acrylic on canvas
private collection

David Humphrey
Buddies
2016
acrylic on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Prudence Heward
Leaves (study for portrait of Barbara)
ca. 1933
oil on panel
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Prudence Heward
Sarah Eliot
1945
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Prudence Heward
Au Théâtre
1928
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal

Prudence Heward
The Farmer's Daughter
1945
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

The Fire

Had you died when we were together

I would have wanted nothing of you. 

Now I think of you as dead, it is better.

Often, in the cool early evenings of the spring

when, with the first leaves,

all that is deadly enters the world,

I build a fire for us of pine and apple wood;

repeatedly

the flames flare and diminish

as the night comes on in which

we see one another so clearly –

And in the days we are contented

as formerly 

in the long grass,

in the woods' green doors and shadows.

And you never say

Leave me

since the dead do not like being alone.

– Louise Glück (1975)