Imitation Sunlight - II

Anna Ancher
Interior with the artist's mother reading
1910
oil on canvas
Skagens Museum, Denmark

Pierre Bonnard
Before the window in Grand-Lemps
1923
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Carl Gustav Carus
Balcony in Naples
ca. 1829-30
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Franz Ludwig Catel
Portrait of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in Naples
1824
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Wilhelm Gail
Foscari Loggia in the Palazzo Ducale, Venice
1834
oil on canvas
Bildgalerie von Sanssouci, Potsdam

Wilhelm von Gegerfelt
Farm at Balingsta
1891
oil on panel
Prins Eugens Waldemarsudde, Stockholm

Johann Erdmann Hummel
Granite Basin in the Lustgarten, Berlin
1831
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

 

Peder Severin Krøyer
Self Portrait
1888
oil on canvas
Stavanger Kunstmuseum, Norway

Gotthardt Kuehl
Garden Room
ca. 1895-1900
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Louis Lozowick
Checkerboard under the El
1926
lithograph
Addison Gallery of American Art,
Phillips Academy, Andover, Massachusetts

Abraham van Strij
The Drawing Lesson
ca. 1800
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands

Henry van de Velde
Woman reading in the sun (Jeanne Biart)
1892
pastel on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Frederik Vermehren
Courtyard, Kongens Nytorv, Copenhagen
1845
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

Édouard Vuillard
Boulevard des Batignolles
ca. 1910
oil on cardboard
Landesmuseum, Hannover

Camille Pissarro
Corner of the Garden, Éragny
1897
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Henri Matisse
Street in Arcueil
ca. 1903-1904
oil on canvas
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Chorus:

There is much, at any rate, that strikes deep into the soul:

one knows the men one sent off,

but instead of human beings

urns and ashes arrive back

at each man's home.

Ares, the moneychanger of bodies,

holding his scales in the battle of spears,

sends back from Ilium to their dear ones

heavy dust that has been through the fire,

to be sadly wept over,

filling easily-stowed urns

with ash given in exchange for men.

And they lament, and praise this man

as one expert in battle,

that man as having fallen nobly amid the slaughter –

"because of someone else's wife".

That is what they are snarling, under their breath,

and grief steals over them, mixed with resentment

against the chief prosecutors, the Atreidae.

And over there, around the city wall,

the men in their beauty occupy 

sepulchres in the land of Ilium:

the enemy's soil covers its conquerors. 

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

Imitation Sunlight - I

Frédéric Bazille
Les Lauriers Roses
1867
oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Baldovino Bertè
Borgo della Morte,  Parma
1872
oil on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Gustave Caillebotte
Path in the Garden
1886
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Adolf Dietrich
Garden in Summer
1925
tempera on paper
Kunsthalle Mannheim

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Sailor parting from his Beloved
1840
oil on canvas
Ribe Kunstmuseum, Denmark

Anselm Feuerbach
Rocky Landscape
1855
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Erik Hoppe
Wilders Plads, Copenhagen
ca. 1937
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Ekke Abel Kleima
Dune Landscape on Texel
1939
oil on canvas
Groninger Museum, Netherlands

Henri Loubat
La famille Loubat à Saint-Jean-de-Luz
ca. 1904
oil on board
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Gaillac

Albert Marquet
In the Luxembourg Gardens, Paris
1902
oil on canvas
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Firmin Salabert
Conversation dans une Allée près du Lac
ca. 1860
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Gaillac

P.C. Skovgaard
View of the Sea from Møns Klint
1850
oil on canvas
Skovgaard Museet, Viborg, Denmark

Vincent van Gogh
Lane near Arles
1888
oil on canvas
Pomeranian State Museum, Greifswald

Carl Moll
Prater Scene
ca. 1925
oil on canvas
Leopold Museum, Vienna

Claude Monet
Double Herbaceous Borders under Trees at Giverny
1902
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Antoine-Pierre Mongin
Corner of a Park
ca. 1795
oil on paper, mounted on canvas
Morgan Library, New York

Clytemnestra: Today the Achaeans are in possession of Troy.  I imagine that the city is marked by shouts and cries that do not blend well.  If you pour vinegar and olive oil into the same vessel, they'll keep apart and you'll call them very unfriendly; so too one can hear separately the voices of the conquered and the conquerors – can hear their distinct fortunes.  On one side, they have prostrated themselves to embrace the bodies of husbands and brothers, and children those of their aged progenitors, and from throats that are no longer free they cry out their laments for the death of their dearest.  On the other, weary nocturnal patrolling after the battle has led to their mustering, famished, at breakfasts consisting of what the city has available, with no criteria for taking turns, but just as each individual draws fortune's lot.  They are now living in captured Trojan dwellings, freed at last from the frosts and dews of the open air, and they will sleep the whole night without needing guards, like happy men.  If they act reverently towards the protecting gods of the city and land they have captured, there is no risk, you may be sure, that after capturing it they may become victims in their turn.  Only let no desire first fall on the army to plunder what they should not, overcome by the prospect of gain; for they have still to return safely home, turning the bend and coming back for the second leg of the double run.  If the army should return without having offended the gods, the pain of the dead would be appeasable, if no unexpected stroke of evil fate occurs.  This, I tell you, is what you have heard from me, a woman; but may the good prevail, unequivocally, for all to see!  I choose to enjoy that, in preference to many other blessings.

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

The Ground Layer (Bright) - III

Paul Sérusier
Breton Woman on the Seashore
1895
gouache on paper
National Museum, Warsaw

Tuomas von Boehm
Still Life
ca. 1960-65
oil on panel
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Canaletto
The Molo and Palazzo Ducale, Venice
ca. 1735
oil on canvas
Huntington Library and Art Museum, San Marino, California

Marie Laurencin
Portrait of a Girl
ca. 1920
oil on canvas
Göteborgs Konstmuseum, Sweden

Stuart Davis
Egg Beater no. 2
1928
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Emil Kraus
Still Life with Jugs and Lemons
ca. 1925
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Maurice Denis
Les Captifs
1907
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Sam Francis
Green and Red
1966
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Hanne Borchgrevink
Variations (part 1)
2000
acrylic on canvas
KORO (Public Art Norway), Oslo

Jan Beutener
Hot Day
2007
oil on canvas
Dordrechts Museum

Morton Schamberg
Figure
1913
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

Théo van Rysselberghe
Orchard in July
1890
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Berthe Morisot
Interior on Jersey
1886
oil on canvas
Musée d'Ixelles, Brussels

Paul Signac
Les deux Cyprès, Opus 241 (Mistral)
1893
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Andrei Mylnikov
Nude in Gurzuf, Crimea
1956
oil on canvas
Galerie Neue Meister (Albertinum), Dresden

Marie Dujardin-Beaumetz
Les Repasseuses
ca. 1885
oil on canvas
Musée Petiet de Limoux

Chorus:  And what messenger could come here with such speed?

Clytemnestra:  Hephaestus, sending a bright blaze on its way from Mount Ida; and then from that courier-fire beacon sent on beacon all the way here.  Ida sent it to Hermes' crag on Lemnos, and from the island the great flambeau was received, thirdly, by the steep height of Zeus at Athos.  Then the mighty traveling torch shot up aloft to arch over the sea, to the delight of the god, bringing its message-flame close to the sky, and landed on Peparethos, where again much pinewood was burned, which, like another sun, conveyed the message in light of golden brilliance to the watch-heights of Macistus.  Nor did Macistus neglect its part in transmitting the message, either by dilatoriness or through being heedlessly vanquished by sleep: far over the the waters of the Euripus the beacon-light announced its coming to the watchmen of Messapium.  They lit up in response and passed the message further on, kindling with fire a heap of old heather; and the torch, powerful and still not weakened, leaped over the plain of the Asopus like the shining moon, came to the crags of Cithaeron, and there set in motion its successor stage of the messenger-fire.  The watch did not refuse the bidding of the light sent from afar, but kindled more than they had been ordered; and the light swooped over Gorgopis bay and came to the mountain where goats roam, where it stimulated the men not to be slow in fulfilling the ordinance about the fire.  They kindled and sent on, in abundant strength, a great beard of flame, so that it would go on its blazing way right beyond the headland that looks over the Saronic narrows; then it swooped down and arrived at the steep heights of Arachnaeum, the watch-point nearest our city.  And then it fell upon this house of the Atreidae, this light directly descended from the fire kindled on Ida.  Such, I tell you, were my dispositions for this torch-relay, one after another of them fulfilled in succession: the first and the last runner were alike victorious!*  Such, I tell you, is the evidence and the token that my husband has transmitted to me from Troy. 

– Aeschylus, from Agamemnon (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)

*This was trivially true in ordinary torch-races, where every member of the winning team had contributed to the victory and would share in its glory.  Here, however, there has been no competition and some spectators (though not the chorus) may detect a sinister secondary meaning.  The fire-message was first started on its journey by Agamemnon, and the last to receive it was Clytemnestra: the message announced Agamemnon's victory over Troy – and for Clytemnestra it was the signal to prepare for the victory we know she will gain over Agamemnon. 

Substantial

Georges Vantongerloo
Interrelation of Volumes
1919
sandstone
Tate Modern, London

Georges Vantongerloo
Élément Cosmique
1945
painted wood and nickel-alloy
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Georges Vantongerloo
Construction of Volumetric Interrelationships
1924
painted cement
Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Pair of Bracelets
ca. 1876-82
gold and platinum
British Museum

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Fish and Water Table Lamp
ca. 1902
glass, copper and bronze
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Lava Vase
ca. 1908
glass
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Tiffany & Co. (New York)
Skull
19th century
rock crystal
(sold ca. 1890 by Tiffany & Co. as a Mesoamerican antiquity
but modern testing suggests that it is a 19th-century forgery)
British Museum

Peter Tully
Jesus Christ Pin
ca. 1990
plastic and metal
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Staffordshire Potteries (England)
Mirror Box with Motto in Cover
1789
enameled earthenware
British Museum

Josiah Wedgwood & Sons
Plaque with Hercules and the Arcadian Stag
(designed by John Flaxman)
ca. 1780-90
jasperware set into steel mount as brooch
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Thomas Schütte
Model for Crystal
2013
plywood and screws
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Isaac Witkin
Maquette for Chorale
1980
painted steel
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Isaac Witkin
Wild Iris
1973-74
painted steel
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Château de Voisins - Garden Sculpture
1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Williams, Brown & Earle (Philadelphia)
Château Vaux-le-Vicomte - Garden Sculpture
1936
hand-colored lantern slide
Archives of American Gardens, Washington DC

Joel-Peter Witkin
Anna Akhmatova
1998
gelatin silver print
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Joel-Peter Witkin
Poet: from a Collection of Relics and Ornaments (Berlin)
1986
gelatin silver print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

    If thou dost complain that there shall be a time in the which thou shalt not be, why dost thou not too grieve that there was a time in the which thou wast not, and so that thou art not as old as that enlifening planet of time?  For, not to have been a thousand years before this moment, is as much to be deplored as not to be a thousand after it, the effect of them both being one: that will be after us which long long ere we were was.  Our children's children have that same reason to murmur that they were not young men in our days, which we have to complain that we shall not be old in theirs.  The violets have their time, though they empurple not the winter, and the roses keep their season, though they disclose not their beauty in the spring.

    Empires, states, kingdoms have, by the doom of the supreme providence, their fatal periods; great cities lie sadly buried in their dust; arts and sciences have not only their eclipses, but their wanings and deaths; the ghastly wonders of the world, raised by the ambition of ages, are overthrown and trampled; some lights above, deserving to be entitled stars, are loosed and never more seen of us; the excellent fabric of this universe itself shall one day suffer ruin, or a change like ruin; and poor earthlings thus to be handled complain!

– William Drummond of Hawthornden, from A Cypress Grove (London: Hawthornden Press, 1919, reprinting the original edition of 1623)