Elegy

Paris Bordone
Flora
1540
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

John Dugdale
Sheep
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Hall at Vinters, Maidstone, Kent
1843
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #1
1948
ink on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1530-35
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Lady Cullam's Morning Room
1842
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #54
1957-61
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Mythological Scene
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Barber Institute of Fine Arts, University of Birmingham, West Midlands

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Paneled Drawing Room at Foscourt
1849
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #57
1957-61
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Paris Bordone
Salvator Mundi
ca. 1540-50
oil on canvas
Accademia Carrara, Bergamo

John Dugdale
Untitled
1993
platinum print (gift of Maurice Sendak)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Charlotte Bosanquet
Staircase at Beaurepaire
1843
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Robert Motherwell
Elegy to the Spanish Republic #108
1965-67
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Paris Bordone
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and St George
ca. 1530
oil on canvas
Pushkin Museum, Moscow

Orpheus

What does the song hope for? And the moved hands

A little way from the birds, the shy, the delightful?

            To be bewildered and happy,

            Or most of all the knowledge of life?

But the beautiful are content with the sharp notes of the air;

The warmth is enough. O if winter really,

            Oppose, if the weak snowflake,

            What will the wish, what will the dance do? 

– W.H. Auden (1937)

Windows

Pierre-Alexandre Wille
Young Woman at a Window
1813
drawing
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Lady Louisa Molyneux
A Cobbler
before 1855
watercolor on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Govert Flinck
Portrait of a Girl as a Shepherdess
1641
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Félix Bracquemond
The Eclipse
1869
etching
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Edward Steichen
Portrait of the Misses Sawyer
ca. 1914
autochrome
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Gerrit Dou
Woman at a Window
ca. 1655
oil on panel
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Pierre Bonnard
The Breakfast Room
1930-31
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Monogrammist G.M.E. (English draughtsman)
Farnham, Surrey
19th century
drawing
British Museum

Charles Ginner
Flask Walk: Rain
ca. 1924
watercolor and ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Edmund Charles Tarbell
Mother and Mary
1922
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Daniel Garber
South Room, Green Street
1920
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Alice Neel
Loneliness
1970
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

František Kupka
View from a Carriage Window
ca. 1901
watercolor and gouache on paper, with cardboard overlay
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Nicolas de Largillière
Decorative Composition
(intended for the residence of the artist)
ca. 1725-30
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Winifred Nicholson
The Hunter's Moon
1955
oil on canvas
Tate Britain

Michael Schreier
Trompe-l'oeil
2007
inkjet prints
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

John Ruskin
Window - Palazzo Tolomei - Siena
1870
watercolor and gouache on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

I shall ride the parade in a platinum car,

My features shall shine, my name shall be Star,

Day-long and night-long the bells I shall peal,

And down the long street I shall turn the cartwheel.

So Little John, Long John, Peter and Paul,

And poor little Horace with only one ball,

You shall leave your breakfast, your desk and your play

On a fine summer morning the Devil to slay.

For it's order and trumpet and anger and drum

And power and glory command you to come;

The graves shall fly open and let you all in,

And the earth shall be emptied of mortal sin.

The fishes are silent deep in the sea,

The skies are lit up like a Christmas tree,

The star in the West shouts its warning cry:

'Mankind is alive, but Mankind must die.'

So good-bye to the house with its wallpaper red,

Good-bye to the sheets on the warm double bed,

Good-bye to the beautiful birds on the wall,

It's good-by, dear heart, good-bye to you all.

– W.H. Auden (1937)

Windows

Andreas Gursky
Schiphol
1994
C-print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Philip Adam
Columbus Cafe, North Beach
1986
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Alen MacWeeney
Flies in the Window - Castletown House, Ireland
1972
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Michael Snow
Solar Breath (Northern Caryatids)
2002
film still
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Imogen Cunningham
Barbara at the Door
1965
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Fernand Nadal
Through the Porthole
ca. 1895
cyanotype
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation)

Lowell Nesbitt
Stairway Landing
1969
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Hubert Robert
Vue de la cellule du baron de Besenval à la prison du Châtelet
1789-90
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

Robert Frank
New Jersey
ca. 1954-55
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Dave Heath
New York City - 7th Avenue and 54th
1959
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Richard Estes
Double Self-Portrait
1976
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Janet Delaney
Park Hotel - 1040 Folsom Street, San Francisco
1980
pigment print
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Achenbach Foundation)

Vincent Fournier
Chamber of Deputies, Brasília
2012
inkjet print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Mariette Pathy Allen
Downtown Reflections
1968
gelatin silver print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Larry Rivers
Jim Dine Storm Window
1965
assemblage mounted on panel
behind wood-framed window with screen
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Alex Katz
Folding Chair
1959
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Martha Rosler
Cleaning the Drapes
(series, House Beautiful: Bringing the War Home)
ca. 1967-72
inkjet print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

For I, after all, am the Fortunate One,

The Happy-Go-Lucky, the spoilt Third Son;

For me it is written the Devil to chase

And to rid the earth of the human race.

The behaving of man is a world of horror,

A sedentary Sodom and slick Gomorrah;

I must take charge of the liquid fire

And storm the cities of human desire.

The buying and selling, the eating and drinking,

The disloyal machines and irreverent thinking,

The lovely dullards again and again

Inspiring their bitter ambitious men.

I shall come, I shall punish, the Devil be dead,

I shall have caviar thick on my bread,

I shall build myself a cathedral for home

With a vacuum cleaner in every room.

– W.H. Auden (1937)