Showing posts with label landscapes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label landscapes. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2025

Architectural Fragments

Anonymous Flemish Artist
Capriccio of Ruins on a Coast
ca. 1610-20
oil on copper
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

workshop of Bartholomeus Breenbergh
Italian Landscape with Ruins of the Aurelian Wall
ca. 1650-60
oil on canvas
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Paul Bril
Religious Procession among Ruins, Rome
ca. 1600-1610
oil on copper
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Claude Lorrain
Roman Ruins on the Aventine Hill
before 1682
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Caspar David Friedrich
Ruins of the Temple of Juno at Agrigento
ca. 1828
oil on canvas
Museum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, Dortmund

Giovanni Ghisolfi
Capriccio with Ruins
ca. 1650
drawing
Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan

Svein Johansen
Roman Ruins
ca. 1983
oil on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Jules Laurens
Ruins of a Roman Roadhead in Bithynia
ca. 1875
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille

Jean Lemaire
Artists studying Ruins
ca. 1630
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Giovanni Battista Mercati
Domes of the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore rising behind Roman Ruins
1629
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Gian Paolo Panini
Capriccio of Roman Ruins with the Pantheon
ca. 1740
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Marco Ricci
Capriccio of Antique Ruins
ca. 1720-25
tempera on vellum
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Marco Ricci
Capriccio of Antique Ruins
ca. 1720-30
oil on canvas
Museo Civico di Modena

Hubert Robert
Artist among Ruins on the Palatine Hill, Rome
ca. 1760-65
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Louise Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont
Ruins of Roman Theater at Taormina
1825
oil on paper
Morgan Library, New York

Jan Baptist Weenix
Study of Ruins
ca. 1646
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

He recounts that he saw other similar things, and he tells marvelous stories of having seen men and other things that no one else says he has seen or heard, and that no one else has even imagined.  The most wondrous thing of all is that in traveling north they came close to the moon, which was like a completely stripped land, and that while there they saw things that it was natural for a man to see who had invented such an exaggerated fiction.

Then the Sibyl picked up her art of divination again, with Carmanes.  After this, each person made his own prayer, and everything turned out for each of the others in accordance with his prayer, but in his case, after he woke up, he was found in Tyre in the temple of Hercules, and after he got up, he found Dercyllis and Mantinias.  They were safe and had released their parents from the long sleep or, rather, death, and were prospering in other ways as well.

These things Dinias told to Cymbas and provided cyprus tablets on which he asked Cymbas's companion Erasinides, since he was a skillful writer, to record the account.  He also showed Dercyllis to them – it was in fact she who brought the cypress tablets.  He ordered Cymbas to have the accounts written down on two sets of cypress tablets, one of which Cymbas would keep and the other of which Dercyllis was to place in a small box and set down near Dinias's grave at the time of his death.

– Antonius Diogenes, from The Wonders Beyond Thule, written in Greek, 1st-2nd century AD.  A detailed summary of the book was composed (also in Greek) in the 9th century by Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople.  The original text by Antonius Diogenes was subsequently lost; only the summary by Photius has survived.  This was translated into English by Gerald N. Sandy (1989).

Robert Kipniss

Robert Kipniss
Large Trees at Dusk
1962
oil on canvas
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh


Robert Kipniss
Night Reflections
1969
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
Sheds and Fence
1969
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
Self Portrait
1969
drypoint
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
Backyard
1972
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Kipniss
Interior with Suspended Plants
1975
lithograph
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Kipniss
Landscape with Curved Road
1978-79
oil on canvas
Milwaukee Art Museum

Robert Kipniss
Window with Large Tree
1993
mezzotint
Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State

Robert Kipniss
Clear Vase and Landscape
1995
mezzotint
Tacoma Art Museum, Washington State

Robert Kipniss
Evening with White Porch
1996
mezzotint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
Appoggiatura
1999
mezzotint
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Robert Kipniss
Garden Shadows
2000
mezzotint
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Robert Kipniss
Without World
2000
mezzotint
Minneapolis Institute of Art

Robert Kipniss
Still LIfe with Dark Window
2001
mezzotint
Dallas Museum of Art

Robert Kipniss
Branches, Millerton
2003
mezzotint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
The Balanced Rock
2004
mezzotint
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Robert Kipniss
Forest Murmurs II
2010
mezzotint
Dallas Museum of Art

Robert Kipniss
Hidden Trees
2018
mezzotint
Dallas Museum of Art

from Metamorphoses

In antient Times, as Story tells,
The Saints would often leave their Cells,
And strole about, but hide their Quality, 
To try good People's Hospitality.
    It happen'd on a Winter Night,
As Authors of the Legend write;
Two Brother Hermits, Saints by Trade,
Taking their Tour in Masquerade;
Disguis'd in tatter'd Habits, went
To a small Village down in Kent;
Where, in the Strolers Canting Strain,
They beg'd from Door to Door in vain;
Try'd ev'ry tone might Pity win,
But not a Soul would let them in.
    Our wand'ring Saints in woful State,
Treated at this ungodly Rate,
Having thro' all the Village pass'd,
To a small Cottage came at last;
Where dwelt a good old honest Yeoman,
Call'd, in the Neighbourhood, Philemon.
Who kindly did the Saints invite
In his Poor Hut to pass the Night;
And then the Hospitable Sire
Bid Goody Baucis mend the Fire;
While He from out of Chimney took
A Flitch of Bacon off the Hook;
And freely from the fattest Side
Cut out large Slices to be fry'd:
Then stept aside to fetch em Drink,
Fill'd a large Jug up to the Brink;
And saw it fairly twice go round;
Yet (what is wonderful) they found,
'Twas all replenished to the Top,
As if they ne'er had toucht a Drop.
The good old Couple was amaz'd,
And often on each other gaz'd;
For both were frighted to the Heart,
And just began to cry; – What ar't!
Then softly turn'd aside to view,
Whether the Lights were burning blue.
The gentle Pilgrims soon aware on't,
Told 'em their Calling, and their Errant:
Good Folks, you need not be afraid,
We are but Saints, the Hermits said;
No Hurt shall come to You or Yours;
But, for that Pack of churlish Boors,
Not fit to live on Christian Ground,
They and their Houses shall be drown'd:
Whilst you shall see your Cottage rise,
And grow a Church before your Eyes.

– Ovid (43 BC-AD 17), translated by Jonathan Swift (1709)

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Expectedness (Sixties)

Jane Freilicher
Wide Landscape
1963
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York


Stanley Freborg
St Tropez
1960
oil on canvas
Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia

Sidney Goodman
Seated Woman II
1966
oil on linen
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Sidney Goodman
The Escape
1960
chalk and sanguine on paper
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Sidney Goodman
Night King
1960
 graphite on paper
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

Jean Dubuffet
L'Instant Propice
1962
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Jean Dubuffet
Les Inconsistances
1964
acrylic on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Jean Dubuffet
Nunc Stans
1965
vinyl paint on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Thomas George
#21 1967
1967
oil and acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Paul Feeley
Alruccabah
1964
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Paul Feeley
Formal Haut
1965
acrylic on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Ralph Fasanella
Modern Times
1966
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Richard Estes
The Candy Store
1969
oil and acrylic on linen
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Ger Gerrits
Memory of Switzerland
ca. 1960
gouache on paper
Rijksmuseum, Twenthe

Sam Gilliam
Green Web
1967
acrylic on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Milton Glaser
Aretha Franklin
1968
offset-lithograph (poster)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Milton Glaser
California
1969
colored inks and collage on board
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

WILLIAM BLAKE (1751-1827) – Although Blake's immediate and direct influence must have been small, there is hardly any poet who exhibits the tendency of his time in metre more variously and vehemently.  In his unhesitating and brilliantly successful use of substitution in octosyllabic couplet, ballad measure, and lyrical adjustments of various kinds, as well as in media varying from actual verse to the rhymed prose of his "Prophetic" books, Blake struck definitely away from the monotonous and select metres of the eighteenth century, and anticipated the liberty, multiplicity, and variety of the nineteenth.  And he differed, almost equally, from all but one or two of his older contemporaries, and from most of his younger for many years, in the colour and "fingering" of his verse.

WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES (1762-1850) – A generally mediocre poet, who, however, deserves a place of honour here for the sonnets which he published in 1789, and which had an immense influence on Coleridge, Southey, and others of his juniors, not merely in restoring that great form to popularity, but by inculcating description and study of nature in connection with the thoughts and passions of men.

– George Saintsbury, from Historical Manual of English Prosody (1910)