L'Allegro - II

Jacques Callot
Bird of Paradise
ca. 1625-30
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Marco Zoppo
Fortuna filling the Sail
ca. 1460
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle 

Frans Wouters
Bacchanal
ca. 1648
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Adriaen van Stalbemt
Triumph of the Infant Bacchus
ca. 1620-40
oil on copper
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Johann Elias Ridinger
Joyous Dancer
ca. 1730
mezzotint
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Pierre Brébiette
Venus sailing in Shell Chariot
ca. 1640
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Sébastien Dulac
Bohème
1831
oil on canvas
private collection

Dirck Hals
Merry Company
1633
oil on panel
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Carl Wilhelm von Heideck
The Wild Hunter
1817
watercolor on paper
(illustration to poem by Gottfried August Bürger)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Marie-François Firmin Girard
Sirens luring the Ship of Odysseus
1864
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Narbonne

Madeleine Lemaire
Fairies in Chariot
ca. 1892
oil on canvas
Château Musée de Dieppe

Jan Miense Molenaer
Brothel Scene
before 1668
etching
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Pietro Palmieri the Elder
Group making Music
ca. 1780
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Pietro Righini
Rococo Set for Opera staged at La Scala, Milan
ca. 1730
etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Pellegrino Tibaldi
Three Bacchantes
ca. 1570
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Augustin Hirschvogel
The Four Winds
1549
etching
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Two loves, descending on me like the tempest, consume me, Eumachus, and I am caught in the toils of two furious passions.  On this side I bend towards Asander, and on that again my eye, waxing keener, turns to Telephus.  Cut me in two, I should love that, and dividing the halves in a just balance, carry off my limbs, each of you, as the lot decides. 

O eyes, betrayers of the soul, boy-hunting hounds, your glances ever smeared with Cypris' bird-lime, ye have seized on another Love, like sheep catching a wolf, or a crow a scorpion, or the ash the fire that smoulders beneath it.  Do even what ye will.  Why do you shed showers of tears and straight run off again to Hiketas?  Roast yourselves in beauty, consume away now over the fire, for Love is an admirable cook of the soul.  

Boys are a labyrinth from which there is no way out; for wherever thou castest thine eye it is fast entangled as if by bird-lime.  Here Theodorus attracts thee to the plump ripeness of his flesh and the unadulterate bloom of his limbs, and there it is the golden face of Philocles, who is not great in stature, but heavenly grace environs him.  But if thou turnest to look on Leptines thou shalt no more move thy limbs, but shalt remain, thy steps glued as if by indissoluble adamant; such a flame hath the boy in his eyes to set thee afire from thy head to thy toe and finger tips.  All hail, beautiful boys!  May ye come to the prime of youth and live till grey hair clothe your heads.   

Delightful is Diodorus and the eyes of all are on Heraclitus, Dion is sweet-spoken, and Uliades has lovely loins.  But, Philocles, touch the delicate-skinned one, and look on the next and speak to the third, and for the fourth – etcetera; so that thou mayst see how free from envy my mind is.  But if thou cast greedy eyes on Myiscus, mayst thou never see beauty again. 

I know but one beauty in the world; my greedy eye knows but one thing, to look on Myiscus, and for all else I am blind.  He represents everything to me.  Is it just on what will please the soul that the eyes look, the flatterers? 

I am caught by Love, I who had never dreamt it, and never had I learnt to feed a male flame hot beneath my heart.  I am caught.  Yet it was no longing for evil, but a pure glance, foster-brother of modesty, that burnt me to ashes.  Let it consume away, the long labour of the Muses; for my mind is cast in the fire, bearing the burden of a sweet pain.

– from Book XII (Strato's Musa Puerilis) in the Greek Anthology, translated and edited by W.R. Paton (1917)

Promotional

Sven Brasch
Geraldine Farrar in The Devil Stone
1919
color linocut and letterpress
(poster in Danish for silent film)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Anonymous Designer
Anna May Wong - La Dame de Tchong King
1942
lithograph (poster)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Karel Vaca
Ro. Go. Pa. G.
(Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Ugo Gregoretti)
1963
offset-lithograph
(poster in Czech for film series)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Georges Kerfyser
Masculin-Feminin by Jean-Luc Godard
1966
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Alan D'Arcangelo
Lincoln Center Festival
1968
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

David Lance Goines
Der Blaue Engel - Marlene Dietrich - 1930
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
1975
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

David Lance Goines
The General - Buster Keaton - 1924
Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley
1975
lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Andrzej Klimowski
Omen (American horror film)
1977
offset-lithograph (poster in Polish)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paul Brühwiler
Luis Buñuel - Filmpodium, Zürich
1980
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paul Brühwiler
Neue Deutsche Filme - Filmpodium, Zürich
1981
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Art Chantry
Molière's Tartuffe
The Empty Space Theatre, Bakersfield
1983
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Andrzej Klimowski
Mystery Train - Jim Jarmusch
1989
offset-lithograph (poster in Polish)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Andrzej Klimowski
Permanent Vacation - Jim Jarmusch
1991
offset-lithograph (poster in Polish)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Andrzej Klimowski
Night on Earth - Jim Jarmusch
1992
offset-lithograph (poster in Polish)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Paul Brühwiler
Cine Amerindia - Filmpodium, Zürich
1992
screenprint (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Frank Kozik
Nine Inch Nails - Seattle Center Arena
1994
screenprint (poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Karl Domenic Geissbühler
Zürcher Ballett - Opernhaus Zürich
1997
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

from The Flaming Heart: upon the Book and Picture of the seraphicall saint Teresa (as she is usually expressed with a Seraphim beside her).

Well meaning readers! you that come as freinds
And catch the pretious name this peice pretends;
Make not too much hast to admire
That fair-cheek't fallacy of fire.
That is a Seraphim, they say
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be rul'd by me; & make
Here a well-plac't and wise mistake.
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right.
Read Him for her, & her for him,
And call the Saint the Seraphim.
    Painter, what didst thou understand
To put her dart into his hand!
See, even the yeares & size of him
Showes this the mother Seraphim.
This is the mistresse flame; & duteous he
Her happy fire-works, here, comes down to see.
O most poor-spirited of men!
Had thy cold Pencil kist her Pen
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us This faint shade for Her. 

– Richard Crashaw, Sacred Poems (1652)

Many Meanings

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini
Allegory of Painting
ca. 1725-30
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini
Allegory of Sculpture
ca. 1725-30
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Pierre-François Berruer
Louis XV rewarding Painting and Sculpture
1770
marble relief (reception piece)
Musée du Louvre

Lambert-Sigisbert Adam
Allegorical Figure of Poetry
1752
marble statue
(commissioned by Madame de Pompadour)
Musée du Louvre

Alessandro Rosi
Allegory of Music
before 1697
oil on canvas
private collection

Girolamo Scaglia
Allegory of Music
ca. 1670
oil on canvas
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Lucca

Jean Rousselet
Poetry and Music celebrating the Glory of Louis XIV
1686
marble relief (reception piece)
Musée du Louvre

Giovanni Andrea Sirani
Allegory of Three Sister Arts: Painting, Music, Poetry
ca. 1660
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Nazionale di Bologna

Paolo Veronese
Allegory of the Liberal Arts
ca. 1551-52
oil on panel (ceiling element)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Michelangelo Morlaiter
Allegory of Venice rewarding the Arts
1756
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Jacob de Wit
Putti Blowing Bubbles as Allegory of the Arts
ca. 1720
watercolor and ink on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Artemisia Gentileschi
Self Portrait as Allegory of Painting (La Pittura)
ca. 1630-35
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Francesco Maggiotto
Allegory of Painting
before 1805
oil on panel
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Sebastiano Mazzoni
Allegory of Painting crowned by Fame
ca. 1640
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Hans Speckaert
Allegory of Painting
(Apelles painting Alexander the Great)
before 1577
drawing
British Museum

Pietro Antonio Novelli
Allegory of Painting - il Disegno, il Colore e l'Invenzione
1768-69
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Guido Reni
Allegory of the Union of Disegno and Colore
ca. 1620-25
oil on canvas
Musée du Louvre

A Field

Once I belonged to Achaimenides –

Now to Menippos.  Some day

I shall pass on from this man to the next.

Achaimenides once thought I was his,

It is the turn of Menippos to share the illusion

Since I belong to no man at all, but fortune.

– from the Greek Anthology, translated by Peter Jay