Supernaturalisms

Frederik van Valckenborch
Christ walking on Water
ca. 1590-1600
oil on canvas
Muzeum Kolekcji im Jana Pawła II, Warsaw

Konrad Witz
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
1444
tempera on panel
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

Anonymous French Artist
Arrival of the Holy House by Miracle at Loreto
ca. 1540-60
enamel on copper
Musée du Louvre

Livio Agresti
Christ healing the Blind
ca. 1573-74
fresco
Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome

Livio Agresti
Christ healing the Lame
ca. 1573-74
fresco
Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome

Giorgio Vasari
Miracle of the Prophet Elisha
ca. 1566
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Parrasio Micheli
The Gathering of Manna
ca. 1560
fresco (with donor portraits at left)
Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna, Venice

Pieter de Grebber
Moses striking the Rock
1630
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing

Sebastiano Conca
Miracle of St Turibius of Mogrovego, Archbishop of Lima, Peru
1726
oil on canvas (canonization painting)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Filippo da Verona
St Anthony appearing to the Blessed Luca Belludi
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Francesco Vecellio
Miracle of the Host
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Francesco Vecellio
Miracle of the Miser's Heart
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Giovanni Lanfranco
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
ca. 1624-25
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Pandolfo Reschi
Miracle of St John the Baptist in a Landscape
ca. 1690
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

attributed to Gaspare Venturini
Resurrection of Christ
ca. 1590-1600
oil on panel
private collection

Arnout Vinckenborch
Resurrection of Christ
ca. 1617
oil on panel
Sint Pauluskerk, Antwerp

Kristian Zahrtmann
Transfigured Christ appearing before the Disciples
1895
oil on canvas
private collection

Thalassa

Run out the boat, my broken comrades;

Let the old seaweed crack, the surge

Burgeon oblivious of the last

Embarkation of feckless men,

Let every adverse force converge  –

Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades;

Let each horizon tilt and lurch –

You know the worst: your wills are fickle,

Your values blurred, your hearts impure

And your past life a ruined church –

But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,

Whose record shall be noble yet;

Butting through scarps of moving marble

The narwhal dares us to be free;

By a high star our course is set,

Our end is Life. Put out to sea.

– Louis MacNeice (ca. 1963 or earlier)

Avid of Elseness

Andrew Moore
Zumi Crabapple, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
Winterberry Holly and Flowering Crabapples, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
European Beech, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Andrew Moore
Eastern White Pine, Vassar College Campus
2006
inkjet print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of sculptor Pierre Le Pautre
1689
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of la comtesse de Bemareau
1713
oil on canvas
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of Jacques-Antoine Arlaud
making a copy of Michelangelo's Leda
1714
oil on canvas
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

Nicolas de Largillière
Portrait of a Man wearing a Cuirass
ca. 1710
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Satanic Ballet
ca. 1922
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Othello, Act II
1930
pochoir
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Molière's Don Juan
ca. 1929
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Aleksandra Exster
Stage Design for Ballet
ca. 1925-28
oil on panel
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Pasture with Two Goats
ca. 1865
oil on canvas
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Ravine in the Morvan near Lormes
ca. 1840-45
oil on canvas
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Mantes (Le Matin)
ca. 1865-69
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
Rebecca at the Well
ca. 1838-39
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

from Part One of The Age of Anxiety

Malin suggested:

                                 Let us then

     Consider rather the incessant Now of

     The traveller through time, his tired mind
     Biased towards bigness since his body must

     Exaggerate to exist, possessed by hope,

     Acquisitive, in quest of his own 

     Absconded self yet scared to find it

     As he bumbles by from birth to death

     Menaced by madness; whose mode of being,

     Bashful or braggart, is to be at once

     Outside and inside his own demand

     For personal pattern. His pure I

     Must give account of and greet his Me,

     That field of force where he feels he thinks, 

     His past present, presupposing death,

     Must ask what he is in order to be

     And make meaning by omission and stress,

     Avid of elseness. All that exists

     Matters to man; he minds what happens

     And feels he is at fault, a fallen soul

     With power to place, to explain every

     What in his world but why he is neither

     God nor good, this guilt the insoluble

     Final fact, infusing his private

     Nexus of needs, his noted aims with

     Incomprehensible comprehensive dread

     At not being what he knows that before

     This world was he was willed to become. 

Quant approved:

     Set him to song, the surly old dodger.

So did Emble:

     Relate his lies to his longings for truth.

So did Rosetta:

     Question his crimes till his clues confess.

     The radio attempted to interrupt by remarking

          And now Captain Kidd in his Quiz Program

          HOW ALERT ARE YOU

But Quant pointed a finger at it and it stopped immediately. He said:

                                          Listen, Box,

     And keep quiet. Listen courteously to us

     Four reformers who have founded – why not? – 

     The Gung-Ho Group, the Ganymede Club
     For homesick young angels, the Arctic League
     Of Tropical Fish, the Tomboy Fund
     For Blushing Brides and the Bide-a-wees

     Of Sans-Souci, assembled again

     For a Think-Fest: Our theme tonight is

          HOMO ABYSSUS OCCIDENTALIS

                                     or

          A CURIOUS CASE OF COLD FEET

                                     or

          SEVEN SELFISH SUPPERLESS AGES

     And now, at Rosetta's suggestion, they left their bar-stools and moved to the quieter intimacy of a booth. Drinks were ordered and the discussion began.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)

Reduce

Anonymous Photographer
Hot Springs, Arkansas
ca. 1900-1910
gelatin silver print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Adolphe-François Appia
Espace Rythmique - À la Lisière
1909-10
drawing
Cabinet d'Arts Graphiques des Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Heinrich Buergel-Goodwin
Einar Nerman as Pierrot
1915
gelatin silver print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Eugène Carrière
The Tin Mug
ca. 1889
oil on canvas
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff

Robert Cremean
#1
(series, Fourteen Stations)
1966
lithograph
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

James Drummond
Lady descending from a Sedan Chair
ca. 1855
drawing
(study for painting)
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg
Standing Model
1840
drawing
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Rudolf Eickemeyer
River in Winter
1904
platinum print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Vilhelm Hammershøi
Interior
1890
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Baroness Betty de Rothschild
ca. 1848
drawing
(study for painted portrait)
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

John Miller
Roman Bust
1763
engraving
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

Amedeo Modigliani
Atlante
1911
drawing
Musée d'Art Classique de Mougins

Lilo Raymond
Two Pillows
1976
gelatin silver print
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Ulrik Samuelson
Figure Study
ca. 1955
drawing
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Karl von Schintling
Study of Alder Tree
1910
photogravure
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Kjell Torriset
Annex
1994
acrylic paint and collage on canvas
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

from The Man with the Blue Guitar

Do not speak to us of the greatness of poetry,

Of the torches wisping in the underground, 

Of the structure of vaults upon a point of light.

There are no shadows in our sun,

Day is desire and night is sleep. 

There are no shadows anywhere.

The earth, for us, is flat and bare.

There are no shadows. Poetry

Exceeding music must take the place

Of empty heaven and its hymns . . . 

– Wallace Stevens (1937)

Forms

Marten de Vos the Elder
Unicorn
ca. 1572
oil on panel
Staatliches Museum, Schwerin

Antonio Tempesta
Leopard
before 1630
etching and engraving
British Museum

Pieter Withoos
Great Titmouse
before 1693
watercolor and gouache on paper
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Anonymous Artist working in Naples
Donkey
18th century
painted wood, plaster and burlap (crèche figure)
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Thomas Weaver
White-faced Ram
1818
oil on canvas
private collection

Henry Brittan Willis
Portrait of a Cow
ca. 1840
drawing
Auckland Art Gallery, New Zealand

Roger Fenton
Elephantine Moa (Dinornis elephantopus)
1854-55
salted paper print from glass negative
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Eugène Verboeckhoven
Bull's Head
1857
oil on canvas
Wednesbury Museum and Art Gallery, Sandwell, West Midlands

Louis Wain
Cat
ca. 1920
watercolor and gouache on paper
Bethlem Museum of the Mind, London

Albert Renger-Patzsch
Snake Head
1927
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Niklaus Stoecklin
Marken Müller, Freiestrasse 77, Basel
1948
lithograph (poster)
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Francis Bacon
Study of a Baboon
1953
oil on canvas
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Bernard Meadows
Maquette for Crab
1957
plaster
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Victor Brauner
Bestiaire
1963
screenprint
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Daryl Trivieri
Turtle
1990
acrylic on canvas
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Louise Bourgeois
Spider
1997
bronze
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jeff Koons
Caterpillar (with Chains)
2002
painted aluminum and rubber-coated steel
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

from The British Museum Reading Room

Under the hive-like dome the stooping haunted readers

Go up and down the aisles, tap the cells of knowledge –

        Honey and wax, the accumulation of years –

Some on commission, some for the love of learning,

Some because they hope these walls of books will deaden

        The drumming of the demon in their ears.

– Louis MacNeice (1939)