Solos

Marshall Glasier
Life of the Cabbage
1944
oil on panel
Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin

Matt Hoyt
Star Form
2014-16
putty and resin
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Bébé Marie)
ca. 1941-43
wood box with doll and twigs
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Wally Hedrick
Orb of Power
1962
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Anonymous Italian Makers
Bust of Julius Caesar
ca. 1750-1800
silver, chalcedony and amethyst
(1 of 12 Emperors with heads in different stones)
Musée du Louvre

Edward Hopper
Intermission
1963
oil on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Walter Hege
Detail of Horsebreaker Frieze from the Parthenon
ca. 1928-29
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Elizabeth King Hawley
Hanging Sphere
ca. 1875
chalk on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Marsden Hartley
Robin
ca. 1940-41
oil on board
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Hector Guimard
Pendant
ca. 1907-1912
gold and diamonds
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Juan Gris
Le Violon accroché
1913
drawing
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Ancient Greek Culture
Victory of Samothrace
200-175 BC
marble
Musée du Louvre

Frank Gehry for Knoll (USA)
Cross-Check Armchair
1991
maple
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Filippo Napoletano (Filippo Angeli)
Skeleton of Heron
1620
etching
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Anonymous French Maker
Powder Flask with Hercules and the Nemean Lion
ca. 1550-1600
relief-cut stag-horn
Musée du Louvre

Tibor Kalman
Paperweight
1984
vinyl and lead
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Vincent Fecteau
Untitled
2007-2008
painted papier-mâché
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Upon this line between adventure

Prolong the meeting out of good nature

Obvious in each agreeable feature.

Calling of each other by name

Smiling, taking a willing arm

Has the companionship of a game.

But should the walk do more than this

Out of bravado or drunkenness

Forward and backward are menaces.

– W.H. Auden (1929)

Genoux - IV

Bicci di Lorenzo
Virgin and Child enthroned with Angels
1433
tempera on panel
Galleria Nazionale di Parma

Francesco di Giorgio Martini
Virgin and Child
with St Jerome, St Anthony of Padua and Angels
ca. 1469-72
tempera on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Neroccio de' Landi
Virgin and Child
with St Anthony Abbot and St Sigismund
ca. 1490-95
tempera on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Raphael
Virgin and Child
(The Orléans Madonna)
ca. 1505-1507
oil on panel
Musée Condé, Chantilly

Lucas Cranach the Elder
Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1509-1512
oil on panel
Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania

Ambrogio Bergognone
Virgin and Child
ca. 1512-20
tempera on panel
Galleria Sabauda, Turin

Bernardino Luini
Virgin and Child
(Madonna of the Carnation)
ca. 1515
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Domenico Puligo (Domenico Ubaldini)
Virgin and Child
ca. 1515-17
oil on panel
Galleria Borghese, Rome

Pontormo (Jacopo Carrucci)
Virgin and Child with young St John the Baptist
ca. 1529-30
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Jacopo Sansovino
Virgin and Child
ca. 1530-40
painted papier-maché relief
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Marcellus Coffermans
Virgin and Child enthroned with Musical Angels
ca. 1550-75
oil on panel
Museum Mayer van den Bergh, Antwerp

Sofonisba Anguissola
Virgin and Child
1598
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Jan Brueghel the Younger
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1626
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Pietro da Cortona (Pietro Berrettini)
Virgin and Child
ca. 1641
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux

Francesco Mancini
Rest on the Flight into Egypt
ca. 1725
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Carle Vanloo
Virgin and Child
1738
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

But the rest of the Thebans that should with their whole power have been there before day for fear the surprise should not succeed with those that were in, came so late with their aid that they heard the news of what was done by the way.  Now Plataea is from Thebes seventy furlongs, and they marched the slower for the rain which had fallen the same night.  For the river Asopus was swollen so high that it was not easily passable.  So that what by the foulness of the way and what by the difficulty of passing the river, they arrived not till their men were already some slain and some taken prisoners.  When the Thebans understood how things had gone, they lay in wait for such of the Plataeans as were without (for there were abroad in the villages both men and household stuff, as was not unlikely, the evil happening unexpectedly and in time of peace), desiring, if they could take any prisoners, to keep them for exchange for those of theirs within, which (if any were so) were saved alive.  This was the Thebans' purpose.  But the Plataeans, whilst they were yet in council, suspecting that some such thing would be done and fearing their case without, sent a herald unto the Thebans whom they commanded to say that what they had already done, attempting to surprise their city in time of peace, was done wickedly, and to forbid them to do any injury to those without, and that otherwise they would kill all those men of theirs that they had alive, which, if they would withdraw their forces out of their territory, they would again restore unto them.  Thus the Thebans say, and that the Plataeans did swear it.  But the Plataeans confess not that they promised to deliver them presently but upon treaty if they should agree, and deny that they swore it.  Upon this the Thebans went out of their territory; and the Plataeans, when they had speedily taken in whatsoever they had in the country, immediately slew their prisoners.  They that were taken were one hundred and eighty; and Eurymachus, with whom the traitors had practised, was one.

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Sublimity

Hans Schäufelein
The Nativity
ca. 1508
oil on panel (altarpiece fragment)
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Jacopo Sansovino
Virgin and Child
ca. 1540
painted papier-maché relief
Bode Museum, Berlin

Orazio Samacchini
Cherub with Instruments of the Passion
ca. 1575
drawing
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

workshop of Peter Paul Rubens
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Staatsgalerie Flämische Barockmalerei
im Schloss Neuburg, Germany

Anthonis Sallaert
Glorification of the Name of Jesus
ca. 1630-40
oil on panel
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Bartholomäus Sarburgh after Hans Holbein the Younger
Därmstadt Madonna
ca. 1635-37
oil on panel
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Jacob van Ruisdael
Hilly Landscape with Bentheim Castle in the Distance
ca. 1650
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

Marco Sammartino
Massacre of the Innocents
ca. 1650-70
etching
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Daniel Sarrabat
Noah giving thanks for Deliverance from the Deluge
1688
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

James Sayers
Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful
1785
etching
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Johann Gottfried Schadow
Portrait Study of Herr Riese
ca. 1810
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Constantino Rosa
Brigands in the Campagna
1838
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Philipp Rumpf
Badinage at the Park Gate
ca. 1860
watercolor on paper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Théodore Rousseau
Farm in the Landes
before 1867
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Josef Sattler
Ex Libris - A. Marzolef
1893
lithograph
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Sergey Ivanovich Savrasov
Winter Twilight
ca. 1910
pigment print
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Charles Rushton
Portrait of photographer Meridel Rubenstein
1989
inkjet print
National Museum of American History, Washington DC

from Hero and Leander

The lusty god embraced him, called him love,

And swore he never should return to Jove.

But when he knew it was not Ganymede,

For under water he was almost dead,

He heaved him up, and looking on his face,

Beat down the bold waves with his triple mace,

Which mounted up, intending to have kissed him,

And fell in drops like tears, because they missed him.

Leander, being up, began to swim,

And looking back, saw Neptune follow him;

Whereat aghast, the poor soul 'gan to cry:

'O! let me visit Hero ere I die!'

The god put Helle's bracelet on his arm,

And swore the sea should never do him harm.

He clapped his plump cheeks, with his tresses played,

And smiling wantonly, his love bewrayed.

He watched his arms, and as they opened wide,

At every stroke betwixt them he would slide,

And steal a kiss, and then run out and dance,

And as he turned, cast many a lustful glance,

And threw him gaudy toys to please his eye,

And dive into the water, and there pry

Upon his breast, his thighs, and every limb,

And up again, and close beside him swim,

And talk of love. Leander made reply:

'You are deceived, I am no woman, I.'

– Christopher Marlowe (1598)