Showing posts with label philosophers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophers. Show all posts

Friday, July 10, 2026

Bronzes

Ancient Greek Culture
Hydria
5th century BC
bronze
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Etruscan Culture
The Goddess Lasa
3rd-2nd century BC
bronze statuette
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Bust of Plato
1st century AD
bronze relief appliqué
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Mars
1st century AD
bronze statuette
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Roman Empire
Bust of Youth
1st-2nd century AD
bronze relief appliqué
(furniture ornament)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Francesco di Giorgio Martini
St Anthony Abbot
ca. 1470-80
bronze plaquette
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Antico (Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi)
Bust of Emperor Marcus Aurelius
ca. 1500
gilt bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Caradosso Foppa
Silenus and Maenads
1500
bronze plaquette
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Andrea Mantegna
St Sebastian
ca. 1500
gilt-bronze statuette
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Pietro Tacca
Tarquin and Lucretia
ca. 1630
bronze
Bode Museum, Berlin

Massimiliano Soldani after Gianlorenzo Bernini
Damned Soul
ca. 1705-1707
bronze
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Anton Mathias Joseph Domanöck
Venus at the Forge of Vulcan
1753
bronze relief
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Maenad
ca. 1865
bronze
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Pablo Picasso
Jester
1905
bronze
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Einar Utzon-Frank
Head of Aphrodite
1915
bronze
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Anonymous Artist
 Young Hercules
20th century
bronze
(forgery of Greek antiquity)
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

All this while the Athenians at Pylus besieged the Lacedaemonians in the island, and the army of the Peloponnesians in the continent remained still upon the place.  This keeping of watch was exceedingly painful to the Athenians in respect of the want they had both of corn and water, for there was no well but one and that was in the fort itself of Pylus and no great one.  And the greatest number turned up the gravel and drank such water as they were like to find there.  They were also scanted of room for their camp and their galleys not having place to ride in, they were forced by turns some to stay ashore and others to take their victual and lie off at anchor.  But their greatest discouragement was the time which they had stayed there longer than they had thought to have done, for they thought to have famished them out in a few days, being in a desert island and having nothing to drink but salt water.  The cause hereof were the Lacedaemonians, who had proclaimed that any man that would should carry in meal, wine, cheese, and all other esculents necessary for a siege into the island, appointing for the same a great reward of silver; and if any Helot should carry in any thing, they promised him liberty.  Hereupon divers with much danger imported victual, but especially the Helotes, who, putting off from all parts of Peloponnesus, wheresoever they chanced to be, came in at the parts of the island that lay to the wide sea.  But they had a care above all to take such a time as to be brought in with the wind.  For when it blew from the sea, they could escape the watch of the galleys easily; for they could not then lie round about the island at anchor.  And the Helotes were nothing tender in putting ashore, for they ran their galleys on ground, valued at a price in money; and the men of arms also watched at all the landing places of the island.  But as many as made attempt when the weather was calm were intercepted.  There were also such as could dive, that swam over into the island through the haven, drawing after them in a string bottles filled with poppy tempered with honey, and pounded linseed; whereof some at the first passed unseen, but were afterwards watched.  So that on either part they used all possible art, one side to send over food, the other to apprehend those that carried it.  

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

Sunday, June 21, 2026

Upon

Sebald Beham
Triton and Nereid
1523
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Jacopo de' Barbari
Old Woman riding Triton
before 1516
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Albrecht Altdorfer
Arion and Nereid
ca. 1515-25
engraving
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Adam Elsheimer
Neptune and Triton
1600
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Elias Nessenthaler
Neptune borne by Tritons
ca. 1695
etching and engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Sebald Beham
Ornamental Panel with Genii riding Chimeras
1544
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Lucas van Leyden
St Luke
ca. 1508
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Heinrich Aldegrever
Putto with Vase and Goat
before 1561
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Anonymous German Artist
Apollo as Sun
(series, Seven Planets)
ca. 1550-75
woodcut
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Albrecht Dürer
Allegorical Figure of Justice
ca. 1490
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Giandomenico Tiepolo
Punchinello riding a Camel
ca. 1795-1800
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

attributed to Jan Luyken
Elephants in Procession of Turkish Sultan to Mosque
ca. 1690
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Hans Baldung
Aristotle and Phyllis
1515
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Georg Pencz
Aristotle and Phyllis
ca. 1545-46
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Anonymous German Artist
Allegory of Temperance
ca. 1520-50
engraving
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Garofalo (Benvenuto Tisi)
St Christopher
ca. 1530-40
oil on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Besides the present affliction, the reception of the country-people and of their substance into the city oppressed both them and much more the people themselves that so came in.  For having no houses but dwelling at that time of the year in stifling booths, the mortality was now without all form; and dying men lay tumbling one upon another in the streets, and men half-dead about every conduit through desire of water.  The temples also where they dwelt in tents were all full of the dead that died within them.  For oppressed with the violence of the calamity and not knowing what to do, men grew careless both of holy and profane things alike.  And the laws which they formerly used touching funerals were all now broken, every one burying where he could find room.  And many for want of things necessary, after so many deaths before, were forced to become impudent in the funerals of their friends.  For when one had made a funeral pile, another getting before him would throw on his dead and give it fire.  And when one was in burning, another would come and, having cast thereon him whom he carried, go his way again. 

And the great licentiousness, which also in other kinds was used in the city, began at first from this disease.  For that which a man before would dissemble and not acknowledge to be done for voluptuousness, he durst now do freely, seeing before his eyes such quick revolutions, as of the rich dying and men worth nothing inheriting their estates.  Insomuch as they justified a speedy fruition of their goods even for their pleasure, as men that thought they held their lives but by the day.  As for pains, no man was forward in any action of honour to take any because they thought it uncertain whether they should die or not before they achieved it.  But what any man knew to be delightful and to be profitable to pleasure, that was made both profitable and honourable.  Neither the fear of the gods nor laws of men awed any man, not the former because they concluded it was alike to worship or not worship from seeing that alike they all perished, nor the latter because no man expected that lives would last till he received punishment of his crimes by judgment.  But they thought there was now over their heads some far greater judgment decreed against them before which fell, they thought to enjoy some little part of their lives. 

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

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Literati - I

Anonymous French Artist
Molière as César in Corneille's Mort de Pompée
ca. 1658
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Pietro Anichini
Portrait of scholar Cassiano dal Pozzo
1659
engraving
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

attributed to Claude Lefebvre
Portrait of correspondent and stylist
Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné
ca. 1665
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Jean-Baptiste Santerre
Portrait of poet Nicolas Boileau
ca. 1690
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Catherine Lusurier
Portrait of philosophe Jean d'Alembert
1777
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

John Singleton Copley
Portrait of writer and performer Mary Robinson
in the Character of a Nun

ca. 1780
oil on canvas
Huntington Library and Art Museum
San Marino, California

Jean-Simon Berthélemy
Portrait of philosophe Denis Diderot
1784
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of philosophe Nicolas de Caritat,
marquis de Condorcet

ca. 1793
oil on panel
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Louis Landry
Portrait of dramatist Jean-Louis Laya
1795
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Johann Gottfried Schadow
Portrait of writer Friederike Unger
ca. 1807
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld
Portrait of poet Zacharias Werner
ca. 1810-20
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Louis-Pierre Deseine
Posthumous Bust of art historian
Johann Joachim Winckelmann

1818
marble
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Johann Heinrich von Dannecker
Portrait of dramatist Friedrich Schiller
1805 (modeled by Dannecker)
1837 (carved by another hand)
marble
Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg

Henri Lehmann
Portrait of writer Marie de Flavigny
(publishing under pseudonym, Daniel Stern)

1843
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Gustave Courbet
Portrait of writer Jules Vallès
ca. 1861
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Thomas Couture
Portrait of historian Jules Michelet
ca. 1865
oil on canvas
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Et encore, si comme je vous le conseille vous vous écartez du tableau, si vous lui tournez résolument le dos, si vous revenez carrément sur vos pas, si vous sortez de la pièce et faites quelques pas dans la galerie du Bord-de-l'Eau, et de nouveau faites volte-face, de nouveau par artifice pénétrez dans la grande salle où à l'exclusion de tout autre tableau se tient Les Onze; si vous vous arrêtez alors sur le seuil et regardez Les Onze comme si vous les voyiez pour la première fois – alors oui, vous savez presque à quoi cela vous fait penser. Et si par ailleurs il vous arrive quand vous n'êtes pas au Louvre de monter à cheval, de pratiquer pour mémoire cette très ancienne et obsolète occupation des hommes, ou simplement de fréquenter les lieux où se tiennent dans leur repos plein d'effroi les chevaux de monte; et si encore peut-être vous vous souvenez d'un jour où, venant de l'autre bout du pré et approchant à votre  pas de l'angle largement ouvert de l'écurie où font front un à un dans leurs box alignés les chevaux, dont vous ne voyez que les têtes, découpées et bien mises en valeur par la petite porte basse qui dérobe leurs corps, d'où elles apparaissent comme suspendues là-haut par la vertu du Saint-Esprit, spectrales, vivantes, figées dans l'effroi et la lente expectative des bêtes – alors peut-être vous vous dites que Michelet dans son rêve ne s'est pas trompé tout à fait et qu'il y a là au Louvre onze formes semblables à des chevaux, onze créatures d'effroi et d'emportement: comme en ont sculpté les Assyriens de Ninive dans les chasses équestres où le roi tue des lions; comme elles galopent vers les damnés que nous sommes, quatre fois et sous quatre formes de chevaux, dans l'Apocalypse de Jean: comme cabrées sous Niccolò Da Tolentino, le condottiere de la nuit, dans Uccello; comme cabrées de même sous les Philippe de France et les Louis de France, les trente-deux Capets, plus tard sous Bonaparte; telles que les a peintes Géricault dans la sarabande des trains d'artillerie explosant en chaîne, terrifiées par l'odeur de la poudre et celle de la mort, mais comme sans effroi chargeant. 

– Pierre Michon, from Les Onze (Verdier, 2009)

Monday, April 22, 2024

Feint - Redon - Fantin-Latour - Schönfeld

Adrian Feint
The Collector
1926
etching
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Adrian Feint
The Goddess and the Aspidistra
1934
wood-engraving
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Adrian Feint
The Striped Petunia
1939
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Adrian Feint
Flowers in Sunlight
1940
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Odilon Redon
St George and the Dragon
ca. 1909-1910
oil on panel
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Odilon Redon
Profile of a Woman
ca. 1916
pastel on paper
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

Odilon Redon
The Barque
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Odilon Redon
The Port of Morgat
1882
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Henri Fantin-Latour
White and Pink Mallows in a Vase
1895
oil on canvas
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California

Henri Fantin-Latour
The Engagement Bouquet
1869
oil on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Henri Fantin-Latour
Portrait of a Woman
1879
oil on canvas
Centraal Museum, Utrecht

Henri Fantin-Latour
Portrait of Manet
1867
drawing
Dallas Museum of Art

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Varie Teste
(from a series of heads)
1656
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Democritus contemplating Earthly Decline
ca. 1654
etching
Herzog August Bibliothek, Wulfenbüttel

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Christ carrying the Cross
before 1684
oil on canvas
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Johann Heinrich Schönfeld
Salvator Mundi
ca. 1675-80
oil on canvas
Deutsche Barockgalerie, Augsburg

from The Sea and the Mirror
         (a commentary on Shakespeare's The Tempest)

Prospero to Ariel:

But now all these heavy books are no use to me any more, for
     Where I go, words carry no weight: it is best,
Then, I surrender their fascinating counsel
     To the silent dissolution of the sea
Which misuses nothing because it values nothing;
     Whereas man overvalues everything
Yet, when he learns the price is pegged to his valuation,
     Complains bitterly he is being ruined which, of course, he is.
So kings find it odd they should have a million subjects
     Yet share in the thoughts of none, and seducers
Are sincerely puzzled at being unable to love
     What they are able to possess; so, long ago,
In an open boat, I wept at giving a city,
     Common warmth and touching substance, for a gift
In dealing with shadows. If age, which is certainly
     Just as wicked as youth, look any wiser,
It is only that youth is still able to believe
     It will get away with anything, while age
Knows only too well that it has got away with nothing:
     The child runs out to play in the garden, convinced
That the furniture will go on with its thinking lesson,
     Who, fifty years later, if he plays at all,
Will first ask its kind permission to be excused.

– W.H. Auden (1942-44)