Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts

Sunday, August 24, 2025

Bookish

attributed to Jacques Bizet
Still Life with Books
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

Christen Dalsgaard
In a Pine Wood
1863
oil on canvas
Hirschsprung Collection, Copenhagen

John Paul Edwards
Bouquinistes along the Seine
ca. 1924
bromoil print
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

François Bonvin
Still Life with Book and Spectacles
1872
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Isaac Israels
Woman Reading
ca. 1903-1907
watercolor on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Johannes Josephus Aarts
Woman studying Book of Plates
1905
drawing
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Henry van de Velde
Woman Reading
ca. 1891
pastel on paper
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Alejandro de Riquer
Ex Libris Lluis Plandivra
ca. 1910
lithograph
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Giovanni Andrea Sirani
Sibyl
ca. 1640-50
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Dirk Hidde Nijland
Nautical Still Life with Books and Albums
1927
oil on canvas
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

William Harnett Michael
Ease
1887
oil on canvas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas

James Ensor
Portrait of the artist's Father
1881
oil on canvas
Musée Fin de Siècle, Brussels

Rembrandt
Two Scholars Disputing
1628
oil on panel
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

workshop of Jan van Eyck
St Jerome in his Study
ca. 1435
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Arts

Chris Beekman
Books and Candlestick
1914
lithograph
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

Jan Lodeizen
Books
ca. 1931
oil on panel
Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands

They reach the island of Thule and use it as a place of rest from their wandering while they are there.  On that island of Thule Dinias takes as his mistress a woman named Dercyllis, a Tyrian by birth who belonged to the aristocracy of that city and who was living with her brother Mantinias.  While living with her, Dinias learns of the wandering of the brother and sister and of how much harm the Egyptian priest Paapis had done.  After his homeland had been plundered, Paapis took up residence in Tyre and was befriended by the parents of Dercyllis and Mantinias.  At first, he seemed to be well intentioned towards his benefactors and the entire household.  Later, he did a lot of harm to the household, the brother and sister and their parents.  After the misfortune that befell her home, Dercyllis, he learned, was taken with her brother to Rhodes.  From there she wandered to Crete, then among the Tyrrhenians and the people called the Cimmerians.  While among these people, he learned, she saw Hades and learned much about it, making use of her personal maidservant Myrto as her informant; Myrto had died long ago and returned from the dead to instruct her mistress. 

– 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).  

Thursday, April 24, 2025

Readers & Books

Bartholomeus van der Helst
Woman with a Book
1665
oil on canvas
Musée Magnin, Dijon

Anonymous Spanish Artist
Still Life with Books
ca. 1630-40
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Vincenzo Catena
Portrait of a Man with a Book
ca. 1520
oil on panel
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Correggio (Antonio Allegri)
Prophet with a Book
ca. 1523
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Giovanni Bellini
St Jerome reading in a Landscape
ca. 1480-85
oil on panel
National Gallery, London

Jan Davidsz de Heem
Vanitas Still Life with Skull and Books
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen

Henri Matisse
Woman Reading
1898
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

Anders Zorn
Model Reading
1910
etching
Art Institute of Chicago

Bjarne Ness
Model Reading
1926
drawing
Nasjonalmuseet, Oslo

Pietro Rotari
Young Woman reading a Letter
ca. 1753-55
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Anonymous Dutch Artist
Vanitas Still Life with Books
1633
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Anonymous Dutch Artist
Abraham de Lairesse reading
ca. 1690-1700
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Signe Scheel
Reading Girl
1892
oil on canvas
Nordnorsk Kunstmuseum, Tromsø

Ferdinand Bol
Man with a Book
1644
oil on canvas
Leiden Collection, New York

Oluf Wold-Torne
Lydia Reading
1914
oil on canvas
Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norway

Paul Signac
Still Life with Book and Oranges
1883
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

As she was thus in passion mixt with paine, throwing her eies as wildly as timerous Lovers do for feare of discoverie, she perceived a little Light, and such a one, as a chinke doth oft discover to our sights.  She curious to see what this was, with her delicate hands put the naturall ornament aside, discerning a little doore, which she putting from her, passed through it into another roome, like the first in all proportions, but in the midst there was a square stone, like to a prettie table, and on it a wax-candle burning; and by that a paper, which had suffered it selfe patiently to receive the discovering of so much of it, as presented this Sonnet (as it seemed newly written) to her sight.

Here all alone in silence might I mourne:
     But how can silence be where sorrowes flow?
     Sighs with complaints have poorer paines out-worne;
     But broken hearts can only true griefe show.
Drops of my dearest bloud shall let Love know
     Such teares for her I shed, yet still do burne,
     As no spring can quench least part of my woe,
     Till this live earth, againe to earth doe turne.
Hatefull all thought of comfort is to me,
     Despised days, let me still night possesse;
     Let me all torments feele in their excesse,
     And but this light allow my state to see.
Which still doth wast, and wasting as this light,
Are my sad dayes unto eternall night.

"Alas, Urania!" sigh'd she. "How well doe these words, this place, and all agree with thy fortune? sure poore soule thou wert heere appointed to spend thy daies, and these roomes ordain'd to keepe thy tortures in; none being assuredly so matchlesly unfortunate." 

– from The Countesse of Mountgomeries Urania, by the right honourable the Lady Mary Wroath, daughter to the right noble Robert, Earle of Leicester, and neece to the ever famous and renowned Sʳ Phillips Sidney knight, and to ye most excellant Lady Mary Countess of Pembroke, late deceased (London: John Marriott and John Grismand, 1621)

Friday, January 3, 2025

Sedentary Pursuits - II

Louis Jean Müller
La Lecture
ca. 1899
color etching
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Hans Heinrich Wägmann
Woman Reading
1595
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Kunstmuseum Basel

Gerard ter Borch the Younger
Young Man Reading
ca. 1680
oil on panel
Detroit Institute of Arts

Jusepe de Ribera
St Jerome
1646
oil on canvas
Národní Galerie, Prague

Carl Larsson
Interior
1900
watercolor on paper
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

August Krafft
Portrait of jurist Jacob Wilder
1819
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Salomon Koninck
Hermit
1643
oil on canvas
Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden

Philipp Klein
On the Beach at Viareggio
ca. 1895
oil on canvas
Landesmuseum, Hannover

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Man Reading on an Omnibus
ca. 1865
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes

Carlo Maratti
Young Woman Sewing
ca. 1670
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Carl Albrecht
The Embroiderer
1910
oil on canvas
Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Giovanni Boldini
Young Woman Crocheting
1875
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Camille Pissarro
Mère Jolly Mending
1874
oil on canvas
High Museum of Art, Atlanta

Vilhelm Hammershøi
Girl Sewing
1887
oil on canvas
Ordrupgaard Art Museum, Copenhagen

Wilhelm Tischbein
Young Woman with Flowers
ca. 1810
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

George Dunlop Leslie
Arranging Roses
ca. 1880
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

from Translations

The world in my window is a color the Greeks called chlorol.
When I learned the word I was newly pregnant
and the first pale lichens had just speckled the silver branches.
The pines and the lichens in the chill drizzle were glowing green
and a book in my lap said chlorol was one of the untranslatable
words. The vibrating glow pleased me then, as a finger
dipped in sugar pleased me then. I said the word aloud
for the baby to hear. Chlorol. I imagined the baby
could only see hot pink and crimson inside its tiny universe,
but if you can see what I'm seeing, the word for it
is chlorol.      

– Kathryn Nuemberger (2011)

Thursday, January 2, 2025

Sedentary Pursuits - I

Fritz von Uhde
The Busy Family
ca. 1885
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence

Hans Thoma
The Siblings
1873
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Édouard Vuillard
Interior with Women
1902
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

James McNeill Whistler
The Music Room
ca. 1880
etching and drypoint
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ewald Thiel
In the Study Room of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett
ca. 1900
autotype (carbon print)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Auguste-Antoine Masse
Interior of the Studio of Antoine-Jean Gros
1824
oil on canvas
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris

Ernest Meissonier
Chess Players
1856
oil on panel
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Comparison
1892
oil on canvas
Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio

Daniel Nikolaus Chodowiecki
La Couture
1781
etching
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Abraham Delfos after Abraham de Strij
The Scholars
1798
watercolor
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

John Doyle
Vacation Amusements No. 4 - Celebrating the Fine Arts
(Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Lord Melbourne
drawing and painting, supervised by an instructor)
1840
hand-colored lithograph
Wellcome Collection London

Joseph-François Ducq
Couple Studying Prints
ca. 1800-1805
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Henry Ericsson
The Fazer Bar
1931
oil on canvas
Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki

Ancient Greek Culture
Achilles bandaging the wounded arm of Patroclus
kylix
500 BC
painted terracotta
Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ancient Greek Culture
Woman handling Jewels from a Casket held by a Slave
grave stele
410-400 BC
marble relief
National Archaeological Museum, Athens

Wolfgang Heimbach
Gentlemen in a Studiolo working by Candlelight
cs. 1645
oil on canvas
Galleria Borghese, Rome

The Mermaid (from The Sea Cabinet)

Between the imaginary iceberg and the skeletal whale
is the stuffed and mounted mermaid in her case,
the crudely-stitched seam between skin and scale

so unlike Herbert Draper's siren dreams, loose
on the swelling tide, part virgin and part harpy.*
Her post-mortem hair and her terrible face 

look more like P.T. Barnum's Freak of Feejee,
piscene and wordless, trapped in the net of a stare.
She has the head and shrivelled tits of a monkey,

the green glass eyes of a porcelain doll, a pair
of praying-mantis hands, and fishy lips
open to reveal her sea-caved mouth, her rare

ivory mermaid-teeth. Children breathe and rap
on the glass to make her move. In her fixity
she's as far as can be from the selkie who slips

her wet pelt on the beaches of Orkney
and walks as a woman, pupils widened in light,
discarding the stuffed sack of her body.

Without hearing, or touch, or taste, or smell, or sight
she echoes the numb roll of the whale
in a sea congealed with cold, when it was thought

no beast could be as nerveless as the whale.

– Caitríona O'Reilly (2005)

*Herbert Draper - sentimental Victorian illustrator of classical myths