Pattern Making

Antonio Lombardo
Inscription supported by Eagles
1508
marble relief panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Jacopo del Giallo
Descent from the Cross
ca. 1525
pigment on vellum
(cutting from Missal of Pope Clement VII de' Medici)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Hans Rogel
Design for Calligraphic Capitals
1568
woodcut
Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Vienna

Humphrey Prideaux
Double-page spread with texts of Greek and Latin Inscriptions
from Marmora Oxoniensia Arundellianis
1676
printed book
Staatsbibliothek, Bamberg

Sèvres Manufactory
Gobelet Litron
1784
porcelain with gold paillons and enamel jeweling
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Johann Conrad Bromeis
Design for Neoclassical Decoration
Dining Salon, Rotes Palais, Kassel
ca. 1828
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung, Museumslandschaft Hessen-Kassel

Eduard Hildebrandt
Street in Canton
1863
watercolor on paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous Swiss Printmakers
Proof-Sheet with 32 Postcards reproducing Paintings by Swiss Artists
ca. 1900
collotype
Graphische Sammlung, Zentralbibliothek, Zürich

Richard Teschner
Der Merker
(magazine)
1910
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Gabriele Münter
Forest Path
ca. 1910-20
oil on glass
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Karl Wagner
Stag
1912
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Amedeo Modigliani
Boy in Short Pants
1918
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

Otto Lange
Exhibition of Dresden Art
1925
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Jean Dunand
Firescreen
1926
enameled wood
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Gerhard Richter
SAID
1983
oil on canvas
Harvard Art Museums

Gülsün Karamustafa
Shrine on Line
2011
assemblage
(fiberglass columns, porcelain figures)
Institut Valencià d'Art Modern

Antony 

     Go? Whither? Go from all that's excellent?

     Faith, honour, virtue, all good things forbid

     That I should go from her who sets my love

     Above the price of kingdoms. Give, you gods,

     Give to your boy, your Caesar,

     This rattle of a globe to play withal,

     This geegaw world, and put him cheaply off:

     I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.

Cleopatra

     She's wholly yours. My heart's so full of joy

     That I shall do some wild extravagance

     Of love in public, and the foolish world,

     Which knows not tenderness, will think me mad.

Ventidius

     Oh women! Women! Women! All the gods

     Have not such power of doing good to man

     As you of doing harm.

Antony                             Our men are armed.

     Unbar the gate that looks to Caesar's camp.

     I would revenge the treachery he meant me,

     And long security makes conquest easy.

     I'm eager to return before I go,

     For all the pleasures I have known beat thick

     On my remembrance. How I long for night!

        That both the sweets of mutual love may try,

        And once triumph o'er Caesar ere we die.             (Exeunt)    

– John Dryden, All for Love (1677)

Repeats

Imogen Cunningham
Fageol Ventilators
1934
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Andreas Feininger
Grain Elevator in Iowa
1952
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Magdalena Abakanowicz
Standing Figures
1994-98
bronze
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Ursula von Rydingsvard
Blackened World
2008
cedar and graphite
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Anonymous Russian Artist
Miniature Traveling Iconostasis
17th century
oil on panels edged and hinged with copper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

John Wharlton Bunney
Columns inside St Mark's Basilica, Venice
ca. 1860
watercolor and gouache on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

John Ruskin
Duomo of San Martino, Lucca
1874
watercolor and gouache on paper
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

William England
View of the International Exhibition of 1862, London
1862
hand-colored albumen silver prints from glass negative
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Eugène Piot
Propylaea on the Acropolis, Athens
1852
salted paper print from paper negative
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Eileen Gray
Screen
1922
lacquered wood and metal rods
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Pablo Palazuelo
Diferencias XII
1987
gouache on paper
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

David Reed
Untitled
1976
acrylic on paper
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

Elizabeth Murray
Pink and Blue Steps
1974
oil on canvas
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri

Anna Andreeva
Fabric Panel
1967
printed cotton
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Ralph Steiner
Hanging Sheets
ca. 1960
gelatin silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Bridget Riley
Study '74 - Colour/Space Sequence
1974
gouache on paper
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Makoto Nakamura
Shiseido Nail Enamel
1978
photolithograph (poster)
Museum of Modern Art, New York

    But what is it that makes the English reader fail to recognize the beauty and the power of such passages as these?  Besides Racine's lack of extravagance and bravura, besides his dislike of exaggerated emphasis and far-fetched or fantastic imagery, there is another characteristic of his style to which we are perhaps even more antipathetic – its suppression of detail.  The great majority of poets – and especially of English poets – produce their most potent effects by the accumulation of details – details which in themselves fascinate us either by their beauty or their curiosity or their supreme appropriateness.  But with details Racine will have nothing to do; he builds up his poetry out of words which are not only absolutely simple but extremely general, so that our minds, failing to find in it the peculiar delights to which we have been accustomed, fall into the error of rejecting it altogether as devoid of significance.  And the error is a grave one, for in truth nothing is more marvellous than the magic with which Racine can conjure up out of a few expressions of the vaguest import a sense of complete and intimate reality.

– Lytton Strachey on Racine (1908)

Sixes

Jim Dine
Six Shoes in Six Colors
1970
etching
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Maison Grand Frères (Lyon)
Six-Panel Folding Screen for the Birth Chamber of Louis XVIII
ca. 1817-19
silk brocade on wood frame
Musée du Louvre

Robert Mapplethorpe
Flower
1985
gelatin silver print
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Anonymous French Artist
Joyeuse Assemblée dans un Bateau
ca. 1540-60
enamel on copper (Limoges)
Musée du Louvre

John Pfahl
Six Oranges, Buffalo, New York
1975
dye imbibition print
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Bonifazio de' Pitati (Bonifazio Veronese)
Virgin and Child with infant St John the Baptist,
St Omobono of Cremona (with Beggar) and St Barbara
1533
oil on canvas
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

workshop of Pietro Perugino
Virgin and Child with Angels,
St Rose and St Catherine of Alexandria
ca. 1485-95
oil on panel
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Horace Le Blanc
Transverberation of St Teresa of Ávila
1621
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Pierre Parrocel
Satyr, Bacchante and Putti
before 1739
etching
British Museum

Anonymous German Artist
Adoration of the Magi
ca. 1450-60
pearwood relief
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Mario De Biasi
Train Station, Bologna
1952
gelatin silver print
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Attilio Salemme
Enigma of Joy
1947
oil on canvas
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Andy Warhol
Self Portrait - Strangulation
1978
screenprints on canvases
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Andy Warhol
Skulls
1976
screenprints on canvases
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Callum Innes
Six Identified Forms
1992
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Grace Hartigan
Six by Six
1951
oil on canvas
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Michael Loew
Six of a Kind, Nothing Wild
1979
acrylic and watercolor on linen
Buffalo AKG Art Museum, New York

    "Ralph and Felix made fashionable a new and particularly blood-curdling form of hide-and-seek.  Our ordinary game was called Scallawag, and was played of a winter's evening all over the house, which was well adapted for the purpose, having two staircases and plenty of passages and complications.  All the passage lights were turned out – our parents were wonderfully patient about this – and the Scallawag pounced out of dark corners on the seekers, and chased them as they raced shrieking for Home.  I am sorry to say that Charles and I found that we could add zest to this game by making Margaret Scallawag, and then goading and insulting her till she became mad with rage; a thing which was never very difficult to do.  We were then really afraid of being caught by her, for the ferocity of her pinches was well known.  In battle, Margaret selected a certain very painful part of her victim's upper arm for pinching; I hit with my fists; Charles kicked.  This was the accepted practice during hostilities; which, I must say, were not usually very serious.  

    

    Ralph's innovation lay in playing hide-and-seek out of doors at night; the party was divided into two sides, and a lantern was placed in the middle of the lawn, to be Home.  Tiptoeing about in the rustling blackness of the garden, with a potential enemy behind every bush, was altogether too much for my nerves though, of course, I dared not say so.  Yet even through my terror, I enjoyed the strong secrecy of the night, and felt how the power and personality of each tree and plant comes pouring out in the dark."

– Gwen Raverat, from Period Piece: a Cambridge Childhood (London: Faber and Faber, 1952)