Pyre

Anonymous Spanish Makers
Reliquary Bust of St Ferdinand
ca. 1500 (head) and ca. 1850-1900 (bust)
partly-gilt silver and gems
Musée du Louvre

Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Untitled
ca. 1949-50
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Domenico Ghirlandaio
Risen Chris appearing to the Virgin
ca. 1490
tempera and gold on panel
Musée du Louvre

Jasper Johns
Pyre
2003
encaustic on canvas, with wood
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Anonymous English Makers
Etui Nécessaire
ca. 1760-70
case with agate panels set in gold
and containing gold implements
Musée du Louvre

Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Child with Mask, Chicago
1960
gelatin silver print
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Domenico Ghirlandaio
St Christopher
ca. 1472-75
detached fresco
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Jasper Johns
Pyre 2
2003
oil on canvas, with wood
Museum of Modern Art, New York

Anonymous German Makers
Lidded Mug with Snail and Seashells
17th century
ivory
Musée du Louvre

Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Untitled
ca. 1949-50
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Domenico Ghirlandaio
St James the Greater flanked by St Stephen and St Peter
1493
tempera and oil on panel
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Jasper Johns
Land's End
1963
oi -on canvas
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Anonymous French Maker
Biberon (infant feeding bottle)
16th century
blown glass
Musée du Louvre

Yasuhiro Ishimoto
Untitled
ca. 1949-50
gelatin silver print
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Domenico Ghirlandaio
Three Heroes of Antiquity - Julius Caesar, Mucius Scaevola and Marcus Furius Camillus
ca. 1482-84
fresco
Sala dei Gigli, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence

Jasper Johns
Zero through Nine
1970
lead relief
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Anonymous Japanese Maker
Vase in form of a Carp
before 1880
porcelain
Musée du Louvre

from In Time of War

Always far from the centre of our names,

The little workshop of love: yes, but how wrong

We were about the old manors and the long

Abandoned Folly and the children's games.

Only the acquisitive expects a quaint

Unsaleable product, something to please

An artistic girl; it's the selfish who sees

In every impractical beggar a saint.

We can't believe that we ourselves designed it,

A minor item of our daring plan

That caused no trouble; we took no notice of it.

Disaster comes, and we're amazed to find it

The single product that since work began

Through all the cycle showed a steady profit.

– W.H. Auden (1938)

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1942)

Georges Braque
Large Interior with Palette
1942
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

Paul Lewis Clemens
Mr. & Mrs. Clark
1942
oil on canvas
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

Joseph Cornell
Untitled (Pink Ballet Case)
1942
wood, glass and found objects
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis

Arthur Dove
The Brothers
1942
tempera and wax emulsion on canvas
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Ed Garman
No. 265
1942
oil on panel
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Robert Gwathmey
The Farmer wanted a Boy 
1942
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

John Heliker
Bathers
1942
drawing
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Fernand Léger
The Divers
1942
oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art

André Masson
La Belle Italienne
 1942
pastel on paper, mounted on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

André Masson
Minotaur
1942
pastel on paper
Art Institute of Chicago

Barbara Morgan
Dancer Erick Hawkins jumping with Lloyd
1942
gelatin silver print
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Robert Motherwell
Yellow Abstract Composition
1942
watercolor and ink on paper
Dallas Museum of Art

Arnold Newman
Max Ernst
1942
gelatin silver print
Fralin Museum of Art, Charlottesville, Virginia

Angelo Pinto
David and Goliath
1942
pigment on glass
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia

Hobson Pittman
House in the Country
1942
oil on canvas
North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh

Raphael Soyer
At the Mirror
1942
lithograph
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Tennessee

from Reflections in a Forest

Within a shadowland of trees

Whose lives are so uprightly led
In nude august communities,
To move about seems underbred

And common any taste for words;
When, thoughtlessly, they took to song,

Whatever one may think of birds,

The example that they set was wrong.

In keeping still, in staying slow,

For posture and for social ease,

How much these living statues owe

Their scent-and-color languages.

For who can quarrel without terms

For Not or Never, who can raise

Objections when what one affirms
Is necessarily the case?

– W.H. Auden (1957)

Visual Preferences (20th Century: 1941)

Anonymous Artist
Know the Facts!
1941
screenprint (WPA poster)
Art Institute of Chicago

Robert Brackman
Portrait of arts patron Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
1941
oil on canvas
Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia

Mstislav Dobuzhinsky
Stage Design for Ballet Imperial by George Balanchine
1941
watercolor on paper
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Max Ernst
Day and Night
1941
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

William Austin Kienbusch
Interior - Studio
1941
oil on canvas
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

Henri Matisse
Woman with Drawing
1941
drawing
Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina

Guillermo Meza
Adam and Eve
1941
oil on canvas
Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas

Pablo O'Higgins
Judas
1941
watercolor on paper
Dallas Museum of Art

Pablo Picasso
Seated Woman
1941
oil on canvas
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich

Eric Ravilious
Shelling by Night
1941
watercolor on paper
Tate Britain

Anton Refregier
Building the Mission Dolores - 1776
1941
watercolor and tempera on board
(competition design for Rincon Annex mural, San Francisco)
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

Anton Refregier
Building the Golden Gate Bridge - 1933
1941
watercolor and tempera on board
(competition design for Rincon Annex mural, San Francisco)
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York

William Roberts
The Control Room
1941
oil on canvas
Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester

Miklós Suba
York Street / Flint Street Corner (House in Shadow)
1941
oil on panel
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Graham Sutherland
Devastation 1941 - East End - Burnt Paper - Warehouse
1941
gouache and pastel on paper
Tate Britain

Jacques Villon
Caliban
1941
drypoint
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

from Academic Graffiti

George Herbert
Once tried ordering sherbet
On Salisbury Plain:
He ordered in vain.

          *          *          *

Sir Rider Haggard
Was completely staggered
When his bride-to-be
Announced, "I AM SHE!"

          *          *          *

Thomas Hardy
Was never tardy
When summoned to fulfill
The Immanent Will.

          *          *          *

No one could ever inveigle
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Into offering the slightest apology
For his Phenomenology.

          *          *          *

When Karl Marx
Found the phrase "financial sharks,"
He sang a Te Deum
In the British Museum.

          *          *          *

Mr. Robert Liston
Used his saw like a piston:
He was that elated
When he amputated.

– W.H. Auden (1952-70)

Milestones

Master of the Ashmolean Predella (Italian painter)
Birth of the Virgin
ca. 1365-70
tempera on panel
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Gianfrancesco Modigliani
Birth of the Virgin
ca. 1590-1600
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo dei Domenicani, Forlì

Andrea Lilio
Birth of the Virgin
ca. 1603
drawing (study for painted altarpiece)
British Museum

Scarsellino (Ippolito Scarsella)
Birth of the Virgin
1607
oil on canvas
Palazzo dei Musei, Modena

Simon Vouet
Birth of the Virgin
ca. 1620
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Francesco a Ripa, Rome

Rutilio Manetti
Birth of the Virgin
1625
oil on canvas (altarpiece)
Basilica di San Clemente, Santa Maria dei Servi

attributed to Michael Wolgemut
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1480
oil on panel
Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, Rome

Gianfrancesco Modigliani
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1590-1600
oil on canvas
Chiesa di San Giacomo Apostolo dei Domenicani, Forlì

Carlo Saraceni
Death of the Virgin
ca. 1615-20
oil on copper
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Sano di Pietro
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1445
tempera on panel (altarpiece)
Palazzo Pubblico, Siena

attributed to Josse Lieferinxe
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1497-1508
oil on panel
Musée du Louvre

Pintoricchio (Bernardino di Betto) and workshop
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1508
tempera and oil on panel
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples

Joachim Patinir
Assumption of the Virgin with Episodes from the Life of Christ
ca. 1510
oil on panel (altarpiece)
Philadelphia Museum of Art

Cola dell'Amatrice (Nicola Filotesio)
Assumption of the Virgin with Saints
1515
tempera on panel (altarpiece)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Alonso Berruguete
Figure Study for Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1555-60
drawing
British Museum

Paolo Veronese
Assumption of the Virgin
ca. 1585-87
oil on canvas (ceiling)
Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice

Johann Rottenhammer
Assumption of the Virgin
1612
ink and watercolor on paper
British Museum

from Journey to Iceland

And the great plains are for ever where the cold fish is hunted,

And everywhere; the light birds flicker and flaunt;

            Under the scolding flag the lover

            Of islands may see at last,

Faintly, his limited hope; and he hears the glitter

Of glaciers, the sterile immature mountains intense

            In the abnormal day of this world, and a river's

            Fan-like polyp of sand.

Then let the good citizen here find natural marvels:

The horse-shoe ravine, the issue of steam from a cleft

            In the rock, and rocks, and waterfalls brushing the

            Rocks, and among the rocks birds. 

– W.H. Auden (1936)