Alarmed

William De Morgan
Tile with Sunflower Design
ca. 1882-88
glazed earthenware
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

William De Morgan
Tile with Pineapple Design
1898
glazed stoneware
Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

William De Morgan
Tile with Mongolian Design
ca. 1888-97
glazed earthenware
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

William De Morgan
Tile with Eider Duck Design
ca. 1872-81
glazed earthenware
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1605
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of a Young Woman
ca. 1620
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of Cornelio II Bentivoglio
1624
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Ottavio Leoni
Portrait of Taddeo Barberini
1627
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

James Ensor
Ostend Harbor
ca. 1900-1904
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

James Ensor
Bourgeois Salon
1881
oil on canvas
Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp

James Ensor
Skeletons in the Studio
1900
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

James Ensor
Still Life in the Studio
1889
oil on canvas
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Giorgio Vasari
Abduction of Hippodamia by the Centaur Eurytion
before 1574
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Giorgio Vasari
Admiral Coligny supported after attempted Assassination
ca. 1570
drawing (study for painting)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giorgio Vasari
Christ on the Mount of Olives
ca. 1547-50
drawing (study for painting)
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Giorgio Vasari
Wedding Feast of Esther and Ahasuerus
ca. 1548-49
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

from Part Two of The Age of Anxiety

                              The Seven Ages

          A sick toss'd vessel, dashing on each thing;
          Nay, his own shelf:
          My God, I mean myself.
                                                      George Herbert, Miserie

Malin begins:
     Behold the infant, helpless in cradle and   
     Righteous still, yet already there is
     Dread in his dreams at the deed of which
     He knows nothing but knows he can do,
     The gulf before him with guilt beyond,
     Whatever that is, whatever why
     Forbids his bound; till that ban tempts him;   
     He jumps and is judged: he joins mankind,
     The fallen families, freedom lost,
     Love become Law. Now he looks at grown-ups
     With conscious care, and calculates on
     The effect of a frown or filial smile,
     Accuses with a cough, claims pity
     With scratched knees, skillfully avenges
     Pains and punishments on puny insects,
     Grows into a grin, and gladly shares his
     Small secret with the supplicating
     Instant present. His emptiness finds
     Its joy in a gang and is joined to others
     By crimes in common. Clumsy and alarmed,
     As the blind bat obeys the warnings
     Of its own echoes, his inner life
     Is a zig-zag, a bizarre dance of
     Feelings through facts, a foiled one learning 
     Shyness and shame, a shadowed flier. 

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)

Supernaturalisms

Frederik van Valckenborch
Christ walking on Water
ca. 1590-1600
oil on canvas
Muzeum Kolekcji im Jana Pawła II, Warsaw

Konrad Witz
The Miraculous Draught of Fishes
1444
tempera on panel
Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Genève

Anonymous French Artist
Arrival of the Holy House by Miracle at Loreto
ca. 1540-60
enamel on copper
Musée du Louvre

Livio Agresti
Christ healing the Blind
ca. 1573-74
fresco
Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome

Livio Agresti
Christ healing the Lame
ca. 1573-74
fresco
Chiesa di Santo Spirito in Sassia, Rome

Giorgio Vasari
Miracle of the Prophet Elisha
ca. 1566
oil on panel
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

Parrasio Micheli
The Gathering of Manna
ca. 1560
fresco (with donor portraits at left)
Chiesa di San Francesco della Vigna, Venice

Pieter de Grebber
Moses striking the Rock
1630
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tourcoing

Sebastiano Conca
Miracle of St Turibius of Mogrovego, Archbishop of Lima, Peru
1726
oil on canvas (canonization painting)
Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome

Filippo da Verona
St Anthony appearing to the Blessed Luca Belludi
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Francesco Vecellio
Miracle of the Host
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Francesco Vecellio
Miracle of the Miser's Heart
ca. 1510-11
fresco
Sala Capitolare, Scuola del Santo, Padua

Giovanni Lanfranco
Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes
ca. 1624-25
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin

Pandolfo Reschi
Miracle of St John the Baptist in a Landscape
ca. 1690
oil on canvas
Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

attributed to Gaspare Venturini
Resurrection of Christ
ca. 1590-1600
oil on panel
private collection

Arnout Vinckenborch
Resurrection of Christ
ca. 1617
oil on panel
Sint Pauluskerk, Antwerp

Kristian Zahrtmann
Transfigured Christ appearing before the Disciples
1895
oil on canvas
private collection

Thalassa

Run out the boat, my broken comrades;

Let the old seaweed crack, the surge

Burgeon oblivious of the last

Embarkation of feckless men,

Let every adverse force converge  –

Here we must needs embark again.

Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades;

Let each horizon tilt and lurch –

You know the worst: your wills are fickle,

Your values blurred, your hearts impure

And your past life a ruined church –

But let your poison be your cure.

Put out to sea, ignoble comrades,

Whose record shall be noble yet;

Butting through scarps of moving marble

The narwhal dares us to be free;

By a high star our course is set,

Our end is Life. Put out to sea.

– Louis MacNeice (ca. 1963 or earlier)

Ritual

Anton von Werner
State Opening of the Reichstag in 1888
1893
oil on canvas
Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

Beauvais Manufactory
Audience with the Emperor of China
(from the Grand Mogul Cycle)
ca. 1715
wood and silk tapestry
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Hans Deiters
Künstlerfest Düsseldorf
1905
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Anonymous French Printmakers
Tournament Scene in the 12th century
ca. 1820
hand-colored engraving
private collection

Jean-Louis Forain
Congrès Eucharistique International, Lourdes
1914
lithograph (poster)
Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Henry Edward Tidmarsh
Oratorio Night, Free Trade Hall, Manchester
1893-94
watercolor and gouache on paper
Manchester Art Gallery

Jean-Baptiste Antoine Tierce
Neapolitan Peasants serenading a Statue of the Virgin
ca. 1765
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Albert Schindler
The Baptism
ca. 1835-40
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Lucien Simon
First Communion
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Musée Petiet de Limoux

Lambert Doomer
Samuel presented in the Temple to Eli
(portrait historié of Françoys Wynants van Beweste
and Elida Essing and their children)
1668
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Art d'Orléans

Johann Peter Krafft
Victory Declaration of the Allies over the French after the Battle of Leipzig, 1813
1839
oil on canvas
Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin

Jacopo Tintoretto and workshop
State Visit of Philip II of Spain to Mantua in 1549
(from the Gonzaga Cycle)
ca. 1580
oil on canvas
Alte Pinakothek, Munich

Mathias Gabriel Lory
Stone-Throwing in the Appenzell
1804
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung, ETH Zürich

Hans Baldung
Preparations for Witches' Sabbath
1510
hand-colored woodcut
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Else Lasker-Schüler
Procession of Priests and Monks in Jerusalem
ca. 1938
drawing (colored chalks)
Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Käthe Kollwitz
Memorial Print for Karl Liebknecht
1919
woodcut
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

from Autumn Refrain
 

The skreak and skritter of evening gone

And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,

The sorrows of sun, too, gone . . . the moon and moon,

The yellow moon of words about the nightingale

In measureless measures, not a bird for me

But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air

I have never – shall never hear. And yet beneath

The stillness of everything gone, and being still,

Being and sitting still, something resides,

Some skreaking and skrittering residuum,

And grates these evasions of the nightingale

though I have never – shall never hear that bird.

– Wallace Stevens (1936)

Prominent Persons

Henry Edward Tidmarsh
Waiting for the Procession, Manchester
1893-94
drawing
Manchester Art Gallery

Henry Edward Tidmarsh
Terrace Walk, Alexandra Park, Manchester
1893-94
drawing
Manchester Art Gallery

Henry Edward Tidmarsh
Designing Room, Municipal School of Art, Manchester
1893-94
drawing
Manchester Art Gallery

Henry Edward Tidmarsh
Chemical Laboratory, Manchester Grammar School
1893-94
watercolor and gouache on paper
Manchester Art Gallery

Jusepe de Ribera
Baptism of Christ
1643
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy

Jusepe de Ribera
Martyrdom of St Bartholomew
1634
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Jusepe de Ribera
St Roch
1631
oil on canvas
Museo del Prado, Madrid

Jusepe de Ribera
St Thomas
ca. 1609-1610
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest

Antoine Claudet
Hamilton Sisters
1856
hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Antoine Claudet
Hamilton Children
1856
hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Antoine Claudet
Eliza Hamilton
1856
hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Antoine Claudet
Hamilton Sister with Mother
1856
hand-colored daguerreotype (stereograph)
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Édouard Vuillard
Le Jardin des Tuileries
ca. 1900
oil on canvas
Menil Collection, Houston

Édouard Vuillard
Madame Lucy Hessel working at a Dressmaker's Table
1908
oil on board
Phoenix Art Museum, Arizona

Édouard Vuillard
Seated Woman with Cup of Coffee
1893
oil and tempera on card
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Édouard Vuillard
Woman with Red Scarf
ca. 1900
oil on board
Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal

from Part One of The Age of Anxiety 

Malin said:
     But the new barbarian is no uncouth
     Desert-dweller; he does not emerge
     From fir forests; factories bred him,
     Corporate companies, college towns
     Mothered his mind, and many journals
     Backed his beliefs. He was born here. The
     Bravura of revolvers in vogue now
     And the cult of death are quite at home
     Inside the city.

Quant said:
                              The soldiers' fear
     And the shots will cease in a short while,
     More ruined regions surrender to less,
     Prominent persons be put to death
     For mass-murder, and what moves us now,
     The defence of friends against foes' hate,
     Be over for ever. Then, after that,
     What shall we will? Why shall we practise
     Vice or virtue when victory comes?
     The celebrations are suddenly hushed,
     The coarse crowds uncomfortably still,
     For, arm-in-arm now, behind the festooned
     Conqueror's car there come his heirs, the
     Public hangman, the private wastrel.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)