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| Anna Alma-Tadema The Drawing Room, Townshend House 1885 watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Samuel Butler Interior of the Artist's Studio at 15 Clifford's Inn, London 1865 oil on canvas St John's College, University of Cambridge |
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| Hugh Casson Grand Staircase, Burlington House ca. 1977 drawing, with watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| William Chambers Design for Window Wall, Queen Charlotte's Music Room, Windsor 1794 drawing, with watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau Two Gentlemen and a Lady playing Cards 1767 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Solomon Alexander Hart Interior of a Larder 1841 watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Solomon Alexander Hart Interior at Hobbard's Farm 1841 watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Solomon Alexander Hart Interior with Open Door, Windsor ca. 1840 watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Solomon Alexander Hart Study of Stone and Brickwork in a Rustic Interior ca. 1835 watercolor Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Arthur Hughes Banqueting Hall at Penkill, Ayrshire ca. 1880 oil on canvas National Museums Collection Centre, Edinburgh |
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| Jean-Baptiste Lallemand Abbaye de Cluny, Romanesque Nave ca. 1779-80 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Ralph Lillford Pottery 1961 oil on panel Royal Academy of Arts, London |
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| Hubert Robert Corridor at the Louvre with Paintings being moved ca. 1800-1803 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Hubert Robert Washerwomen in Antique Vaulted Building 1760 drawing Musée du Louvre |
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| Gabriel de Saint-Aubin La Boutique de Mademoiselle Saint-Quentin, Marchande de Modes 1777 drawing, with watercolor Musée du Louvre |
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| Leonard Rosoman Portrait of the Artist painting the Ceiling ca. 1966 oil on board Royal Academy of Arts, London |
Vanishing Interiors
Little patches of grass disappear
In the jaws of lusty squirrels
Who slip into the spruce.
Cars collapse into parts.
Spring dissolves into summer,
The kitten into the cat.
A tray of drinks departs from the buffet
And voilà! the party's over.
All that's left are some pickles
And a sprig of wilting parsley on the rug.
When I think of all those
Gong-tormented Mesozoic seas
I feel a ripple of extinction
And blow a smoke ring through the trees.
Soon there will be nothing left here but sky.
When I think about the fact
I am not thinking about you
It is a new way of thinking about you.
– Suzanne Buffam (2010)
from Byzantium
At midnight on the Emperor's pavement flit
Flames that no faggot feeds, nor steel has lit,
Nor storm disturbs, flames begotten of flame,
Where blood-begotten spirits come
And all complexities of fury leave,
Dying into a dance,
An agony of trance,
An agony of flame that cannot singe a sleeve.
Astraddle on the dolphin's mire and blood,
Spirit after spirit? The smithies break the flood,
The golden smithies of the Emperor!
Marbles of the dancing floor
Break bitter furies of complexity.
Those images that yet
Fresh images beget,
That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.
– William Butler Yeats (1930)
