Odorless Ages

Luca Cambiaso
Caritas
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
Study for Evangelist in Spandrel
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
The Road to Calvary
before 1585
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Luca Cambiaso
Virgin and Child
ca. 1560
drawing
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

Childe Hassam
Isles of Shoals
1907
oil on panel
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Childe Hassam
Outdoor Portrait of Miss Weir
1909
oil on canvas
Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California

Childe Hassam
Walk in the Park
ca. 1889-90
oil on canvas
Denver Art Museum, Colorado

Childe Hassam
New England Road
ca. 1902
oil on canvas
Portland Art Museum, Oregon

Kenneth Lochhead
Park Excursion
2002
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
By the Orchard
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
The Duchess
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Kenneth Lochhead
Two Ladies and a Gentleman
1991
oil on canvas
Ottawa Art Gallery, Ontario

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
The Annunciation
ca. 1530-35
drawing
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Battle Scene with Lions
ca. 1530-40
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Musical Contest of Apollo and Marsyas
ca. 1527-30
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Parmigianino (Francesco Mazzola)
Sheet of Studies
before 1540
drawing
Musée Bonnat-Helleu, Bayonne

from Part One of The Age of Anxiety 

Rosetta thought:

     I see in my mind a besieged island,

     That island in arms where my home once was.

     Round green gardens, down grooves between white

     Hawthorn-hedges, long hospital trains

     Smoothly slide with their sensitized freight

     Of mangled men, moving them homeward

     In pain through pastures. In a packed hall

     Two vicious rivals, two virtuosos

     Appear on one platform and play duets

     To war-orphans and widowed ladies,

     Grieving in gloves; while to grosser ears

     In clubs and cabarets crooners wail

     Some miserere modern enough

     In its thorough thinness. I think too of

     The conquered condition, countries where

     Arrogant officers, armed in cars,

     Go roaring down roads on the wrong side,

     Courts martial meet at midnight with drums,

     And pudgy persons pace unsmiling

     The quays and stations or cruise the nights

     In vans for victims, to investigate

     In sound-proof cells the Sense of Honor,

     While in turkish baths with towels round them

     Imperilled plotters plan in outline

     Definitions and norms for new lives,

     Half-truths for their times. As tense as these,

     Four who are famous confer in a schloss

     At night on nations. They are not equal:

     Three stand thoughtful on a thick carpet

     Awaiting the Fourth who wills they shall

     Till, suddenly entering through a side-door,

     Quick, quiet, unquestionable as death,

     Grief or guilt, he greets them and sits down,

     Lord of this life. He looks natural,

     He smiles well, he smells of the future,

     Odorless ages, an ordered world

     Of planned pleasures and passport-control,

     Sentry-go, sedatives, soft drinks and

     Managed money, a moral planet

     Tamed by terror: his telegram sets

     Grey masses moving as the mud dries.

     Many have perished; more will.

– W.H. Auden (1944-46)