Friday, May 4, 2018

Balestra Both Guercino ter Borch van Cleve

attributed to Antonio Balestra
Music-making Angels on clouds
before 1740
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Antonio Balestra
Design for Title-page
before 1740
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Antonio Balestra
Self-portrait (presumed)
ca. 1695
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

attributed to Jan Both
Italian landscape with squat round structure
before 1652
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Jan Both
Landscape with wood-gatherer
before 1652
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Guercino
Sleeping Rinaldo abducted by Armida
(study for ceiling of Palazzo Costaguti, Rome)
before 1623
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

The Sleeper

As Ann came in one summer's day,
She felt that she must creep,
So silent was the clear cool house,
It seemed a house of sleep.
And sure, when she pushed open the door,
Rapt in the stillness there,
Her mother sat, with stooping head,
Asleep upon a chair;
Fast – fast asleep; her two hands laid
Loose-folded on her knee,
So that her small unconscious face
Looked half unreal to be:
So calmly lit with sleep's pale light
Each feature was; so fair
Her forehead – every trouble was
Smoothed out beneath her hair.
But though her mind in dream now moved,
Still seemed her gaze to rest –
From out beneath her fast-sealed lids,
Above her moving breast –
On Ann; as quite, quite still she stood;
Yet slumber lay so deep
Even her hands upon her lap
Seemed saturate with sleep.
And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread
Stole over her, and then,
On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod,
And tiptoed out again.

– Walter de la Mare (1873-1956)

Guercino
St Veronica showing the Vernicle to St Peter
before 1666
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Guercino
Christ at Emmaus
before 1666
drawing
National Galleries of Scotland

Gerard ter Borch the Elder
Woman wearing veil with houpette
ca. 1615-29
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Harmen ter Borch
Interior with woman bending over a chest
ca. 1651
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

from Searching for Signs

I am searching now for signs and wonders
which, when younger, I might have had
for nothing, nothing at all, but which,
when older, I threw, despised, in the street –
things of little value, spurned by the stupid.
What were these things? The works that
embody and in their time transform
all poets destined for great singing
when, in their maturity, they pick up the pearl
lodged and nourished in the treasure of their heart.
But, for me, cursed with sloth
there will be no art
no enamelled bird, no cup, no forge.
When, in my youth, I heard the clamour
Of the mob and was afraid, I turned and ran
and since that time am unmanned.
Oh, I did not betray a gift, an artifact
but only what was me and mine.
Instead of winding the golden thread
up in a ball and following
until the tall trees and blood-red fruit
screamed Paradise I examined and searched
pretending I needed more: "I need more time,"
I said.

– Alan Brilliant (1969)

Hendrick van Cleve
Landscape with obelisk among ruins
1584
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Hendrick van Cleve
Landscape with obelisk among ruins
1587
engraving after van Cleve by Adriaen Collaert
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Hendrick van Cleve
Landscape with ruins by a river
1584
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Hendrick van Cleve
Landscape with ruins by a river
1587
engraving after van Cleve by Adriaen Collaert
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)