Thursday, February 15, 2018

After 1500 and Before 1550 - European Images

Anonymous Dutch painter
Judgment of Paris
1532
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

workshop of Fra Bartolomeo
Drapery Study for  Standing Male Figure
ca. 1512-17
drawing
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

attributed to Antonio da Vendri
Judgment of Paris
ca. 1500-1525
oil on canvas
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

from Time of Judgement

At eight in the evening, properly humble, I went
with movement harmonious and restrained,
poured into the prototype of fear,
with a landscape of devotion on my eyelids,
all as was shown me with much circumspection
by the last mirror:
the kissing of birds on the belt-buckle,
whatever of the chest might be revealed
and arranged with disbelief,
a slight fragrance of narcissus
on my earlobes; I went
at eight in the evening
with a small sheaf of papers watered in sin
to the dreadful encounter with judgement

– Andonis Decavalles, translated from Greek by Kimon Friar (1956)

Perino del Vaga
Studies of Figures and Architecture
ca. 1542-45
drawing
Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Michelangelo
Medici Madonna
1521-34
marble
Medici Chapel, New Sacristy,
Basilica di San Lorenzo, Florence

Marcantonio
Two Satyrs carrying a Child in a Basket
before 1524
engraving
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen
Portrait of Erard de la Marck
ca. 1528-30
oil on panel
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

follower of Raphael
A Papal Audience
 ca. 1510-20
drawing
Princeton University Art Museum

from Paradise Lost, Book 2

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her Kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with Heav'n, and by success untaught
His proud imaginations thus displayed.

– John Milton (1674)

Baldassare Peruzzi
The Tree of Jesse
ca. 1530
drawing
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

Lucas Cranach the Elder
St Christopher
1506
chiaroscuro woodcut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Hans Baldung
Lamentation
ca. 1515-17
woodcut
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Hans Burgkmair
St George on Horseback
ca. 1508-18
chiaroscuro woodcut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Giuseppe Salviati after Marco Dente
Giardino di Pensieri
(book frontispiece to Le Sorti di Francesco Marcolini)
1540
woodcut
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Young Thinker

In the path of spring – young, slender –

the delicate beech-tree, silver-limbed
and crossed with gold – last year's curled leaves
aslant in the wind of its adversities,

So he – delicate-bodied, eager, sweet of mouth,
so sturdily he stands, and spring
and youth are in his sinews.

What griefs have crossed
their slanting memories upon his brain
he will not say – what griefs have made
his intricate firm purpose, set
the stubborn dialectic of his mind.

– Myra Marini (1933)

Parmigianino
Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist
ca. 1513-27
drawing
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

– poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)