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| Hans Weiditz Painter at easel rendering a group of silver vessels 1531 woodcut British Museum |
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| Hans Weiditz Painter's Studio 1522 woodcut British Museum |
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| Dirk Jacobsz Vellert St Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin and Child 1526 etching, engraving British Museum |
from Nocturne
I.A. Richards believed that irony
was the language of redemption.
He wrote and lectured famously on this,
but his masterpiece was French with Pictures.
"The chapeau is on the table."
"The man with the beard stands before the window."
"She comes from a village by the sea."
There is no improving the old traditions.
They are already mortal, partial, and wrong.
The woman at the table by the window
puts her head into her hands.
"Into your hands," she said.
– Sara Miller (2013)
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| Jost Amman The Painter 1568 woodcut (book illustration) British Museum |
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| Giovanni Britto Portrait of Titian at work ca. 1550-60 woodcut with areas of wash British Museum |
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| attributed to Annibale Carracci Young Painter seen from behind ca. 1585-90 drawing British Museum |
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| Jacob Matham after Hendrik Goltzius St Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin and Child ca. 1614 engraving British Museum |
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| Raphael Sadeler after Bartholomeus Spranger St Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin and Child before 1632 engraving British Museum |
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| Abraham Bosse Portrait Painter in his Studio ca. 1642 etching British Museum |
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| Abraham Bosse Artist painting the Virgin and Child 1667 etching British Museum |
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| Abraham Bosse Painter in studio grinding colors ca. 1667 etching British Museum |
from The Testament of Love
Hast thou then thought that all this ravishing music,
that stirreth so thy heart, making thee dream of things
illimitable unsearchable and of heavenly import,
is but a light disturbance of the atoms of air,
whose jostling ripples, gather'd within the ear, are tuned
to resonant scale, and thence by the enthron'd mind received
on the spiral stairway of her audience chamber
as heralds of high spiritual significance?
and that without thine ear, sound would hav no report.
Nature hav no music; nor would ther be for thee
any better melody in the April woods at dawn
than what an old stone-deaf labourer, lying awake
o'night in his comfortless attic, might perchance
be aware of, when the rats run amok in his thatch?
– Robert Bridges (1929)
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| Michel Lasne after Abraham Bosse Artist painting a figure of Cupid before 1667 engraving British Museum |
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| Conrad Meyer Artist seated with his family painting a family group 1675 etching British Museum |
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| Richard Collin after Joachim von Sandrart Muse of Painting teaching men to paint 1682 engraving (frontispiece) British Museum |
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| Anthonie de Winter after Caspar and Jan Luyken Painter in Studio 1695 engraving British Museum |
Poems from the archives of Poetry (Chicago)