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Giotto (1266-1276 – 1337). The Flight into Egypt (c. 1304-1306). Scrovegni Chapel, Padua, Italy. Public Domain. Courtesy: By Giotto – Unknown source, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=94615
The Flight into Egypt-by The Flight into Egypt by Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915-1968).
Through every precinct of the wintry city Squadroned iron resounds upon the streets; Herod’s police Make shudder the dark steps of the tenements At the business about to be done.
Neither look back upon Thy starry country, Nor hear what rumors crowd across the dark Where blood runs down these holy walls, Nor frame a childish blessing with Thy hand Towards that fiery spiral of exulting souls!
Go, Child of God, upon the singing desert, Where, with eyes of flame, The roaming lion keeps thy road from harm.
Caspar David Friedrich (1774-1840). Hikers over the Sea of Fog (1817). Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany. Public Domain. Courtesy: By Caspar David Friedrich – The photographic reproduction was done by Cybershot800i. (Diff), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1020146
Friedrich’s painting seems to be a commentary on the mysterious and impenetrable journey of life. Amid a sea of fog, the wanderer looks down below to chart his next step. Life can be an precarious journey into the unknown.
How light the heavy world becomes, when with transparent waters All the shy elms and wakeful appletrees are dressed! How the sun shouts, and spins his wheel of flame And shoots the whole land full of diamonds Enriching every flower’s watery vesture with his praise, O green spring mornings when we hear creation singing! The stones between our steps are radium and platinum When, on this sacred day, sweet Christ, we climb Your hill; And all the hours, our steps, Pray us our way to the high top with silent music from the clouds As each new bench-mark builds us to a quieter altitude, Promising those holy heights where the low world will die. Shall we look back out of this airy treasury And spill the plenty that we have already in our hands To view you, cities full of sorcery, And count the regiments deployed on your grey plain Where you lie boiling in your smoky wars? For lo! the music of your treachery Still plagues us with a sullen rumor in this sinless sun, And your coarse voice still reaches us. Sandpapering the silence of our atmosphere. Shall we turn back to hear those far, far fragile trumpets play? Let us but lean one moment to the witchery of your thin clarions And all our flowery mountain will be tattered with a coat of weeds; And the bright sun, our friend, turning to a prodigious enemy, Will burn our way with curses, Hardening our hesitation, in that instant, to a solid weight, To bake us white as monuments, like Mistress Lot, Saltpillars planted on the stony road from Sodom.
George Hitchcock (1850-1913). Calypso (c. 1906). The Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Public Domain. Courtesy: By George Hitchcock – GQFH366akERjVQ at Google Cultural Institute maximum zoom level, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22491185
That is no country for old men. The young In one another’s arms, birds in the trees —Those dying generations—at their song, The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas, Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. Caught in that sensual music all neglect Monuments of unageing intellect.
An aged man is but a paltry thing, A tattered coat upon a stick, unless Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing For every tatter in its mortal dress, Nor is there singing school but studying Monuments of its own magnificence; And therefore I have sailed the seas and come To the holy city of Byzantium.
O sages standing in God’s holy fire As in the gold mosaic of a wall, Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre, And be the singing-masters of my soul. Consume my heart away; sick with desire And fastened to a dying animal It knows not what it is; and gather me Into the artifice of eternity.
Once out of nature I shall never take My bodily form from any natural thing, But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make Of hammered gold and gold enamelling To keep a drowsy Emperor awake; Or set upon a golden bough to sing To lords and ladies of Byzantium Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Style of Antoine de Favray (1706 – c. 1791) after Francis Smith (active 1764 – died c. 1778). View of Constantinople (1762-1771). The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Courtesy: Gift of Commander and Mrs. P. Dow Berggren, 2003. “https://art.thewalters.org/detail/1416/view-of-constantinople/” is licensed under CC0 1.0.
Ivan Aivazovsky (1817-1900) and Ilya Repin (1844-1930). Pushkin on the Black Sea Coast (“Farewell, free element!”) (1887). The National Pushkin Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Public Domain. Courtesy: By Ilya Repin – www.2artgallery.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3824636
Two Butterflies Went out at Noon by Emily Dickinson – 1830-1886
Alfred Stevens (1823-1906). The Japanese Parisian (1872). La Boverie, Liège, Belgium. Public Domain. Courtesy: By Alfred Stevens – Ophelia2, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14882567
Remarkable Flowers
Robert John Thornton (1768-1837). The Night-Blowing Cereus (1799) (Plate CXXXV) from The Temple of Flora (published 1799-1807). Public Domain. Courtesy: By Robert John Thornton (1768-1837) – Botanicus http://www.botanicus.org “Temple of Flora”, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3622566
“The Night Blooming Cereus” by Harriet Monroe (1869-1936)
FLOWER of the moon! Still white is her brow whom we worshiped on earth long ago; Yea, purer than pearls in deep seas, and more virgin than snow. The dull years veil their eyes from her shining, and vanish afraid, Nor profane her with age—the immortal, nor dim her with shade. It is we are unworthy, we worldlings, to dwell in her ways; We have broken her altars and silenced her voices of praise. She hath hearkened to singing more silvern, seen raptures more bright; To some planet more pure she hath fled on the wings of the night,— Flower of the moon! Yet she loveth the world that forsook her, for, lo! once a year She, Diana, translucent, pale, scintillant, down from her sphere Floateth earthward like star-laden music, to bloom in a flower, And our hearts feel the spell of the goddess once more for an hour. See! she sitteth in splendor nor knoweth desire nor decay, And the night is a glory around her more bright than the day, And her breath hath the sweetness of worlds where no sorrow is known; And we long as we worship to follow her back to her own,— Flower of the moon! -Harriet Monroe (1869-1936)
For a comprehensive list of flowers and their meanings, The Language of Flowers (1970, Avenel Books) by Kate Greenaway (1846-1901) is a valuable resource.
František Dvořák (1862-1927). In the Orchard (1912). Private Collection. Public Domain. Courtesy: By František Dvořák (1862-1927) – http://www.pinterest.com/8andyyang8/franz-dvorak/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29668053
