Lecture on the Arm in the Tree: Moritz von Schwind’s Der Erlkönigand the Distributed Anatomy of Dread
What does the pale arm at the tree know about Moritz von Schwind’s Der Erlkönig that the famous hovering king […]
History of Art
The Seam of Chastity
Lecture on Houdon’s Louvre Diane, where toe-balance and a crescent seam make chastity a crafted law. What runs on a
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When Marble Breaks: Icarus’s Quiet Brace
On The Fall of Icarus (La Chute d’Icare), 1743 by Paul-Ambroise Slodtz A thin contour, scarcely thicker than a hair
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A Suppressed Annunciation on Zuloaga’s Shore
On Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta Portrait of Valentine Dethomas It is a strange feeling for a man to look at
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The Wrestlers, 1754: Giovanni Battista Piamontini’s Joined Hand and the Ethics of Copying
A thin crescent of marble, scarcely broader than a fingernail, rings the wrist of the upper grappler where his left
Samson’s Hidden Fetters: Giambologna’s Marble and the Courtly Physics of Violence
A faint loop, scarcely higher than a thumbnail, curls beside Samson’s forward toes where the marble base meets the air,
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A Nail’s Crescent, a Dynasty’s Wound
A fissure runs through the painting before any blade ever reached the canvas: a hair-thin seam of light that grazes
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Checa’s Shackled Reaper
A streak of red rides the scythe’s crescent as though the metal had sliced through flesh, through banner cloth, through
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The River of Lamentation: Artur Grottger’s Wianki and the Geometry of Fate
The rain along the Portlaoise roof arrives in slanting sheets, each drop a tiny percussion against the slate; through the
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Quiet Madonna of the Cleared Highlands
You meet her first as a hush in the corner of the room, a patch of Highland weather transplanted into
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