Category Archives: Artwork

The Unicorn Tapestries

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A series of tapestries produced in the Low Countries and dating to the early 1500s. Likely designed as a decorative suite, the tapestries can be strung together to tell the story of a unicorn hunt, though the first and sixth images are hard to place in the sequence. The tapestries draw on medieval lore which claimed (1) that the touch of its horn could nullify poison and (2) that the beast was fleet of foot but could be captured by a maiden’s touch. The linked images are all high quality thanks to the generosity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. If you want a fuller account of the tapestries meaning and history, feel free to consult Barbara Boehm’s short account, downloadable here—but see what you can work out for yourself first!

The titles given below are those assigned by curators at the MET.

Ozymandias

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Shelley and Smith, “Ozymandias”

In December 1817, Horace Smith vacationed with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Shelley (author of Frankenstein). During the holiday, news broke that a giant Egyptian bust of Ramesses II had been acquired for the British Museum by the Italian archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni. (Archaeology was then in its infancy: Belzoni, a former circus strong man, was less a scientist than a smash-and-grab antiques dealer; fifteen years earlier, Napoleon’s men had attempted to acquire the same sculpture for France, but it proved too bulky for extraction.) In a spirit of friendly rivalry Shelley and Smith agreed to write poems about Belzoni’s find, which at the time was just beginning the long voyage to London. Relying on written reports of the statue’s size, they drew also on the ancient Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, who described encountering a giant Egyptian statue with the inscription “King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley
Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Horace Smith
Ozymandias

In Egypt’s sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
“I am great OZYMANDIAS,” saith the stone,
“The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
The wonders of my hand.”— The City’s gone,—
Naught but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.
We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro’ the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

Keats

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John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

In 1819, Keats sketched the urn shown at right from a book of engravings. The original, a famous piece by the ancient Greek Sosibios, was (and is) on display at the Louvre. The same year, Keats wrote the following poem.

John Keats
Ode on a Grecian Urn

Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!

Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.

O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Songs of Innocence and of Experience

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William Blake was better known during his lifetime for his work as an engraver and printer. While he never attained the renown of William Hogarth, his illustrated editions of Milton’s Paradise Lost have long been prized by collectors.

Blake self-published his poetry in lavishly illustrated editions. Because each page had to be separately colored by the artist after printing, these were never produced in large numbers. Songs of Innocence was first published in 1789; Songs of Experience followed in 1794. The two were later republished as a single volume, titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

Due to the coloring process, each copy of these books is unique; all but one of the images below derive from a copy in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Songs of Innocence

Songs of Experience

A Rake’s Progress

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A series of engravings produced in 1734 by William Hogarth, telling the story of a young man who goes to wrack and ruin after inheriting a fortune from a miserly relative. The linked images are all high quality, thanks to the generosity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. If you want a fuller account of what’s gong on in these images, feel free to consult wikipedia—but see what you can work out for yourself first!

Note that the titles given below are not official—I created them to outline the plot for you.

A Harlot’s Progress

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A series of engravings produced in 1731 by William Hogarth, telling the story of a young woman who arrives in London as a seamstress, but who winds up working as a prostitute and dying of syphilis. The linked images are all high quality, thanks to the generosity of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. If you want a fuller account of what’s gong on in these images, feel free to consult wikipedia—but see what you can work out for yourself first!

Note that the titles given below are not official—I created them to outline the plot for you.