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Pandora is shown at the moment
she can no longer resist the temptation to open the jar,
thereby unleashing into the world all the ills that beset
humanity. She saved only hope, which lay at the bottom of
the jar. Thus, though victims of every evil, we always retain
hope.
Representing the Greek myth of
Pandora, this is Ives's most famous work. The first version
of the subject, produced in 1851, was the hit of the Crystal
Palace Exhibition in London in 1862. In this second version,
Ives made changes in the shape of the jar and in the tilt
of the subject's head. The classical ideal for which Ives
aimed is most obvious in the face and hair, whereas the rest
of the figure emphasizes 19th-century naturalism.
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Jon Quidor was especially fond of painting
literary subjects, particularly those from American writers.
In this canvas he has adapted an aspect of Diedrich Knickerbocker's
(Washington Irving) satirical book History of New York. The
fictional narrative tells the story of how early Dutch colonists
lived on the coast of New Jersey in the village of Communipaw.
Their happy life was disrupted by a nearly disastrous encounter
with the British. In the scene depicted, Olaffe Van Kortlandt
picks up a conch shell and blows it, signaling the colonists
to follow him to the boats in search of a new place to live.
After some harrowing experiences on the high seas, the group
of explorers led by Van Kortlandt sent for their families
and belongings and settled on Manhattan Island.
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The Calenders
was inspired by Edward Lane's 19th-century translation of a
collection of traditional Arabic stories, dating back to the
medieval period, called The Thousand and One Nights. Three princes
disguised as Calenders (a Sufic order of wandering beggar dervishes),
who each had but one eye, shaven chins, and thin, twisted mustaches,
entertain a group of Baghdad ladies with tales of their recent
misfortunes. Mowbray also worked interchangeably with Greek,
Oriental, and Italian Renaissance themes. Regardless of time
or place, Mowbray sought to create an aesthetic ambience for
his exotic subjects. |
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| Ryder was a reclusive,
self-taught artist, whose painting style is both highly personal
and very expressionistic. In The Tempest, Ryder combines
two of his favorite themes--his love for the sea and his fascination
with Shakespeare. The painting is not a literal scene from The
Tempest, but a combination of all the major elements from Act
1, Scene 2, placed into one dramatic storm-filled landscape.
Ryder reworked the painting for more than twenty years and at
one point the artist took a hot poker to the canvas and dragged
it through the thickest part of the sky. The Tempest remained
in the artist's possession until his death |
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