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| Alessandro Turchi (Verona) David with the Head of Goliath 17th century oil on canvas private collection |
"Sublime begins to acquire its modern resonances in the seventeenth century when it appears in the translation of a fragmentary Greek text on rhetoric by the anonymous Roman-era author known as Longinus. The first translation of this work, Du Sublime (1674), by Nicolas Boileau, signaled a new interest in the investigation of powerful emotional effects in art. Longinus had declared that true nobility in art and life was to be discovered through a confrontation with the threatening and unknown, and drew attention to anything in art that challenges our capacity to understand and fills us with wonder. The sublime artist was, according to Longinus, a kind of superhuman figure capable of rising above arduous and ominous events and experiences in order to produce a nobler and more refined style."
– Simon Morley, from The Sublime (MIT Press, 2010)
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| Pier Francesco Mola (Rome) David with the Head of Goliath ca. 1660-63 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Andrea Vaccaro (Naples) David with the Head of Goliath 1631-32 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Andrea Vaccaro (Naples) Martyrdom of St Bartholomew mid-17th century oil on canvas private collection |
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| Andrea Vaccaro (Naples) Martyrdom of St Sebastian ca. 1640 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Anthony van Dyck (Flanders) Jupiter and Antiope early 17th century oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent |
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| Anthony van Dyck (Flanders) Sir George Villiers and Lady Katherine Manners as Adonis and Venus ca. 1620 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Pier Francesco Mola (Rome) Bacchus overseeing Satyrs crushing grapes 1648-49 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Dirck van Baburen (Netherlands) Prometheus chained by Vulcan 1623 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Charles Le Brun (France) Pietà 1643-45 oil on canvas Louvre |
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| Sébastien Bourdon (France) Deposition ca. 1640-43 oil on canvas private collection |
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| Hendrick ter Brugghen (Netherlands) Crucifixion with Virgin and St John 1624-25 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Hendrick ter Brugghen (Netherlands) Woman playing a Lute 1624-26 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Guido Reni (Bologna) Baptism of Christ ca. 1623 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |