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| René-Antoine Houasse Allegorical figures of Royal Magnificence, Immortality, and Progress in the Fine Arts 1683 oil on plaster ceiling Château de Versailles |
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| René-Antoine Houasse Antony and Cleopatra 1680 oil on plaster ceiling Château de Versailles |
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| René-Antoine Houasse Vessel of Louis XIV 1683 oil on plaster coving (trompe-l'oeil) Château de Versailles |
Dim as the borrowed beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wandering travellers
Is reason to the soul; and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Not light us here, so reason's glimmering ray
Was lent not to assure our doubtful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere,
So pale grows reason at religion's sight;
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.
. . .
One thought content the good to be enjoyed:
This, every little accident destroyed;
The wiser madmen did for virtue toil:
A thorny or at best a barren soil;
In pleasure some their glutton souls would steep,
But found their line too short, the well too deep,
And leaky vessels which no bliss could keep.
Thus anxious thoughts in endless circles roll,
Without a centre where to fix the soul:
In this wild maze their vain endeavours end.
How can the less the greater comprehend,
Or finite reason reach infinity?
For what could fathom God were more than he.
– from Religio Laici (1682) by John Dryden
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| Giovanni Domenico Cerrini Time destroying Beauty before 1681 oil on canvas Prado, Madrid |
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| Charles de La Fosse Presentation of the Virgin 1682 oil on canvas Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Nicolas de Largillière Portrait of Charles Le Brun 1683-86 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |
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| Giovanni Battista Gaulli Three Marys at the Sepulchre 1684-85 oil on canvas Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge |
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| Michiel van Musscher Self-portrait 1685 oil on canvas Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam |
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| Gregorio Lazzarini Portrait of Antonio or Vittore Correr 1685 oil on canvas National Gallery, London |
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| Olivier van Deuren Young Astronomer ca. 1685 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Gregorio de Ferrari Summer 1687-88 ceiling fresco Palazzo Rosso, Genoa |
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| Domenico Piola Autumn 1687-88 ceiling fresco Palazzo Rosso, Genoa |
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| Pierre Mignard St John the Baptist 1688 oil on canvas Prado, Madrid |
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| Charles Le Brun Adoration of the Shepherds 1689 oil on canvas Louvre, Paris |