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Copyright ©2026 Jonathan Harrell. Typeset in ET Book, with Fe₂O₃ glyphs
If an image or text lacks a citation, it is my own.

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July 5, 2026

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/museum
/art

From the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York:

An open early printed book, likely a 16th-century German edition, displayed against a white background with a gold-bordered binding visible at the left edge. The left page is set in dense Gothic blackletter type, formatted in a tapering triangular column — a characteristic early modern layout. The right page contains a precise geometric diagram of a spiral staircase construction, labeled with numbered points and captioned in German. A small colored ribbon bookmark is visible at the bottom. — Illustration of How to Pull a Spiral Staircase from a Circular Plan, in the Treatise on Measurement, by Albrecht Dürer

A sheet of aged cream-colored paper bearing rows of small abstract ink drawings arranged in a grid. The symbols are intricate, skeletal forms composed of curved lines, vertical staffs with cross-hatched branches, and small human or figural elements at the corners of some designs. The overall appearance suggests magical sigils, vévés, or esoteric notation, possibly from an occult or ritual manuscript. Age spots and foxing are visible across the surface.

A companion sheet to the previous image, similarly arranged with rows of abstract ink symbols on aged cream paper. The upper and lower rows contain dense, branching sigil-like forms resembling stylized trees or candelabras. The middle rows feature geometric figures — six- and eight-pointed stars, diamonds, pentagons, and polygons — with small circles at the vertices, suggesting sacred geometry or diagrammatic notation from an esoteric tradition. — Schematics from Basel goldsmith’s drawings, attributed to Jörg Schweiger the Elder

An oil painting depicting a crumbling yellow ochre house with a red-tiled roof, bisected by a dramatic vertical crack running the full height of the facade. The building sits among rocky terrain with scrubby green vegetation and is flanked by tall pine trees. The sky is rendered in broken strokes of lavender and blue-gray. The blocky, faceted treatment of rock and foliage is characteristic of Cézanne's mature style. — The House with the Cracked Walls, by Paul Cézanne

A Cubist oil painting depicting massive dark tree trunks framing a compressed, faceted view of a village in the middle distance. The landscape is broken into interlocking geometric planes in warm earth tones — ochres, burnt sienna, and tans — with small upright cypress trees rendered in muted teal. The composition creates a tunnel-like effect, drawing the eye through the trees toward the angular rooftops and terraced hillside beyond. — Trees at L’Estaque, by Georges Braque

A dark, brooding Symbolist painting depicting a scene of suffering in what appears to be Hell or the underworld. Multiple nude figures are rendered in cold blue-gray tones — some hunched in despair, others twisted in anguish. A pale ghostly female figure stands at the left with blank white eyes, while a vivid blue-and-gold serpent coils around a writhing figure at the right. Flames in deep red and orange light the upper background. — Inferno, by Franz von Stuck

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