Please note that this is an archived mini-tour. Some works may no longer be on view or may have been moved to a different gallery.
 
A Self-Guide to the Collection
What artists do with color and form, poets do with words and rhythm.
In celebration of National Poetry Month, take a tour of the collection
to see how visual and poetic images resonate.
GALLERY 218
Rinaldo and Armida in Her Garden (/)
by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Torquato Tasso was a celebrated poet in Renaissance Italy best known for his epic masterpiece Jerusalem Liberated. The poem tells the tale of the brave crusader Rinaldo and his
enchantment by the beautiful sorceress Armida. Tiepolo illustrated four scenes from the
poem in a suite of paintings, all found in this gallery. In the work pictured here, Rinaldo
is spellbound by Armida’s charms. In the crystal mirror she holds, he sees “Beauty and
love beheld both in one seat.” Just beyond the garden’s gate lurk his fellow soldiers, who
plan to wrest him from Armida’s bewitching gaze.
GALLERY 222
The Combat of Giaour and Hassan ()
by Eugène Delacroix
British poet Lord Byron’s dashing personality and exotic exploits captured the imagination of Europe. The French artist Eugène Delacroix found in Byron’s narrative poems an
extreme kind of expression that set his imagination on fire. In particular, Delacroix was
moved by Byron’s vivid descriptions of the Greek struggle for independence from the
Turks. In this painting, Delacroix illustrates the dramatic climax of Byron’s poem The
Giaour. In a swirl of brilliant costume, animal energy, and human emotion, Delacroix depicts the rage and violence of a heated skirmish between Christian and Turk in a manner
that established him as a leader of the French Romantic movement.
GALLERY 235
Adam (modeled c. ) by Auguste Rodin
Known to carry a copy of The Divine Comedy in his pocket, Auguste Rodin was a great
fan of the Italian poet Dante. He based his famous Gates of Hell on Dante’s Inferno; the
door’s tormented figures were sculpted in bold relief as if trying to escape the harrowing embrace of the underworld. To flank the doors, Rodin created life-sized sculptures
of Adam and Eve, of which this work is a copy. The pair bears eternal witness to the
doomed souls of others. The weight of their transgression weighs heavy on Adam, who
turns his head and twists away from the hellish vision while acknowledging his guilt by
pointing his right finger downward.
Gallery 136
Untitled (1958) by Clyfford Still
In the 1950s, New York became the epicenter of the avant-garde. Poets such as Frank
O’Hara, John Ashbery, and Kenneth Koch banded together with Abstract Expressionist
artists to form the New York School, producing poems and periodicals that conjoined
word and image. Like the poets who focused on the elements of the written word in
experimental form and rhythm, artists Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still
emphasized pure pigment, creating large canvases dominated by one uniform color or by
a few closely related colors in a style known as Field Painting. Still’s work—with its stark
and brutal paint surfaces—struck many as the most radical and unruly. To Still, they were
extensions of his identity and records of his emotional life.
Gallery 108
Bottle with Birds, Stylized Vegetal Decoration,
and Inscriptions (Early 13th century), Iran
Who knew that a bottle could bear such poetic merit? Persian lusterwares such as this
vessel were often painted with poetry or everyday aphorisms. This work is intriguing,
however, as it is inscribed in both Persian and Arabic, demonstrating the bilingual culture
in which the object was created. Besides blessings of “glory and prosperity” and requests
for protection of the owner of this bottle, one inscription reads: “…the nightingale sings
in the tongue of the red rose, / Wine shines in red vessels,” suggesting that the bottle
might have served as a container for wine.
Gallery 273
Object (1936) by Claude Cahun
A hairy eyeball, an outstretched hand, what can it mean? The Surrealists reacted against
social convention and reason and sought in their works to unite the conscious and unconscious realms of experience in “an absolute reality, a surreality.” Surrealist artists
welcomed randomness and spontaneity in the creation of art objects, as they believed that
unexpected juxtapositions would liberate the creative process and reveal new truths. One
of the leaders of the Surrealist movement was poet André Breton, who believed that the
subconscious was an untapped well of imagination. The juxtaposition of hands and eyes
in Cahun’s Object recalls Luis Buñuel’s seminal film, Un chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog,
1929), which famously opens with a woman’s eye being slit by a razor.
Gallery 161
Elaine (1874) by Toby Edward Rosenthal
American expatriate Toby Rosenthal painted grand narrative pictures with historical,
mythological, and romantic themes that gained him international fame. Perhaps his biggest
hit was Elaine, a picture based on Alfred Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. In keeping with
Tennyson’s epic poem about unrequited love, the painting depicts a grim boatman ferrying the body of Elaine to Camelot, a love letter to Lancelot clutched to her chest. The
work struck a chord with its viewers, creating a frenzy nationwide. In 1875, more than
a thousand people a day lined up in front of a San Francisco art gallery to pay a 25-cent
admission charge to view the picture. Before long “Elaine clubs” had sprung up and even
an Elaine waltz was created.
More Poetry at the Art Institute!
Hear U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall read with U.K. Poet Laureate Andrew Motion in Fullerton Hall on May 7 at 6:00.
This free event is cosponsored by the Poetry Foundation. Call (312) 787-7070 to reserve your space.