The Luminous Void.

Study for “Inferno” Lithograph

John Fabian Carlson (1875 – 1947) 

The Mothers

Perseus Starting from the Cave of the Gorgons

A Witches’ Sabbath, Cornelis Saftleven, 1640, Art Institute of Chicago: European Painting and Sculpture

An old woman riding a goat and brandishing a broomstick dominates this picture, which is an outstanding example of Cornelis Saftleven’s work in a traditional Netherlandish genre: scenes of hellfire and witchcraft. Pioneered by Hieronymous Bosch and given new life by Jan Brueghel and Jacques de Gheyn II a century later, such ghoulish subjects were aimed at an audience of sophisticated collectors. Paintings and drawings in this genre combine precise scientific observation—as here in the moth wings of the howling figure on the right—with a sense of powerful, uncontrolled natural forces. George F. Porter Collection Size: 21 3/8 × 30 ¾ in. (54.3 × 78.2 cm) Medium: Oil on panel