Moritz, 2000 by Gerhard Richter (b. 1932)
Orca, 2020 by Angela Gram (b. 1985)
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke.
From Ch. 49 of Moby-Dick by Herman Melville.
Whale beneath the Sea,1930 by Rockwell Kent (1882–1971)
Self-Portrait, 1927 by Christian Schad (1894-1982)
To the Last Syllable of Recorded Time, 2019 by Sanam Khatibi (b. 1979)
Seated Woman, 1915 by Rik Wouters (1882-1916)
The Fall of Troy, 2019 by Adam Miller (b. 1979)
Caliban on a Branch, 1881 by Odilon Redon (1840-1916)
Mending Cowls, Cookham, 1915 by Stanley Spencer (1891–1959)
The Triumph of the Genius of Destruction, 1878 by Mihály Zichy (1827–1906)
Girl with Really Big Foot in Her Garden, 2019 by Davor Gromilovic (b. 1985)
Blossom, 2018 by Erik Thor Sandberg (b. 1975)
A Joy Beast, 1962 by Cecil Collins (1908–1989)
Spasmodic Affection, 2019 by Walton Ford (b. 1960)
Swallows, 1933 by Gertrude Hermes (1901-1983)
