Albert Pinkham Ryder American, 1847 - 1917 The Temple of the
Mind Date: circa 1885 This painting was bought by the collector
Thomas B. Clarke in April 1885. Ryder wrote Professor John
Pickard in 1907: The theme is Poe's Haunted Palace ... The finer
attributes of the mind are pictured by three graces who stand in
the center of the picture: where their shadows from the
moonlight fall toward the spectator. They are waiting for a
weeping love to join them. On the left is a Temple where a
cloven footed faun dances up the steps snapping his fingers in
fiendish glee at having dethroned the erstwhile ruling graces.
Comparison with Poe's poem The Haunted Palace, which appears in
The Fall of the House of Usher, shows how freely Ryder
interpreted the theme. « Learn more about Albert Pinkham Ryder «
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