Keith Vaughan (1912-1977) - Drawings from the War Years

Keith Vaughan
Three Figures in a Group at Night
ca. 1939-45
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Group of Figures and Shading Studies
ca. 1939-45
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Four Studies of Figures and Study of a Beach
ca. 1939-45
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Two Men washing
ca. 1939-45
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
A Barrack Room
1942
drawing
Imperial War Museum, London

The Circus Animals' Desertion

I

I sought a theme and sought for it in vain,
I sought it daily for six weeks or so.
Maybe at last, being but a broken man,
I must be satisfied with my heart, although
Winter and summer till old age began
My circus animals were all on show,
Those stilted boys, that burnished chariot,
Lion and woman and the Lord knows what.

II

What can I but enumerate old themes?
First that sea-rider Oisin led by the nose
Through three enchanted islands, allegorical dreams,
Vain gaiety, vain battle, vain repose,
Themes of the embittered heart, or so it seems,
That might adorn old songs or courtly shows;
But what cared I that set him on to ride,
I, starved for the bosom of his faery bride?

And then a counter-truth filled out its play,
'The Countess Cathleen' was the name I gave it;
She, pity-crazed, had given her soul away,
But masterful Heaven had intervened to save it.
I thought my dear must her own soul destroy,
So did fanaticism and hate enslave it,
And this brought forth a dream and soon enough
This dream itself had all my thought and love.

And when the Fool and Blind Man stole the bread
Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea;
Heart-mysteries there, and yet when all is said
It was the dream itself enchanted me:
Character isolated by a deed
To engross the present and dominate memory.
Players and painted stage took all my love,
And not those things that they were emblems of.

III

Those masterful images because complete
Grew in pure mind, but out of what began?
A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
Who keeps the till. Now that my ladder's gone,
I must lie down where all the ladders start
In the foul rag-and-bone shop of the heart.

– William Butler Yeats (1939)

Keith Vaughan
Figure draping a Cloth over a Frame
ca. 1941-42
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Cook
1941
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Group with Ball on Beach
ca. 1941-44
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Two Men felling a Tree
1941
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Two Men working with Axes
1941
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Four Studies of Figures
ca. 1943-46
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Phallic Shapes
ca. 1943-46
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Eight Studies of Figures
ca. 1943-46
drawing
Tate Gallery

Keith Vaughan
Communication of Hate
ca. 1943-46
ink, graphite, pastel and watercolor on paper
Tate Gallery

Modern Heads

Avigdor Arikha
Samuel Beckett
1970
etching
British Museum

Now he saw, advancing towards him over the grass, an indistinct mass. A moment later it was an old man, clothed in rags.
Who can this be, I wonder, said Arthur.
A penny for a poor old man, said the old man.
Arthur gave a penny.
God bless your honour, said the old man
Amen, said Arthur. Good-day.
I remember you when you was a boy, said the old man. I was a boy meself.
Then we were boys together, said Arthur.
You was a fine lovely boy, said the old man, and I was another.
Look at us now, said Arthur.
You was always wetting your trousers, said the old man.
I wets them still, said Arthur.
I cleaned the boots, said the old man.
If it hadn't been you, it would have been another, said Arthur.
Yer father was very good to me.
Like father like son, said Arthur. Good-day.
I helped to lay out this darling place, said the old man.
In that case, said Arthur, perhaps you can tell me the name of this extraordinary growth.
That's what we calls a hardy laurel, said the old man.
Arthur went back into the house and wrote, in his journal: Took a turn in the garden. Thanked God for a small mercy. Made merry with the hardy laurel. Bestowed alms on an old man formerly employed by the Knott family.
But this was not enough. So he came running to Watt.
This was the first time Watt had heard the words Knott family.
There had been a time when they would have pleased him, and the thought they tendered, that Mr. Knott too was serial, in a vermicular sense. But not now. For Watt was an old rose now, and indifferent to the gardener.

– Samuel Becket, from the Addenda to Watt (1953)

Henry Tonks
Head of a young woman in profile
before 1920
pastel
British Museum

Henry Tonks
Head of a young woman (artist's model)
before 1935
drawing
British Museum

Henry Tonks
Head of a soldier
before 1937
pastel
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

John Singer Sargent
Study of a Sicilian peasant
1907
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

James Kerr-Lawson
Portrait of Paul Verlaine
1894
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Lawrence Alma-Tadema
Portrait of Sir Herbert Thompson, Bart.
1877
oil on panel
(painted onto the wooden cabin door of a ship)
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Henri Fantin-Latour
Head of a young girl
1870
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Girl at a lattice
1862
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

David Wilkie
Studies of heads
before 1841
drawing
Yale Center for British Art

John Flaxman
Portrait of the sculptor Thomas Banks
1804
drawing
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

James Northcote
Portrait of the sculptor Joseph Nollekens
before 1823
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Charles Townley (collector)
Bronze head from an antique statue of an athlete wearing a leather cap
ca. 1788
drawing with watercolour
British Museum

Giuseppe Maria Crespi
Girl with a cat
before 1747
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Giuseppe Vittore Ghislandi
Boy in red
before 1743
oil on canvas
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

"I have set out the foregoing briefly and, I believe, in a not altogether obscure fashion, but I realize the content is such that, while I can claim no praise for eloquence in exposition, the reader who does not understand at first acquaintance, will probably never grasp it however hard he tries.  To intelligent minds that are well disposed to painting, those things are simple and splendid, however presented, which are disagreeable to gross intellects little disposed to these noble arts, even if expounded by the most eloquent writers.  As they have been explained by me briefly and without eloquence, they will probably not be read without some distaste.  Yet I crave indulgence if, in my desire to be understood, I saw to it that my exposition should be clear rather than elegant and ornate.  What follows will, I hope, be less disagreeable to the reader."

– Leon Battista Albert, from De Pictura (On Painting), originally written in Latin in Florence in 1435, edited and translated by Cecil Grayson and published by Phaidon Press in 1972

Rococo Drawings

Giuseppe Passeri
Cardinal Albani is offered the Tiara
1700
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Antonio Gherardi
Institution of the Eucharist
before 1702
drawing
British Museum

Giovanni Odazzi
Martyrdom of Apostles Philip and James the Less
before 1704
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Benedetto Luti
Study for the head of St Crispin
1710
drawing, gouache
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

from EMILY DICKINSON'S LETTER TO SUSAN GILBERT, OCTOBER 9, 1851

   "I wept a tear here, Susie, on purpose for you – because this "sweet, silver moon" smiles in on me and Vinnie, and then it goes so far before it gets to you – and then you never told me if there was any moon in Baltimore – and how do I know Susie – that you see her sweet face at all?  She looks like a fairy tonight, sailing around the sky in a little silver gondola with stars for gondoliers.  I asked her to let me ride a little while ago – and told her I would get out when she got as far as Baltimore, but she only smiled to herself and went sailing on."

   "I think she was quite ungenerous – but I have learned the lesson and shan't ever ask her again.  To day it rained at home – sometimes it rained so hard that I fancied you could hear its patter – patter, patter, as it fell upon the leaves – and the fancy pleased me so, that I sat and listened to it – and watched it earnestly.  Did you hear it Susie – or was it only fancy?  Bye and bye the sun came out – just in time to bid us goodnight, and as I told you sometime, the moon is shining now."

   "It is such an evening Susie, as you and I would walk and have such pleasant musings, if you were only here – perhaps we would have a "Reverie" after the form of "Ik Marvel", indeed I do not know why it wouldn't be just as charming as of that lonely Bachelor, smoking his cigar – and it would be far more profitable as "Marvel" only marvelled, and you and I would try to make a little destiny to have for our own."

The poet Anne Carson quotes this letter concerning "a triangular reverie of moonlit women" in a note to one of her translations from Sappho in If Not, Winter (New York: Knopf, 2002). Here is Carson's context for the letter – "More explicitly than Sappho, Emily Dickinson evokes the dripping fecundity of daylight as foil for the mind's voyaging at night. Almost comically she personifies the moon as chief navigator of the liquid thoughts that women like to share in the dark, in writing. And perhaps Ik Marvel (a popular author of the day, who dwelt upon his own inner life in bestselling "Reveries") is a sort of Homeric prototype – out of whose clichés she may startle a bit of destiny for herself."         

Giuseppe Passeri
Flagellation
ca. 1714
drawing
Royal Collection, Windsor

Francesco Trevisani
Prophet Baruch
1718
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Guillielmus de Grof
Design for monument to Maximilian II Emanuel
ca. 1716-40
wash drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Porcupine
1730s
drawing on blue paper
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin

Jean-Baptiste Oudry
Still-life with Fish and Parrot
1740
drawing on blue paper
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

François Boucher
Landscape near Beauvais
1740s
drawing on blue paper
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

François Boucher
Study for reclining nude
ca. 1750
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giovanni Battista Piazzetta
Diana
1743
drawing
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Louis Joseph Le Lorrain
Architectural fantasy with Fountain and Obelisk
ca. 1745
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Charles Joseph Natoire
Allegory of Painting
1751
drawing
Museum Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf

Ingeborg Bachmann in Translation

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevation for bed alcove
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevations for bed alcoves
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Two bed canopies
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

ADVERTISEMENT

But where are we going
carefree be carefree
when it grows dark and when it grows cold
be carefree
but
with music
what should we do
cheerful and with music
and think
cheerful
in facing the end
with music
and to where do we carry
best of all
our questions and dread of all the years
to the dream laundry carefree be carefree
but what happens
best of all
when dead silence

sets in

Giuseppe Barberi
Bed alcove with standing figure
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Bed alcove detail
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

THE LIBRARY

The shelves sing.
The volumes are weighted down with the past.
Their sweat is dust.
Their impulse is rigidity.
They no longer struggle.
They have saved themselves
upon the island of knowledge.
Sometimes they've lost their conscience.
Here and there, protruding
from them, human fingers
point directly towards life
or towards heaven.

Giuseppe Barberi
Canopy bed
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Canopy bed
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

ENIGMA

At the Nile at night, at the Nile,
where the stars hang down into your mouth
and your dry heart is moist once again,

in the Egyptian night,
where you have never been before, but soon will be,
in order to give the Sphinx your answer.

In the blue night,
as in an eternally open mouth the desert's tongue
seeks your moisture.
If it burns you up,
your exhausted grasp
will resemble my answer.

Life of my life,
savage mouth
that takes the breath away
and no longer allows a memory,
let me be myself,
let me be with you.

Giuseppe Barberi
Elevation for bed alcove
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Elevation for alcove
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Crest of canopy
ca. 1790
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

CURRENT

So far in life and yet so near to death
that there's no one I can argue with now,
I rip from the earth my separate part;

I thrust its green wedge into the heart
of the calm ocean, as I wash aground.

Tin birds rise and cinnamon scents!
With my murderer, Time, I'm alone.
Drunk and blue we spin our cocoon.

Giuseppe Barberi
Design for royal tent
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
 Stage design - Pavilion with trophies of war
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Chair
before 1809
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Giuseppe Barberi
Family eating melons
ca. 1800
wash drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

– from Darkness Spoken: Collected Poems of Ingeborg Bachmann (1926-1973), translated by Peter Filkins (Brookline, Massachusetts : Zephyr Press, 2006)