 |
| Anonymous Dutch artist Street scene with sculptors working in foreground ca. 1700-1725 drawing (book illustration) British Museum |
 |
| Jakob Christoph Le Blon Portrait of Anthony van Dyck (after painted self-portrait) ca. 1720 color mezzotint British Museum |
 |
| Elisha Kirkall after Louis Chéron Allegorical scene with Mercury presiding over the arts (Nymph painting the Battle of Soissons overlooked by figure of Hercules in niche while Angel crowns Emperor atop Trajan's Column) ca. 1728 etching, engraving British Museum |
 |
| John Vanderbank An artist holding a drawing (reduced copy of a painted portrait) before 1739 coloured chalks British Museum |
 |
| Pierre-Louis Surugue after Jean-Siméon Chardin The Monkey Painter 1743 etching, engraving British Museum |
from Serena I
without the grand old British Museum
Thales and the Aretino
on the bosom of the Regent's Park the phlox
crackles under the thunder
scarlet beauty in our world dead fish adrift
all things full of gods
pressed down and bleeding
a weaver-bird is tangerine the harpy is past caring
the condor likewise in his mangy boa
they stare out across monkey-hill the elephants
Ireland
the light creeps down their old home canyon
sucks me aloof to that old reliable
the burning btm of George the drill
ah across the way a adder
broaches her rat
white as snow
in her dazzling oven strom of peristalsis
limae labor
– Samuel Beckett (1931)
 |
| Anonymous English printmaker Draft Trade Card for Joseph Emerton, Colour-Man (with vignettes of portrait-painting in the studio and a colour-mill) 1744 etching, engraving, letterpress British Museum |
 |
| William Hogarth Self-portrait (after his own painting) 1749 etching, engraving British Museum |
 |
| William Hogarth Time as artist smoking a picture ("as statues moulder into worth") 1761 mezzotint, etching, engraving British Museum |
 |
| William Wynne Rylands after Pier Leone Ghezzi Artist painting the Virgin on an easel and gesturing through the window toward monks in a churchyard 1762 etching British Museum |
from Serena III
fix this pothook of beauty on this palette
you never know it might be final
or leave her she is paradise and then
plush hymens on your eyeballs
or on Butt Bridge blush for shame
the mixed declension of those mammae
cock up thy moon thine and thine only
up up up to the star of evening
swoon upon the arch-gasometer
on Misery Hill brand-new carnation
swoon upon the little purple
house of prayer
something heart of Mary
the Bull and Pool Beg that will never meet
not in this world
– Samuel Beckett (1931)
 |
| Charles-François Hutin Young artist in Rome drawing from antique statues (the sculptures are the Belvedere Torso and an unidentified draped woman) 1763 etching British Museum |
 |
| Jean-Michel Moreau le jeune Adraste painting Isidore (illustration for Molière's play, Le Sicilien) 1773 etching, engraving British Museum |
 |
| Gravelot Don Alonzo, Frederick and Isiodora (illustration based on Molière's play, Le Sicilien) ca. 1773 etching, engraving British Museum |
 |
| Francis Haward after Joshua Reynolds The Infant Academy (painter and model as tiny children) 1783 stipple-engraving (the original Reynolds painting survives "in ruinous condition" due to the artist's use of bitumen in the pigments) British Museum |
 |
| Jean Chalon Etching studio (one etcher working at window, another inking a plate) ca. 1788-93 etching, drypoint British Museum |
from Alba
who though you stoop with fingers of compassion
to endorse the dust
shall not add to your bounty
whose beauty shall be a sheet before me
a statement of itself drawn across the tempest of emblems
so that there is no sun and no unveiling
and no host
only I and then the sheet
and bulk dead
– Samuel Beckett (1931)
All excerpts are from Collected Poems in English and French by Samuel Beckett (New York: Grove Press, 1977)