Henry Holiday & John Martin

[left]: Henry Holiday: Illustration (1876) to chapter The Vanishing in Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark
[right]: John Martin: The Bard (ca. 1817), now in the Yale Center for British Art, desaturated (because color is not important for the comparison) & contrast increased



In mydailyartdisplay.wordpress.com/the-bard-by-john-martin, "Jonathan" connects the painting to the poem The Bard written by by Thomas Gray in 1755. Inspired by a Welsh tradition that said that Edward I had put to death any bards he found, to extinguish Welsh culture; the poem depicts the escape of a single bard:
· · ...
· · On a rock, whose haughty brow
· · Frowns o'er cold Conway's foaming flood,
· · Robed in the sable garb of woe
· · With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
· · ...
· · A Voice, as of the Cherub-Choir,
· · Gales from blooming Eden bear;
· · And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
· · That lost in long futurity expire.
· · Fond impious Man, think'st thou, yon sanguine cloud,
· · Rais'd by thy breath, has quench'd the Orb of day?
· · To-morrow he repairs the golden flood,
· · And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
· · "Enough for me: With joy I see
· · The different doom our Fates assign.
· · Be thine Despair, and scept'red Care,
· · To triumph, and to die, are mine."
· · He spoke, and headlong from the mountain's height
· · Deep in the roaring tide he plung'd to endless night.
· · ...

Full text:
www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=bapo
spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&tex...
www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/gray.bard.html
www.google.com/search?q="A+Voice,+as+of+the+Cherub-Choir"


The poem and the painting may have been an inspiration to Lewis Carroll and Henry Holiday in The Hunting of the Snark. This is about The Vanishing of The Baker:
· · 537· · "There is Thingumbob shouting!" the Bellman said,
· · 538· · · · "He is shouting like mad, only hark!
· · 539· · He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,
· · 540· · · · He has certainly found a Snark!"

· · 541· · They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed
· · 542· · · · "He was always a desperate wag!"
· · 543· · They beheld him--their Baker--their hero unnamed--
· · 544· · · · On the top of a neighbouring crag.

· · 545· · Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.
· · 546· · · · In the next, that wild figure they saw
· · 547· · (As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,
· · 548· · · · While they waited and listened in awe.

I think that there are allusions to "Cherubic Songs by night from neighbouring Hills" in Milton's Paradise Lost not only in Gray's ode, but also in Carroll's poem.

Album:

John Martin