• Jacques Callot, The Temptation of Saint Anthony (second version, 1635). Etching. Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, by exchange, S3.51. Photo: Imaging Department © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The Temptation of Saint Anthony (2nd version), etching

From The Director's Prism: E. T. A. Hoffmann and the Russian Theatrical Avant-Garde by Dassia N. Posner

  • All the forces of hell explode from every corner of this etching, including bat-winged devils, a massive dragon, and creatures that are part machine, part animal, part gun, part skeleton. On the lower right, a tiny Saint Anthony is besieged by several man-beast devils and a dragon with snakes pouring from its mouth. On the far upper left, note the figure that Hoffmann, in his preface to Fantasy Pieces, calls “a clarinetist using a most unusual organ to provide the wind for his instrument,”* that is, his anus.

    See book: p. 12, 13, 14; figure 4

    *E. T. A. Hoffmann, “Jacques Callot,” in Fantasy Pieces in Callot’s Manner: Pages from the Diary of a Traveling Romantic, trans. Joseph M. Hayse (Schenectady, N.Y.: Union College, 1996), 4.

Creator(s)
Creator Role
Subjects
  • Performing Arts
Date
  • 1635
Related Section
Keywords
Content Type
Language
Citable Link