Sommeraftenen
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"Sommeraftenen" was produced using a combination of three intaglio techniques: etching, roulette, and aquatint. The roulette tool creates tonal areas through patterns of fine dots, while aquatint produces broader washes of tone, allowing a printmaker to approximate the gradations of a drawing or painting rather than relying on line alone.
The print was made in 1792 by Heinrich Grosch. It is held in the collection of the SMK — National Gallery of Denmark.
The title, meaning "The Summer Evening," points to a landscape or atmospheric subject suited to the soft tonal range that aquatint and roulette made possible.
Background drawn from SMK — National Gallery of Denmark
Today's poem
A Thing of Beauty (Endymion)
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its lovliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkn'd ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themselves a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
John Keats · Public domain
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John Keats, an English poet of the second generation of Romantics alongside Byron and Shelley, died of tuberculosis at 25, his poems having been in publication for less than four years. Indifferently received in his lifetime, his reputation grew rapidly after his death; by the end of the nineteenth century he was firmly within the canon of English literature and a strong influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
These lines open "Endymion," a long poem based on the Greek myth of the shepherd beloved by the moon goddess. The passage is written in rhyming couplets, the form sustaining the poem's flowing, unbroken movement.
The opening declares that beautiful things endure and sustain the spirit against despondency and "the gloomy days." Keats catalogues sources of that beauty—the sun and moon, trees, daffodils, streams, musk-roses, and the remembered grandeur of the "mighty dead"—figuring beauty as "an endless fountain of immortal drink."
Background drawn from PoetryDB & Wikipedia