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The Conqueror Worm
From E.A. Poe: Tales and Poems
Date: 1976
Medium: Screenprint on paper
Dimensions: 257 x 175 mm
Collection: Tate
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This piece is part of a collection of 20 prints on paper inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Abrahams was commissioned by New York City gallery owner Bernard Jacobson in late 1973 to illustrate a volume of selected tales and poems by Poe. The book was published as a fine press limited, signed, and numbered edition of 500 copies. Each contained sixteen illustrations and four loose prints. Abrahams had admired Poe's work since he was a teenager and created the prints in response to Poe's definition of art as "the reproduction of what the senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul". He worked form the three-volume Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe and illustrated stories or poems which he felt he could "put an image to".
The Conqueror Worm is a poem about human mortality and the inevitability of death. Abrahams captures this morbid theme through his use of colour and tone. Mottled antique yellowish brown tones are used on the ornate framing of the theatre which represents how decadence deteriorates over time and gives the piece an air of tragedy. Cold grey tones are layered to create the folds of curtains and the illusion of depth and connate with the theme of pessimism and death.
Contrasting this is the bold crimson of the worm which is the centrepiece. It is described in the poem as "a blood-red thing that writhes" and Abrahams has captured this perfectly. His use of line and shadow gives it's coiled body a sense of power and movement; as if it is about to strike. It appears as if it is floating in the auditorium, visually dominating the image and the people within it. This is accentuated by the contrast between the solid red tones of the worm and the mottled, irregular colouring of the rest of the piece
The layered almost sponge like appearance of the background gives the texture and depth. A sense of perspective is achieved through the tapering of the theatre behind the worm and the framing of the worm. This makes the piece appear three dimensional and comprehensible through its use of proportion and depth, yet it remains primarily expressive and conceptually abstract.
The technique of screen printing is entirely built upon the use of layers. Ink is forced by a squeegee through an ink-blocking stencil and woven mesh onto the paper, resulting in an even layer of ink. Only one colour can be used at a time so the image is built through layering these different colours. The Conqueror Worm uses this technique to great effect through the variation of contrasting tones and effects which it contains.
The Conqueror Worm
By Edgar Allan Poe
Lo! ’t is a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.
Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!
That motley drama—oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.
But see, amid the mimic rout,
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And seraphs sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.
Out—out are the lights—out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
While the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.
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