Guide Me Oh Moon, Anne Trulove and the Rake

As with all the work made in response to Tom’s two years, as Associate Artist at Glyndebourne, a donation is made to Glyndebourne’s Young Artist programme from the sale of this woodcut.

Lead by the emotional darkness and tragedy of the iconic Glyndebourne production of Stravinsky’s Rakes Progress, but wanting to avoid stealing from Hockney’s brilliant flattened out crosshatched sets and costumes, this large multi-layered woodcut, with two 2/3rd’s life sized figures, took such an inordinately long time. Each print passed eight times through the press after cutting away the wood which accommodated the previous layer of colour. For Tom Rakewell’s coat and Anne Trulove’s dress I did steal from a combination of Hogarth’s awe-inspiring narrative etching sequences of course… Rake’s Progress, Harlot’s Progress, Marriage A-La-Mode, Industry and Idleness, Four Stagers of Cruelty and Beer Street and Gin Lane. I wanted to try to convey Anne Trulove’s blind love for Tom; well not quite so blind. The lyrics in Anne Trulove’s sublime aria convey that she is hooked and goes back for more, despite knowing of his cold heart — TH

Quietly, night, oh! find him and caress.
And may thou quiet find his heart,
although it be unkind. nor may its beat confess,
although I weep, it knows of loneliness.
Guide me, oh! moon, chastely
when I depart.
And warmly be the same
he watches without grief or shame.
It can not be thou art a colder moon
upon a colder heart.

WH Auden and Chester Kallman