Ivor Abrahams RA, A Dream within a Dream

A Dream within a Dream, 1976

Ivor Abrahams RA (1935 - 2015)

RA Collection: Art

Abrahams is just as oblique in his approach to Poe's poetry, his concern being to create an enigmatical object that might match the mood and tone of a particular poem - that captures its music as well as its sense - rather than in any way impose a meaning. Thus the artist avoids the central image of Poe's 'A Dream within a Dream' - a hand attempting to clasp grains of sand - and only suggests the poem's 'surf-tormented shore' and 'pitiless wave' through the use of marine colours and by giving his 'abacus' of hourglasses a coral-like frame.work. In a touch wholly his own, Abrahams finds an equivalent for the poet's sense of implacable fate by making his hourglasses mirror each other, so that the sand in the bottom row rises rather than falls, marking the impossibility of our ever 'starting over again'.

Object details

Title
A Dream within a Dream
Artist/designer
Ivor Abrahams RA (1935 - 2015)
Printed by
Published by
From
E. A. Poe Tales and Poems: 20 Images by Ivor Abrahams, 1976
Date
1976
Object type
Print
Place of Publication
London
Copyright owner
Medium
Screenprint
Dimensions

495 mm x 365 mm

Collection
Royal Academy of Arts
Object number
09/2334
Acquisition
Given by Ivor Abrahams RA 5 July 2009
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