Enraged Musician Enraged Musician Etching and engraving, November 1741. The latter never appeared. They are obliged to compete with the pounding of the pavior, the clattering of the dustman, the screeching blades of the knifegrinder and the pealing of the steeple bells.
Small boys join in, beating drums and tormenting squawking birds.
Although the Musician is one of Hogarth's simpler prints, it is replete with his usual ambivalence. While he sympathizes with the harassed musician, he is determined to celebrate the grace that is part and parcel of the street's cacophony. Contemporaries found it impossible not to speculate about the identity of The Musician. It doesn't really matter.