page_title: The Enraged Musician
section_title: Variations
hierarchical_section_title: The Enraged Musician / Variations
caption_attribution_description: Trial proof for The Enraged Musician
context_page_description: The Enraged Musician is a 1741 etching and engraving by English artist William Hogarth which depicts a comic scene of a violinist driven to distraction by the cacophony outside his window. It was issued as companion piece to the third state of his print of The Distrest Poet.
context_section_description: An early trial impression was missing the church steeple, cats, the man blowing the horn and the play-bill. In this version the dustman was missing his nose (a sign that he was syphilitic), a doll was placed in the model brick house in the foreground, and the drummer boy sported a Grenadier's cap. The drummer was handsome and had turned to look towards the little girl. By the time the print was issued this suggestion of a domestic theme with the boy, girl, and house with "child" had been removed. The boy had his cap removed and his handsome face turned away from the girl and replaced by features which Charles Lamb described as "idiotic". The doll was removed and the girl given a rattle to add to the image of pure noise. Later copies featured a black horse in place of the white horse ridden by the horn blower and showed cross-hatching on the sleeves of the ballad-seller and the play-bill. Later impressions also made the dog and grinder darker, while lightening the cap of the sow-gelder.
caption: The early trial was not as crowded or, by extension, as noisy, as the issued print. The character of the drummer boy was most changed between versions, but other subjects also underwent alterations, and more features were added.
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