Pianos And Organs In Art And Illustration

This was insomniac memory, not a dream. It was the piano lesson again—an orange-tiled floor, one high window, a new upright in a bare room close to the sickbay. He was eleven years old, attempting what others might know as Bach’s first prelude from Book One of The Well-tempered Clavier, simplified version, but he knew nothing of that. He didn’t wonder whether it was famous or obscure. It had no when or where. He could not conceive that someone had once troubled to write it. The music was simply here, a school thing, or dark, like a pine forest in winter, exclusive to him, his private labyrinth of cold sorrow. It would never let him leave.

The teacher sat close by him on the long stool. Round-faced, erect, perfumed, strict. Her beauty lay concealed behind her manner. She never scowled or smiled. Some boys said she was mad, but he doubted that.

He made a mistake in the same place, the one he always made, and she leaned closer to show him. Her arm was firm and warm against his shoulder, her hands, her painted nails, were right above his lap. He felt a terrible tingling draining his attention.

“Listen. It’s an easy rippling sound.”

But as she played, he heard no easy rippling. Her perfume overwhelmed his senses and deafened him. It was a rounded cloying scent, like a hard object, a smooth river stone, pushing in on his thoughts. Three years later he learned it was rosewater.

“Try again.” She said it on a rising tone of warning. She was musical, he was not. He knew that her mind was elsewhere and that he bored her with his insignificance—another inky boy in a boarding school. His fingers were pressing down on the tuneless keys. He could see the bad place on the page before he reached it, it was happening before it happened, the mistake was coming towards him, arms outstretched like a mother, ready to scoop him up, always the same mistake coming to collect him without the promise of a kiss. And so it happened. His thumb had its own life.

Together, they listened to the bad notes fade into the hissing silence.

“Sorry,” he whispered to himself.

Her displeasure came as a quick exhalation through her nostrils, a reverse sniff he had heard before. Her fingers found his inside leg, just at the hem of his grey shorts, and pinched him hard. That night there would be a tiny blue bruise. Her touch was cool as her hand moved up under his shorts to where the elastic of his pants met his skin. He scrambled off the stool and stood, flushed.

“Sit down. You’ll start again!”

the opening to Lessons by Ian McEwan (2022)

Pianos in art tend to feature women (rather than men). Piano art also quite frequently features cats. In the public imagination, cats and women are linked. Where there is a man, he’s statistically more likely to be gazing at the woman playing piano than actually playing himself.

The Etude Music Magazine September 1926
The Etude Music Magazine September 1926
The Etude Music Magazine January 1927
Russian Children Book Children’s and school years Lenin Moskow 1984 piano
Frank Dicksee ‘Harmony’
George Sheridan Knowles - The Duet
George Sheridan Knowles – The Duet
‘Lanza Candles’ (United Stearin Factories) Illustrator unknown, 1907
Leon Wyczółkowski (Polish, 1852–1936) I saw once – a scene near the piano, 1884
‘Tulips’ (1949) Ceri Richards
‘At the Piano.’ (c1912) Malcolm Drummond
Konrad Krzyzanowski (1872 – 1922) At the piano, 1904
Frank Dicksee 'A Reverie'
Frank Dicksee ‘A Reverie’. A man in his study envisions two woman ghosts. One sings, the other plays piano.
Carl Vilhelm Holsøe (Danish painter, 1863 – 1935), Musical evening, date unknown
Frank Dicksee 'Old Songs'
Frank Dicksee ‘Old Songs’
Charles Robinson
Raggedy Andy’s Surprise by Johnny Gruelle, illustrated by Tom Sinnickson (1953) piano
Elizabeth Enright wrote and illustrated ‘The Saturdays’, a book about a family of four kids growing up in NYC 1941
The Etude Music Magazine May 1933 cover art by Florence McCurdy
George-Roux-1855-Spirit
George Roux, 1855, ‘Spirit’.
William Arthur Breakspeare - The Reluctant Pianist
William Arthur Breakspeare – The Reluctant Pianist
William Chase The Keynote 1915
The Keynote 1915 William Chase (1878-1944)
Carl Holsøe (1863 - 1935) Girl in an Interior, 1900 piano
Carl Holsøe (1863 – 1935) ‘Girl in an Interior’, 1900.
Stanley Cursiter (1887–1976) - Musicians piano violin
Stanley Cursiter (1887–1976), ‘Musicians’. The young woman looking straight at the viewer is sitting against a large mirror.
Poster by Werner von Axster-Heudtlass, 1949, Steinway piano advertisement.
The Etude Music Magazine January 1927
The Etude Music Magazine January 1927
Elizabeth Shippen Green, early 20th Century American illustrator. A girl sings next to a piano.
Madeleine Lemaire - A Welcome Distraction from Piano Practice ca. 1900
Madeleine Lemaire – A Welcome Distraction from Piano Practice ca. 1900. Clearly interested in each other. The young woman displays her erotic ankles.
Practising by Gustave Leonard de Jonghe (1829-1893)
by Rose O’Neill, 1904. A very young girl receives a piano lesson from the archetypal spinster piano teacher.
Louis Wain, cats piano
Louis Wain
Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898)
Silvestro Lega (1826 – 1895) Italian, The Starling’s Song 1860
Poster by Gallo, circa 1920. A cat attempts to play piano.
Bernie Fuchs (1932 - 2009) 1959 illustration for Intercontinental Hotels piano
Bernie Fuchs (1932 – 2009) 1959 illustration for Intercontinental Hotels piano
Stanislav Zhukovsky (Poland 1875–1944 Russia) Room With A Piano 1916-7
Poolside Piano Practice, June 11, 1960 by George Hughes
At the Piano, Henry Patrick Raleigh (1880-1944)
George Goodwin Kilburne - A Young Woman at a Piano 1880
George Goodwin Kilburne – ‘A Young Woman at a Piano’, 1880.
George Goodwin Kilburne - The Recital piano
George Goodwin Kilburne – ‘The Recital’
William Arthur Breakspeare - The Alluring Student piano
William Arthur Breakspeare – ‘The Alluring Student’. She is posed for admiration.
Norman Rockwell – E. Ware, ‘Jeff Raleigh’s Piano Solo’, The Saturday Evening Post, May 27, 1939
Lord Frederic Leighton - The Golden Hours piano
Lord Frederic Leighton – The Golden Hours
Edmund Blair Leighton - The Piano Lesson
Edmund Blair Leighton – The Piano Lesson
Piano Practice Interrupted, Willem Bartel van der Kooi, 1813
Piano Practice Interrupted, Willem Bartel van der Kooi, 1813
Thomas Wilmer Dewing - The Spinet
Thomas Wilmer Dewing – The Spinet. The spinet is a small harpsichord with the strings set obliquely to the keyboard, popular in the 18th century.
The Etude Music Magazine November 1927
The Etude Music Magazine November 1927
Tadahiro Uesugi piano
Tadahiro Uesugi, Japanese illustrator
'Haydn Sonata No. 34 in E Minor Sonata No. 49 in E Flat Major' - Lili Kraus piano
‘Haydn Sonata No. 34 in E Minor Sonata No. 49 in E Flat Major’ – Lili Kraus piano
Player Piano advertisement 1909
Player Piano advertisement 1909
The Street Organ from Adventures in Wonderland October 1955
Adventures in Wonderland October 1955 back cover
Saturday Evening Post April 1951. Art by Amos Sewell.
John Falter art. Piano practice for Saturday Evening Post March 3 1951
Georges Antoine van Zevenberghen (Belgian, 30 November 1877–1968)
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