Whale- The Scottish Bestiary
Artist
Jack Knox
(Kirkintilloch, Scotland, 1936 - 2015)
AssociatedAssociated with
George MacKay Brown
(Stromness, Orkney, Scotland, 1921 - 1996)
Date1986
Mediumlithograph
ClassificationsPrints
DimensionsOverall: 58.4 x 39.4cm (23 x 15 1/2in.)
AcquisitionPurchased in 1986 with assistance from the National Fund for Acquisitions.
Copyright© the copyright holder
LocationView by Appointment - Aberdeen Treasure Hub
Object numberABDAG007562.7
Keywords
WHALE
HE HAS BROKEN his boreal bounds, the whale.
Sea seethes about him
Like cauldron on cauldron of ale!
The rinsed eye of the whale
Sees, through spindrift and smother
A watchful wind-drinking sail.
A snow-cloud lours on the whale.
The armoured hide
Rebounds with volleys of sleet and ice and hail.
He pastures deep down, the whale.
The dreaming plankton,
Over his deicate lip they drift and spill.
He must breathe bright air, the whale.
He surges up,
A sudden fountain flowers from his skull.
What bothers him now, the whale?
A boat-ful of men.
He scatters them with a lazy sweep of the tail.
A harpoon has struck the whale.
And the barb quickens.
The iron enters him slowly, cell by cell.
Go to the lee of the berg, wounded whale!
He welters in blood.
The eye dims, and the foundry heart is still.
By chance Knox had done a series of drawings relating to the poems of Mackay Brown several years before being invited to contribute to the Bestiary. He made a few small sketches before working directly on the lithographic stone. The black lithographic line was printed first and a transluscent white square screenprinted over the top.
