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In 1936, Samuel Beckett went to Brunswick to see Giorgione’s Self-portrait. He admired the painting and shared the anxiety evinced by the face that looked back at him. It immediately triggered a symptom and, later, his creative activity. This paper shows, through Lacan’s optical schemas, how the art of Giorgione influenced the Irish author and how, ten years later, the same experience recurred when Beckett was writing his short story “Le Calmant.”