Shakespearean Art
When the students have finished their portraits of their selected Shakespearean character, we will explore a unique type of art, art inspired by Shakespeare. There is an entire genre of art that uses Shakespeare's plays and sonnets as subject matter. I have decided not to show these images prior to the completion of the studio project because I do not want the students to be influenced by images of Shakespearean characters created by other artists. While I can't say there are many examples of great art found in this category of art, if indeed any, it does provide a very interesting, unique chapter to art history and specifically the art history of Great Britain, and to the importance of William Shakespeare. I think it is important (and is one of the state objectives) that students understand the historical context of art and how history not only reflects in art but also helps determine the development of art.
These Shakespearean artworks tend to be by British artists, and while there are some by American artists and others, they all have commonalities. As the students will learn, there are two approaches that an artist (and for that matter the general audience) can use to approach Shakespeare's plays. There is the experience of reading his plays in private and the experience of seeing his plays performed in public. Artists can either imagine what a character or a scene would look like by themselves or use specific productions or actors for the subject. Much of Shakespearean art can be divided into two broad categories that connect to these two approaches to Shakespeare. First, there is Shakespearean art that is intended to be illustration for a book format or function similar to illustration, though not intended to be published but to stand on its own. Second, there is art that is theatrical, in that it depicts either scenes from specific productions or portraits of actors in their role.8 Literary illustrations can be further divided into various categories, namely history painting and genre painting. History paintings show heroic action in a very idealized style, while genre paintings, often much smaller in scale, depict everyday scenes and commonplace activities. 9
There are three quotes that I will display in the classroom during this unit. I feel that both will give the students a different basis upon which to consider the relationships between Shakespeare's written work and the visual Shakespearean art. The first and second quotes, "Like stage productions, works of art are vital components in the continuing saga of Shakespeare interpretations for, as W. Moelwyn Merchant has written, 'every painting or engraving based on a poem or play is a critical gesture toward its source, a critical gesture the more potent in that it does not cease to be an original creative act.'" 10 and "As an act of translation from word into picture, Shakespearean art often tells the modern viewer as much about the manners and customs of the periods in which it was produced as it sheds light on Shakespeare's meaning."11 are by Ross Anderson. And the last quote, "In the final analysis, the artists offer their own interpretation of Shakespeare. The best of their work is an act of criticism on par with that of the literary critic and the actor."12 is by William Pressly.
History of Shakespearean Art
As my students will learn, to understand this very unique category of art, one has to put it in context with what was happening in Britain and in Europe at the same time. In France, in 1648, Charles Le Brun, an artist, and Louis XIV founded the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/349071/Louis-XIV-style#ref=ref208229) This academy was rather imperiousand dictated not only style but also subject matter. From the practices of this Academy grew the idea of a hierarchy of the painting of subject matter. At the top of the hierarchy was history painting, a style of painting that produced canvases quite large in size with many figures shown in action. The subject was drawn from "history," namely classical mythology and religious subjects, derived from the Old and New Testament. These history paintings were thought to be the highest form of painting because of the emphasis on the human figure in action, considered the most challenging subject matter to paint, as well as a form that often depicted man at his best, as hero, etc. An interesting side note is that the term "masterpiece" was derived from the French Academy. The final project that artists had to complete, a history painting, was called their Master piece, implying that it would demonstrate their mastery of what was learned in the Academy. Because of England's relationship with the Continent, there was a perceived need for developing a new category of history painting for English artists. The British could not claim Classical mythology as their own, as it naturally was considered Italian and artists did not want, in this Protestant country, to draw on Catholic religious imagery.
In 1768, George III founded the Royal Academy of Arts, in London. (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/511208/Royal-Academy-of-Arts) As a side note, one can see how England is lagging a little behind other European countries. Joshua Reynolds, a famous and influential British painter, became the first president of the Royal Academy. During his tenure, from 1769 to 1790, he repeatedly called on artists to advance English painting by creating paintings with important subjects. Those would include subjects from history, mythology and literature. He also wished them to use the techniques and compositional styles of the great masters of art. The painting of this time that was based on Shakespeare fulfilled Reynolds's guidelines. 13 It would also give history painting a subject matter that would be exclusively British.
I found that Ross Anderson's and William Pressly's books on Shakespearean art were the two resources that had the most information on the subject. While there are other books that have wonderful images, these two had the best content and also wonderful resources.
From 1769 until 1900, almost 1,400 artworks depicting Shakespearean subjects were displayed at the Royal Academy of Art in London. Before 1770, most of the images created based on Shakespeare were functional in that they were not intended to hang alone on a wall as a work of art but to be used as front pieces in publications or as portraits of the actors playing one of Shakespeare' roles. In the 1760's, the interest in Shakespeare's plays expanded tremendously. This was due to three things: new editions of the plays and new criticism, the fact that there were Shakespearean paintings at the first public art exhibition, and the popularity of the Shakespearean actor, David Garrick. In addition to being very popular and crucial to the renewed interest in Shakespeare's plays, Garrick was very adroit at self-promotion. He commissioned more that 175 known portraits of himself, many of them in his roles from Shakespeare.14
During the 1770's and 1780s, there came to be a general agreement that Shakespeare was "England's supreme dramatist and poet." The variety that one finds in Shakespeare's plays and poetry provided artists with divergent subject possibilities and thus became a popular choice. During this time frame history paintings were still considered the "noblest category in the hierarchy of art." and Reynolds envisioned a new genre of British paintings inspired by the history paintings of 16th and 17th century Italy. 15 The Continental master artists had a long tradition of creating history paintings inspired by "universal" texts such as the Bible, mythology, and classical history. By treating Shakespeare's work in the same ways as these classical works were, and lifting art that depicted Shakespearean subject matter to the same category as these large scale history paintings, the English artists were "breaking new ground" and asserting their equality to the continental European countries. 16 . A perfect example of this is the Boydell Gallery.
Boydell Gallery
"The greatest single act of patronage for painters in the 18th century England revolved completely around Shakespeare." 17 John Boydell (1719-1804) was one of the most successful print publishers in London. He formed the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery, which displayed art images depicting scenes and characters from Shakespeare's work. Boydell's idea for the gallery was motivated by pride in England and a desire to honor Shakespeare. He wanted to have the greatest artists in Britain paint scenes from work by the greatest British author. 18 This idea was first put forth at a dinner where there were a number of artists, including Joshua Reynolds, and John Boydell. By lauding Shakespeare, the British artists were also asserting their own worth and indicating that they could compete with any nationality in terms of creativity. Boydell's ultimate plan was to have 100 large-scale paintings and 100 small paintings on permanent view in the gallery. While he charged admission to the gallery, most of the money was gained from subscription sales of the prints that where created from the paintings. Unfortunately the project collapsed before all 200 Shakespearean paintings were commissioned. 19
By choosing the great English Dramatist as the pinnacle subject for the British paintings, Boydell hoped that there would be mass appeal for the prints that he would make of the paintings and then sell. The Shakespeare Gallery was opened in 1789 with 34 paintings and by 1802 it had 167 painting by 33 different artists. 20 It was so successful that in 1792 James Wood Mason opened one in Dublin. 21
There developed two basic categories of Shakespearean art: history painters that preferred subject from Shakespeare' tragedies and darker moments, and genre painters (painters that developed in the tradition of 17th century Dutch genre painting), who preferred the histories, the comedies and the romances. 22
Victorian
The generation of artists coming after Boydell still looked to Shakespeare for subject matter but were forced, without Boydell's patronage, to configure their art to a broader, mass appeal. By the 1830's the artists were focusing on narrative domestic scenes. 23
Queen Victoria reigned from 1837-1901. During her reign subjects from literature were very popular. The burgeoning middle class preferred literary subjects to the more upper class subjects of "dynastic portraits or sporting scenes". This middle class supported the artists who were working at this time, and this patronage helped shape the development of using subjects from literature. 24 During the Victorian era, fairy paintings were exceptionally popular and Shakespeare's two plays that contain fairies (The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream) were fashionable choices. From the very first Royal Academy of Art exhibition in 1769 to that of 1830, there had been approximately five to ten paintings that had Shakespearean subject matter in each of the annual exhibitions. However, in 1830 the number increased to fifteen and in the 1840s and 1850s, to around twenty. This marked the height of the popularity of Shakespearean subjects. 25
While Boydell had been concerned with encouraging a British school of history painting, publishers of the mid- eighteen hundreds were more concerned with appealing to a wide market. The Victorian artists had a proclivity for sentimentalizing Shakespearean subjects. This is seen in the publications by Charles Heath of Shakespeare's heroines. The heroines are saccharine, pretty young girls and were enormously popular. 26 These images were held up as examples of what women should be. "The canonization of Shakespearean female characters required certain distortions in the interpretations of the plays." 27
Pre-Raphaelites
The pre-Raphaelites, a group of young artist who first came together in 1848, considered Shakespeare near the top of their list of "Immortals" and even called for making Shakespeare's birthday a national holiday. Needless to say, Shakespearean subjects abound in their artwork. The Pre-Raphaelites were extremely concerned with accuracy of all minute details. Because of this they developed "a striking new realism imbued with freshness and clarity". Perhaps the most famous pre-Raphaelite Shakespearean artwork is Sir John Everett Millais' Ophelia (1851-1852). The image depicts Ophelia floating on the water just before she drowns. Millais worked for six months (over 1000 hours) just painting the natural background. The model for Ophelia spent many days floating in a bathtub so that he could precisely represent a floating body. 28 Luckily for her, he didn't expect her to actually drown.
From the 1860s to the 1880s, the quantity of Shakespearean art shown at the Royal Academy dropped from about twenty a year to about fifteen. One of the important Shakespearean subject painters for the late Victorian period was the American Edwin Austin Abbey. He began painting in oils in the 1890s when he was thirty-eight. Another important painter of Shakespearean subjects was Frederick Leighton. "One significant development in late 19th century artists' approaches to Shakespeare is epitomized in the evolution of the art of Frederick Leighton." Leighton began to stop using the painstaking, detailed research of costumes, nature and settings that are typical of the Pre-Raphaelites. He also stopped painting "elaborate, theatrical narratives that had characterized English representations from Shakespeare and other subjects from the time of the Boydell Shakespeare Gallery." Now Shakespearean subjects tended to be portraits of pretty young women that were viewed as studies in "form, color and mood." 29 By the beginning of World War I, the new art styles from France (Impressionism and Post-Impressionism) were gaining in popularity in England and Shakespearean themes lost their status as the most popular subject matter for art. 30
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