Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T02:05:37.652Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Eighteenth-Century Performances of Shakespeare Recorded in the Theatrical Portraits of the Garrick Club

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2007

Stanley Wells
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Get access

Summary

But he who struts his hour upon the stage

Can scarce extend his fame for half an age;

Nor pen nor pencil can the actor save,

The art and artist share one common grave.

(David Garrick, Prologue to The Clandestine Marriage, 1766)

'The theatrical profession, unfortunately, is one made up of perishable properties.' So wrote the actress Anne Mathews in 1838, despairing of ever describing her husband Charles's performances. The same thought lies behind David Garrick's affecting couplets printed above, with their deliberate echo of Macbeth's 'poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage / And then is heard no more'. But Garrick's verses are not strictly honest: the pen might not be much use, but the pencil (as a paint-brush was then called) could save an actor and his art. Garrick invented theatrical painting: his artists - William Hogarth, Francis Hayman, Johann Zoffany and many others - clearly had an input, but the idea was his. It is also a distinctly British branch of painting, a peculiar hybrid - part history, part genre and part portraiture. The world's best collection of this unique art form belongs to the Garrick Club, London.

Type
Chapter
Information
Shakespeare Survey , pp. 107 - 124
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×