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From Baroque to Romantic: Piranesi's Contribution to Stage Design
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2010
Extract
“Many years ago, wnen I was looking over Piranesi's Antiquities of Rome” writes Thomas De Quincey in his essay on the effects of opium-eating, “Mr. Coleridge, who was standing by, described to me a set of plates by that artist, called his Dreams, and which record the scenery of his own visions during the delirium of a fever.” When De Quincey published his Confessions in 1821, the international reputation of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was firmly established among men of letters and artists alike. The style and thematic content of Piranesi's remarkable etchings fascinated diverse members of the Romantic movement—from Walpole to Hugo, from Goethe to Gautier, from DeLoutherbourg to Sanquirico.
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- Copyright © American Society for Theatre Research 1978
References
NOTES
1 Confessions of an English Opium Eater, ed. Alethea Hayter (1821; Harmondsworth, Middlesex, 1971), pp. 105–6.
2 Hillis Miller, J., The Disappearance of God (1963; New York, 1965), p. 67.Google Scholar
3 Miscellaneous Criticism, pp. 387–8, cited in Abrams, M. H., The Mirror and the Lamp: Romantic Theory and the Critical Tradition (1953; New York, 1958), p. 169.Google Scholar
4 Confessions, p. 103.
5 Prisons: with the ‘Carceri’ Etchings by G. B. Piranesi (London and Los Angeles, 1949), p. 21. Additional stylistic parallels between the Imaginary Prisons and modern movements, particularly Cubism, have been discussed in Patricia Sekler, May, “Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Carceri Etchings and Related Drawings,” The Art Quarterly, 25 (Winter 1962), 330–63.Google Scholar
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7 See Thomas, Hylton, The Drawings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (New York, 1954)Google Scholar, Plates 1, 6, 25, and 30; Scholz, János, Baroque and Romantic Stage Design (1949; new ed., New York, 1955)Google Scholar, Plate 69; La Scala: 400 Years of Stage Design, Exhibition Catalogue (International Exhibitions Foundation, 1971), Plate 18.
8 Nicoll, Allardyce, The Development of the Theatre (4th ed. rev., New York, 1957), pp. 155–6.Google Scholar
9 Oenslager, Donald, Stage Design: Four Centuries of Scenic Invention (New York, 1975), p. 86.Google Scholar
10 On the strength of the four volumes of the Antichità romane (Rome, 1756), Piranesi was elected to membership in the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1757, an honor so great that a century hence the antiquarian-minded producer Charles Kean would consider his own election his greatest accomplishment. In addition to his popular Vedute, or “views of Rome” for the lucrative tourist market, other widely-circulated archeological and illustrative works by Piranesi include: Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de' Romani(1761), in which he set forth his scholarly theories on the origins of Roman architecture; Il Campo Marzio dell' Antica Roma (1762); Antichità d'Albano e di Castel Gandolfo (1764); Diverse maniere d'adornare i cammini (1769), an important collection of decorative motives which stimulated interest in, among other things, Egyptian ornament; and Différentes Vues de quelques restes de trois grands édifices qui subsistent encore dans le milieu de l'ancienne ville de Pesto (1777–1778), which was based on his visit to the Greek ruins at Paestrum.
11 Legrand, Jacques-Guillaume, “Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de J.-B. Piranesi,” Bibliothèque Nationale Mss., Nouv. Acq. fr. 5968, Nouvelles de l'Estampe, 5 (1969), 195.Google Scholar
12 A maquette by the Valeriani brothers, showing an elegant palais à volonté, is reproduced in Murray, Peter, Piranesi and the Grandeur of Ancient Rome (London, 1971), p. 8Google Scholar; two other renderings are given in Oenslager, , Stage Design, pp. 90–1.Google Scholar The draftsmanship of Piranesi's “Two Courtyards,” an early drawing in the British Museum (Thomas, , Drawings, p. 35Google Scholar), closely resembles the Valeriani style.
13 Il teatro alla moda (Venice, c. 1720), [Part I], trans. R. G. Pauly, Musical Quarterly, 34 (July 1948), 378.
14 Samuel, Arthur in Piranesi (London, 1910), pp. 105–6Google Scholar first proposed Marot's “Prison d'Amadis” as a direct source for the Carceri, and this suggestion has been accepted as fact by a number of subsequent authorities. But there are no grounds to assume that Marot alone, rather than frequent exposure to a stock theatrical convention, first inspired Piranesi.
15 Il teatro alla moda [Part II], trans. Pauly, , Musical Quarterly, 35 (January 1949), 90.Google Scholar
16 “Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages,” loc. cit., p. 195.
17 Hyatt Mayor, A., Giovanni Battista Piranesi (New York, 1952), p. 3.Google Scholar
18 L'Architettura Civile, ed. Diane M. Kelder (1711; New York, 1971), p. [24].
19 Scott, Jonathan, Piranesi (London, 1975), pp. 57–60.Google Scholar Juvarra's designs for Teodosio il Giovane are reproduced in Viale Ferrero, M., Filippo Juvarra: scenographo e architetto teatrale (New York, n. d.), pp. 134–60.Google Scholar
20 Enciclopedia dello Spettacolo (Rome, 1956), III, 20.
21 Ferdinando derived the rendering technique of the sotto in su, or “worm's-eye view,” whereby the architectural unit is displayed from below, from Fra. Pozzo's, AndreaTractatus perspectivae pictorum et architectorum (Rome, 1692–1697)Google Scholar; Piranesi could have known this widely-influential treatise either first-hand or through the unacknowledged synthesis of its principles in L'Architettura Civile.
22 Bibiena, Giuseppe Galli, Architectural and Perspective Designs, ed. Hyatt Mayor, A. (1740; New York, 1964)Google Scholar, Plates [VI, IX, XVI, XXV].
23 The Dover edition, The Prisons by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, ed. Hofer, Philip (New York, 1973)Google Scholar reproduces both states conveniently side by side. Hind, Arthur M. in Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1922; New York, 1967)Google Scholar gives an account of the complex circumstances surrounding the printing and publication dates of both editions.
24 The Bibiena Family (New York, 1945), p. 27.
25 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (1757; London, 1958), p. 76.
26 l'Avant-Coureur, April 21, 1760, cited in Nagler, A. M., A Source Book in Theatrical History (1952; New York, 1959), pp. 319–20.Google Scholar
27 Piranesi, Exhibition Catalogue (Smith College Museum of Art, 1961), p. 31; see also Scholz, , Baroque and Romantic Stage Design, Plate 60.Google Scholar
28 Jeudwine, Wynne, Stage Designs, RIBA Drawings Series (Feltham, Middlesex, 1968), pp. 58–62.Google Scholar
29 Oenslager, pp. 116–17.
30 Piranesi et les Français, 1740–1790, Exhibition Catalogue (Academie de France à Rome, 1976), pp. 114–20.
31 London Magazine, January 1779, p. 31. Piranesi's working method as a topographical illustrator was closely akin to DeLoutherbourg's, particularly in regard to their mutual interest in the effects of atmospheric light. Legrand (“Notice sur la vie,” p. 203) attributes the effectiveness of Piranesi's lambent views of landscapes with ruins “to exact observations made from nature each day, sometimes in sunlight, sometimes by moonlight, when masses of architecture acquire great force, and have a solidity, a softness and a harmony often far superior to images seen by harsh daylight. Thus he learned the effects by heart, by studying them close up, from far away, and at every hour.” Similarly, in The Wonders of Derbyshire, DeLoutherbourg represented Matlock at Sunset, Dovedale by Moonlight, and still another landscape at dawn.
32 See Pevsner, Nikolaus, “The Egyptian Revival,” in Studies in Art, Architecture and Design (New York, 1968), I, 213–35.Google Scholar The important question of Piranesi's influence on Neoclassical design, too complex to be dealt with in detail here, is touched on in Monteverdi, Mario, “Themes and Aspects of Neo-Classical Stage Design,” The Age of Neo-Classicism (London, 1972), pp. xcv–xcixGoogle Scholar; see also the design by Louis-Jean Desprez (1743–1804) for Agamemnon's tomb in Electra at Drottningholm in Piranesi et les Français, p. 127.
33 Rosenfeld, Sybil, A Short History of Scene Design in Great Britain (Totowa, N.J., 1973), pp. 90–1.Google Scholar
34 Andersen, Jorgen, “Giant Dreams: Piranesi's Influence in England,” English Miscellany, 3 (Rome, 1952), p. 50.Google Scholar
35 The Travel-Diaries of William Beckford of Fonthill, ed. Guy Chapman (Cambridge, 1928), I, 98.
36 William to his cousin, Louisa Beckford, Hamilton Papers, cited in Chapman, Guy, Beckford (New York, 1937), p. 99.Google Scholar
37 Note dated 1838, cited in the “Introduction” to Vathek with the Episodes of Vathek by William Beckford of Fonthill, ed. Guy Chapman (Cambridge, 1929), I, xiii-xiv.
38 Cited in Smith, Patrick J., A Historical Study of the Opera Libretto (1970; New York, 1975), p. 136.Google Scholar The other great success of the season of 1784 was Beaumarchais’ Le Mariage de Figaro, the staging of which also reflected its author's concern for varied blocking patterns and details of physical business.
39 Giovanni Battista Piranesi: his Predecessors and his Heritage, Exhibition Catalogue (British Museum, 1968), passim.
40 Muraro, Maria Teresa, Scenographie di Pietro Gonzaga (Venice, 1967), p. 33.Google Scholar
41 Viale Ferrero, M., La Scenographia del '700 e i fratelli Galliari (Torino, 1963), p. 51.Google Scholar
42 Quand on voyage (Paris, 1865), pp. 79–81. Some of the many references to Piranesi scattered in Gautier's reviews and essays were first collected in Focillon, Henri, Giovanni-Battista Piranesi (1918; Paris, 1963), pp. 304–5.Google Scholar More recently Piranesi's influence on the writings of Gautier, Musset, Nodier, Hugo, and Baudelaire has been documented in Keller, Luzius, Piranèse et les Romantiques Français: le mythe des escaliers en spirale (Paris, 1966)Google Scholar, passim.
43 Histoire de l'art dramatique depuis vingt-cinq ans (Paris, 1858–59), VI, 118–19.
44 Ibid., I, 115.
45 Ibid., V, 199. Gautier would have known De Quincey through Musset's translation of the Confessions as L'Anglais mangeur d'opium (Paris, 1828); see Jamieson, Paul F., “Musset, De Quincey, and Piranesi,” Modern Language Notes, 71 (February 1956), 105–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
46 Preface to The Cenci in The Dramatic Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley (London, 1922), pp. 143–44.
47 Keller, Chapter III, “Victor Hugo,” pp. 145 ff.
48 Sergent, Jean, Dessins de Victor Hugo (Paris, 1955), p. 29.Google Scholar
49 See Carlson, Marvin, “Hernani's Revolt from the Tradition of French Stage Composition,” Theatre Survey, 13 (May 1972), 5–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
50 Victor Hugo (Paris, 1902), pp. 107–8.
51 The Mirror and the Lamp, pp. 38–9, 57–60.
52 Patch, Helen E., The Dramatic Criticism of Théophile Gautier (Unpublished dissertation: Bryn Mawr, 1922), pp. 39–48.Google Scholar This was the theory. In actual practice, of course, the factorylike organization of Ciceri's Menus Plaisirs and subsequent ateliers did much to standardize Romantic design.
53 Principles of Art History, trans. M. D. Hotlinger (1932; New York, 1950), p. 126.
54 The Stage is Set (1932; New York, 1970), pp. 358–9.