Part 341: Green Room Gossip From 1895, the Scenic Artist
Thomas G. Moses worked as the scenic artist at Chicago’s Schiller Theatre during 1895. He painted the settings for all of the productions on their paint frames. He also rented the old Waverly Theatre space as he had more work than could be completed at the Schiller.
I understand that it is hard to appreciate the complexity and demands of the painting process at the time that Moses was working, especially as I discuss the many projects that Moses’ was simultaneously completely during the late-nineteenth century.
Below is an informative article about the artistic process and the role of the scenic artist, published in the Times-Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana) on February 10, 1895 (page 22). Here is a portion of the article from the “Green Room Gossip” section of the Times-Picayune. It provides additional context for Moses’ story as we move forward:
“When a manager has finally decided to produce a new play, his troubles have just begun. One of the first things to demand is the proper pictorial equipment. Just as the editors of illustrated periodicals of to-day send their accepted articles to the artist for illustration, so the theatrical manager puts his play in the hands of the scenic artist. Sometimes periodical illustrations cause the reader to wonder whether the illustrator read the story before he made the drawing or whether the cuts got mixed in the composing-room. The play illustrator is too important a factor in the box-office success to admit of similar mistakes.
[The manager] sometimes employs a scenic artist by contract, but usually the necessary assistant rents the space he needs in the theatre and charges the manager for work done for him, just as he charges outside managers for work done for them. The scenic artist, then, receives the manuscript from the manager, reads it carefully, notes from the authors description of scenes whether the locality is special or general, and where the scenery must be “practical” – with real doors to open, trees which may be climbed, fences that may be jumped- and where it is possible to make it purely representative.
The locality is the first point, naturally. Even if none be mentioned, in these days of photography, it is far more satisfactory to find a real locality which would fit the play, and which would, therefore, be more likely to differ from a thousand and one other scenes which have already been used as backgrounds for other general plays. From photographs or sketches of real bits of scenery, the artist most often draws his ground plans for what he considers a good stage picture suited to the action of the play.
These models are then placed convenient to the eye and hand in his studio, the main feature of which is really the back wall of the theatre, with a great paint bridge running about 25 feet above the stage floor. There is a space about a foot wide between the bridge and the wall, and in the space hangs the paint frame. When the stage carpenter has built the scenes according to the artist’s model, the paint frame is lowered to the stage floor, a piece of scenery is attached to it by means of a narrow ledge at the bottom, drops are tacked on and set pieces fastened at convenient points, then the frame is raised until it is where the artist wants it as he stands upon the bridge. The frame can, or course, be moved up and down, at the painter’s need.
The prime coating of the canvas is made of a mixture composed of whiting, glue and water. The artist has several assistants, many of whom are virtually learning the trade, but in exterior scenes the scenic artist himself usually does all of the painting; in the interiors he makes the finishing touches. Of course the work is done by daylight, and it takes a very skillful worker in colors to know just what the effects the various kinds and degrees of artificial light will have upon the painted scenery.
And yet the scenic artist is not too highly valued from a financial point of view. It takes, usually, six or eight years to attain the necessary skill and an average income of $80 a week is considered very good. From the manager’s point of view there is a difference. The necessary scenery for a play will frequently cost $1500 for the carpenter work and twenty-five hundred dollars for the coloring, without taking into account the sums paid for costumes, properties and the innumerable other accessories to proper play-producing.
Until applause greets him on the momentous “first night” and large audiences greet him for many nights thereafter, the manager, be ever hardened, endures endless anxiety from the minute the new play is chosen. If one proves a failure, he will be out a considerable sum at the best, for critics will know if he attempts to use the same costumes and special properties later on, or if he saves the scenery until it can be worked in other plays, a piece at a time; and critics seldom keep anything to themselves. He may have a new scene painted on the back of the old and save a part of the carpenter’s bill, but this is frequently the best that can be done. With all his risks and frequent failures, the theatrical manager is usually the last one to complain. When a play does not go, he simply pays the piper and tries again.”
To be continued…
