Part 398: “A Gossip about Scenery and Scene-Painters,” 1866, second section
While researching the English scene painting families, I came across an interesting article from 1866. It seems an appropriate time as we are preparing for a Masonic Symposium this weekend, allowing me to reunite with some of my favorite people in the world. My evenings will be occupied with other activities instead of preparing a post.
The article “A Gossip about Scenery and Scene-Painters,” was published in “The Era” on February 4, 1866. Here is the second of five installments.
“Classical scholars will readily understand the various opportunities for scenic effect afforded by the old Greek dramatists, and there is some reason for believing the illusions of the ancient stage were much more perfect than has been generally supposed. There were three entries in front, and two on the sides. The middle entry was always that of the principal actor; thus, in tragedy, it was commonly the gate of a palace. Those on the right and left were destined to the second-rate actors; and the two others on the sides, one to people from the country, the other to those from the harbour, or any other public place.
Sipareum was the signification of the tapestry curtain; it was let down, not raised, when the performance commenced, and at the beginning of new acts. The auleum was probably a drop scene or curtain, to draw before doors, and contract the stage. Choragium, property room, where were kept the dresses, scenes, and musical instruments, and here were sometimes disposed the choirs of musicians. In the Greek Theatre it was a place behind the scenes, used also for a dressing room. There was an inner dressing room named post-cenium. Thus even at a remote period we see that attention to the comforts of the performers was by no means overlooked by the theatrical architect of that period.
That the scene-painter’s accommodation has been, down to very recent times, completely lost sight of by those who have had the arrangement of our Theatres may be mentioned in curious contrast with the reliance now placed on the result of the artist’s powers.
According to Malone, moveable scenes were not in use in England till 1605, when three plays were performed at Oxford, before James I., thus described by a contemporary writer: “The stage was built at the upper end of the hall, as it seemed at the first sight, but, indeed, it was but a false wall, faire painted; which pillars would turn about, by reason whereof, with other painted clothes, the stage did vary three times in one tragedy.” It will be observed the writer was not acquainted with the word scene, but used “painted clothes” in that usage.
In the early part of Shakespeare’s time, as is well known, the want of scenery was supplied by writing the names of’ the different places of action on the boards, which were so placed as to be visible to the audience. Thus Davenant, in the introduction to The Siege of Rhodes, 1656, says, “In the middle of the freeze was a compartment wherein was written Rhodes.”
[George] Jameson, called the Scottish Vandyke, designed the scenery for the private theatricals at Holyrood House for his patron, King James VI. This monarch, when celled to the English throne, elected Inigo Jones, his renowned architect, to design the scenery for his Theatre at the palace of Whitehall. His successor, Charles I, and his tasteful Queen, Henrietta, during their happier days, gave a new character to the stage.
All was elegance at their youthful Court. There Ben Jonson presented his Masques, and Inigo Jones was still retained as scene painter and Machinist. Charles spared no expense in the decorations for these romantic pieces, in which himself and his Queen and the young lords and Ladies of the Court took an active part in the performance. The skill and ingenuity displayed in these scenic contrivances seem to have been remarkable. Streater, a painter of eminence and who sketched many views of old buildings for his royal patron, Charles II., designed the scenes for Dorset Gardens Theatre and the Phoenix. When this house fell under the management of Fleetwood he employed his gay friend, Frank Hayman, as principal scene-painter to the Theatre.”
To be continued…
