Part 405: “Scenery and Scene-Painters” 1871, fourth section
E. L. Blanchard wrote the article “Scenery and Scene-Painters” in 1871 for “The Era Almanack.” Here is the fourth of five sections.
“John Richards, the old Secretary of the Royal Academy, painted many years for the stage. His rural scenery for The Maid of the Mill is perpetuated in two line engravings, which are in the portfolios of all our old-fashioned collectors of English prints.
De Loutherbourg, who for some time delighted and astonished the town by his interesting dioramic exhibition, which he called “The Eidophusikon,” was the first to increase the effect of scenery by lighting from above the proscenium, and using colored glasses for the lamps.
Many ingenious devices, now familiar, in their effects at least, to a playgoing public, owe their adoption to the dashing, vigorous Flemish battle-painter, whose appearance was as martial as his pictures, and who Jack Bannister nicknamed “Field-Marshal Leatherbags.”
Another distinguished artist of the period was Mr. Greenwood, the grandfather of Mr. T. L. Greenwood, so long associated with the management of Sadler’s Wells Theatre. For many years the scenery of the Royal Circus (now the Surrey Theatre) was painted by Mr. Greenwood, who invested the ballets and serious musical spectacles brought out there by Mr. J. C. Cross with remarkable scenic attractions, and, when the artist was transferred to Drury Lane, he became even more prominent. Byron, in his “English Bards and Scottish Reviewers,” speaks of “Greenwood’s gay designs” as being then the chief support of the Drama of that period.
When John Kemble became Manager of Covent Garden Theatre, the accuracy of scenery and costume became more studied. One of the most eminent scene-painters of this period was William Capon, who died in September, 1827. He was born in 1757, and studied under Novosielski, the architect of the Italian Opera House, during which time he designed the Theatre and other buildings at Ranelagh Gardens, and painted several scenes for the Opera.
On the completion of New Drury, in 1794, Kemble engaged Capon for the scenic department, by which means the Manager was greatly assisted in his reformation of the stage. The artist had a private painting room, to which Kemble used to invite his friends to witness the progress of this scenic reform. Among these specimens were a Chapel of the pointed style of architecture, which occupied the whole stage, and was used for the performance of oratorios; six chamber wings of the same order, for general use on our old English plays, and very elaborately studio from actual remains; a View of New Palace Yard, Westminster, as it was in 1793, forty-one feet wide, with corresponding wings; the Ancient Palace of Westminster, as it was three hundred years back, carefully painted from authorities, and forty-two feet wide and thirty-four feet to the top of the scene; six wings representing ancient English streets; the Tower of London, restored to its earlier state for the play of Richard the Third; and for Jane Shore was painted the Council Chamber of Crosby House. All these scenes were spoken as the time as historical curiosities. Capon painted for John Kemble two magnificent interior views of Drury Lane and Covent Garden, for which he received about two hundred guineas. Unfortunately all his scenes were destroyed by the fire at Drury Lane in 1809, but he afterwards painted many scenes for Covent Garden which for several years must have completely satisfied the more critical eye of even a later generation, for several needed only a little re-touching to serve the Managements which preceded that of Mr. Macready.
In Elliston’s time Marinari and Stanton painted a beautiful drop scene for Drury Lane which was substituted for the green curtain. It was a fine composition of Grecian ruins, and figures within a splendidly-wrought frame, heightened with gold ornamentation. The figures were by Stanton, and the cost of the scene was nearly 700L.
In 1828 the principal scene-painters of Drury Lane were Stanfield, Andrews, and Marinari. Stanfield’s panoramas, at this period introduced into each successive pantomime, were triumphs of pictoral art. The two drop scenes then used between the acts were much admired. One, including the Coliseum, with other remains of classic architecture, was painted by Stanton; the other, from a picture by Claude, was from Stanfield’s pencil. The weight of each of these drops, with the roller and necessary adjuncts, was about 800lbs. In marine scenery Clarkston Stanfield had never been surpassed. Born at Sunderland in 1798, he had commenced life as a sailor, and he had well profited by his early experience of the lights and shadows of the seas. For many years Stanfield taught the pit and gallery to admire landscape art, and the occupants of the boxes to become connoisseurs. He decorated Drury Lane Theatre with works so beautiful that the public annually regretted the frail material of which they were composed, and the necessity for “new and gorgeous effects,” which caused this fine artist’s work to be successively obliterated. He create, and afterwards painted out with his own brush, more scenic masterpieces than any man, and in his time Clown and Pantaloon tumbled over and belabored one another in front of the most beautifully dazzling pictures which were ever presented to the eye of the playgoer.”
To be continued…
