The 1858 Thalian Hall drop curtain is a significant artifact within the framework of American history. It is much more than an old piece of scenery created for a theater. This signed drop curtain is a large-scale artwork painted by a nationally recognized artist, one who left a substantial written legacy. Written records of Smith’s design, painting and installation of the curtain provide additional artistic provenance for the piece. Smith’s journal entries provide an extensive historical context not only for the 1858 drop curtain, but also theatre work at the time.
Smith’s memoirs give insight into the life of the artist, his art, and the shift in American theatre practices. Many of his journal entries were interpreted by Virginia Lewis and published in the book “Russell Smith, Romantic Realist.” Of Smith, Lewis wrote, “All through life he enjoyed talking and writing about his scenery work, and liked to explain his philosophy of scene painting, writing many thoughts into his journals.”
When Russell Smith painted the drop curtain destined for Wilmington, North Carolina, he was 46 years old. A well-known and established scenic artist, by this point in his career he had worked for three decades.
Of interest to me is Russell’s studio at Edgehill in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. He built his studio specifically for painting drops that he sometimes referred to as the “painting room for the Academy of Music.” This provided better light and a quiet environment to focus on his painting. A private studio space was preferable to the traditional one used by most artists in the theater. Most often, scenic artists painted scenery on frames that existed in the theater that they were creating scenery for at the time. However, a theater space was often busy with the hustle and bustle of rehearsals and stage preparation prior to a production. As there were fewer people watching him work, it is likely that criticisms and “suggestions” were kept to a minimum – a benefit when working off site. Smith suffered from chronic headaches throughout his entire life; to create art in the peace and quiet of his own studio must have been a relief from the noise of a commercial space.
Of Smith’s studio at Edgehill, Lewis notes that a frame structure was attached to the wing of the stone house. Smith wrote: “After the refreshment of sleep I would lie an hour and plan in my mind my day’s work – contrive the composition, dispose the masses of light, shade and color; and go over more than once, in fact, think it out; so that when I came before the canvas after breakfast, I never hesitated or lost time rubbing out, but went straight forward, and by night there would often be a finished scene. Some of the other prominent scene painters, Coyle and Jones, for instance, would express their surprise at the directness and the speed with which I pushed forward. They knew not the cause. But even that speed would not satisfy some stage managers; and I have been induced to paint three entire scenes in forty-two consecutive hours, and they were not simple scenes, like a calm sea and sly, or a quiet lake and distant hills, but represented an encampment, fortifications and a City, for ‘Edward the Black Prince.’”
Smith followed a traditional design process that is still used by many artists today, myself included. The design starts with a pencil drawing, or a simple concept sketch. This initially defines the composition. From this preliminary sketch, a quick painting or study is produced in a slightly larger format. These early works evolve into a finished picture, or scale color rendering that will be used for full scale painted drop. As today, this design process verifies the direction of the composition at every step. Ideally, it prevents a flurry of recommendations and alterations after any on site installation.
However, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder; then, as now, the value of scenic art varies from one to another. In his memoirs, Smith commented that some perceived scenic art as “but a coarse kind of daubing, indeed an inferior trade; and no doubt much of it deserves no higher position-with its want of nature and extreme exaggeration of color. But the best poetry of the Drama justifies the grandest and most beautiful illustration; and if the audience would demand it and the painter could bring to his great canvas sufficient genius a wide experience of nature and mastery of execution, where would lie its inferiority? And how much less would his power of instructing and pleasing be than a painter who strived to do so in the space of a yard or square foot? This was always my estimate of my profession; and I ever strove to sustain it by avoiding all false color, glitter and exaggeration of every kind, whilst striving to represent the most beautiful features of nature, I could see with reverential love of truth. The material, canvas and color, I used were also genuine as that of the best oil pictures; and as I painted in my own painting room, out of town, I was freed form the injudicious dictation of prompters, stage-managers, etc., who care little for real good art and are justly blamed for their shortcomings of the Stage, but who always justify themselves by saying. ‘The business must pay, and therefore it is our duty to give to the public what they want to see.’”
To be continued…
