Marion Harry Alexander Spielmann

“ The mystery that surrounds much in the life and work of Shakespeare extends also to his portraiture. The fact that the only two likenesses of the poet that can be regarded as carrying the authority of his co-workers, his friends, and relations—yet neither of them a life-portrait—differ in certain essential points, has opened the door to controversy and encouraged the advance and acceptance of numerous wholly different types. ”

“ Thus while Keene takes things dispassionately as they come, seeing only the humorous side of them, we find Du Maurier ever and anon attacking some new phase of snobbishness or philistinism or cant. For all his kindliness in depicting congenial scenes, he is at times as unrelenting a satirist as Rowlandson. The other Punch artists, whose work is in the same field, resemble Keene in this respect rather than Du Maurier. Mr Leonard Raven-Hill recalls Charles Keene not merely in temperament but in technique; like Keene, too, he finds his subjects principally in bourgeois life. ”

“ The popularity of the last is evidenced by the fact that no fewer than forty-three towns in England, France and Germany are enumerated as possessing sets of the Dance of Death, that grandiose all-levelling series of caprices in the contemplation of which the middle ages found so much consolation. ”

“ It is to this paper that America owes the discovery and encouragement of its most remarkable artist humorist, Charles Dana Gibson, whose technique has developed through many interesting phases from exceeding delicacy to a sculpturesque boldness of line without losing its rich texture, and without becoming monotonous. Mr Gibson is chiefly beloved by his public for his almost idolatrous realizations of the beautiful American woman of various types, ages and environments. ”

“ Busch stands alone among the caricaturists of his nation, inasmuch as he is both the author and the illustrator of these works, his witty doggerel supplying Germany with household words. The drawings that accompany the text are amazing for the skill and directness with which he hits the vital mark. A flourish or two and a few touches are enough to set before us figures of intensely comical aspect. This distinguishes Busch from Adolf Oberländer (1845) , who became the chief draughtsman on Fliegende Blätter. Busch’s drawings would have no meaning apart from the humorous words. ”

“ During the 16th century, caricature can hardly be said to have existed at all,—a grotesque of Mary Stuart as a mermaid, a pen and ink sketch of which is yet to be seen in the Rolls Office, being the only example of it known. ”

“ Violent as the action of his figures frequently is, it is always convincing. Such triumphs as the tragedy of the kind-hearted man and the ungrateful bull-calf; the spinster’s cat that ate rat poison, and many others, force the most serious to laughter by their amazing velocity of action and their unctuousness of expression. Frost is to American caricature what “Artemus Ward” has been to American humour, and his field of publication has been chiefly the monthly magazine. ”

“ The satirical grotesque of the 18th century had been characterized by a sort of grandiose brutality, by a certain vigorous obscenity, by a violence of expression and intention, that appear monstrous in these days of reserve and restraint, but that doubtless sorted well enough with the strong party feelings and fierce political passions of the age. ”

“ The spelling of Shakespeare’s name—which in succeeding ages has been governed by contemporary fashion—has a distinct bearing on the authenticity of the panel. At the first appearance of the “Felton portrait” in a London sale-room it was bought by Samuel Felton of Drayton, Shropshire, for five pounds, along with a pedigree which carried its refutation along with it. Nevertheless, it bears evidence of being an honest painting done from life, and is probably not a make-up in the sense that most of the others are. ”

“ The pupil, too, is much more genial than the master, and he is content if his pencil evokes the comment, “How ridiculously like!” Caricature of this kind is merely an entertainment. Here we are concerned rather with those branches of caricature which, merrily or mordantly, reflect and comment upon the actual life we live. In treating of recent caricature of this kind, we must give the first place to Punch. ”

“ Though he wears the cap and bells, he is alive to the pity of things; he sees the pathos no less than the humour of his street-boys and “gutter-snipes.” He is, however, a jester primarily: an artist, too, of high achievement. Two others stand out as masters of the art of social caricature—Frederick Barnard and Mr J. F. Sullivan. Barnard’s illustrations to Dickens, like his original sketches, have a lively humour—the humour of irrepressible high spirits—and endless invention. High spirits and invention are characteristics also of Mr Sullivan. ”

“ Mr Punch’s outlook upon life has not changed much since the ’seventies of the last century. His influence upon the tone of caricature made itself felt most appreciably in the days of John Leech and Richard Doyle. Their successors but follow in their steps. In their work, says a clever German critic, is to be found no vestige of the “sour bilious temper of John Bull” that pervaded the pictures of Hogarth and Rowlandson. Charles Keene (1823–1891) and Du Maurier (1834–1896) , he declares, are not caricaturists or satirists, but amiable and tenderly grave observers of life, friendly optimists. ”

“ The bust is believed to have been commissioned by the poet’s son-in-law, Dr John Hall, and, like the Droeshout print, must have been seen by and likely enough had the approval of Mrs Shakespeare, who did not die until August 1623. It is thought to have been modelled from either a life or death mask, and inartistic as it is has the marks of facial individuality; that is to say, it is a portrait and not a generalization such as was common in funereal sculpture. According to the practice of the day, especially at the hands of Flemish sculptors of memorial figures, the bust was coloured ”

“ One of the cleverest imitations, if such it be, of an old picture is the “Buttery” or “Ellis portrait,” acquired by an American collector in 1902. This small picture, on panel, is very poor judged as a work of art, but it has all the appearance of age. In this case the perspective of the dress has been corrected, and Shakespeare’s shield is shown on the background. The head is that of a middle-aged man; the moustache, contrary to the usual type, is drooping. It is curious that the “Thurston miniature” done from the Droeshout print gives the moustache of the “proof.” ”

“ His drawings must always lie very close to the affections of the large audience that welcomed them. American also by adoption is Henry Mayer, a German by birth, who has contributed to many of the chief comic papers of France, England, Germany and America.
Entirely native in every way is the art of A. B. Frost (b. 1851) , a prominent humorist who deals with the life of the common people. His caricature (he is also an illustrator of versatility and importance) is distinguished by its anatomical knowledge, or, rather, anatomical imagination. ”

“ On the disappearance of the Chandos likeness under the action of the spirit another portrait of Shakespeare was found beneath, irretrievably damaged but obviously painted in the 17th century. At the time of the “fake” only portraits of the Chandos type were saleable, and this would account for the wanton destruction of an interesting work which was probably executed for a publisher—likely enough for Jacob Tonson—but not used. Early as it is in date it can make no claim to be a life-portrait. ”

“ The vogue which, through Nast, Harper’s Weekly gave to caricature, prepared the way for the first purely comic weekly paper, Puck, founded by two Germans, and for long published in a German as well as an English edition—a journal which has cast its influence generally in favour of the Democratic party. It is worth noting that not only the founders but the spirit of American caricature have been rather German than English, the American comic papers more closely resembling Fliegende Blätter, for example, than Punch. ”

“ When in the possession of George Rippon the picture was so superbly chromo-lithographed by Vincent Brooks that copies of it, mounted on old panel or canvas, and varnished, have often changed hands as original paintings. It is clear that if the picture was indeed in possession of John, Lord Lumley, we have here a contemporary portrait of Shakespeare, and the fact that it is an amateur performance would in no way invalidate the claim. It is thinly painted and scarcely looks the age that is claimed for it ”

“ In Germany caricature did not exist. Only in Spain was there to be found an artist capable of entering into competition with the masters of the satirical grotesque of whom England could boast. The works of Francesco Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828) are described by Théophile Gautier as “a mixture of those of Rembrandt, Watteau, and the comical dreams of Rabelais,” and Champfleury discovers analogies between him and Honoré Daumier, the greatest caricaturist of modern France. ”

“ Other important divergencies occur. The handsome, refined, and pleasing aspect of the mask accounts for much of the favour in which it has been held. It was believed in by Sir Richard Owen and was long on view in the British Museum, and was shown in the Stratford Centenary Exhibition in 1864.
The “Droeshout print” derives its importance from its having been executed at the order of Heminge and Condell to represent, as a frontispiece to the Plays, and put forth as his portrait, the man and friend to whose memory they paid the homage of their risky enterprise. ”

“ Men, animals, trees, objects, are endowed by him with a mysterious life of their own. Without the help of any verbal joke, he achieves the funniest results simply by seeing and accentuating the comical side of everything. His drawings are caricature in the strict sense of the word, its principle being the exaggeration of some natural characteristic. The new generation of contributors to Fliegende Blätter do not work on these lines. ”

“ George Bullock took a cast in 1814 and Signer A. Michele another about forty years after, but those attributed to W. R. Kite, W. Scoular, and others, are really copies, departing from the original in important details as well as in general effect. It is from these that many persons derive incorrect impressions of the bust itself.
Mention should here be made of the “Kesselstadt Death Mask,” now at Darmstadt, as that has been claimed as the true death-mask of Shakespeare, and by it the authenticity of other portraits has been gauged. ”

“ America possesses some well-known statues. That by J. Q. A. Ward is in Central Park, New York (1872) . In 1886 William Ordway Partridge modelled and carved the seated marble figure for Lincoln Park, Chicago; and later, Frederick MacMonnies produced his very original statue for the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. This is in some measure based on the Droeshout engraving. William R. O'Donovan also sculptured a portrait of Shakespeare in 1874. Great consideration is given by some to the bust made by William Page of New York in preparation for a picture of the poet he was about to paint. ”

“ He returned to America known only as an illustrator. The Civil War did not awaken his latent genius till 1864, when he published a cartoon of fierce irony against the political party which opposed Lincoln’s re-election and advocated peace measures with the Southern confederacy. This cartoon not only made Nast famous, but may be said to contain the germ of American caricature; for all that had gone before was too crude in technique to pass muster even as good caricature. ”

“ After the downfall of Napoleon (1815) , however, when strife was over and men were weary and satisfied, a change in matter and manner came over the caricature of the period. In connection with this change, the name of George Cruikshank (1792–1878) , an artist who stretches hands on the one side towards Hogarth and Gillray, and on the other towards Leech and Tenniel, deserves honourable mention. Those of Cruikshank’s political caricatures which were designed for the squibs of William Hone (1779–1842) are, comparatively speaking, uninteresting ”

“ The Stratford bust and monument must have been erected on the N. wall of the chancel or choir within six years after Shakespeare’s death in 1616, as it is mentioned in the prefatory memorial lines by Leonard Digges in the First Folio. The design in its general aspect was one often adopted by the “tombe-makers” of the period, though not originated by them, and according to Dugdale was executed by a Fleming resident in London since 1567, Garratt Johnson (Gerard Janssen) , a denizen, who was occasionally a collaborator with Nicholas Stone. ”

“ In 1864 J. E. Thomas modelled the colossal group of Shakespeare with attendant figures of Comedy and Tragedy that was erected in the grounds of the Crystal Palace, and in the same year Charles Bacon produced his colossal Centenary Bust, a reproduction of which forms the frontispiece to John H. Heraud’s Shakspere: His Inner Life (1865) . ”

“ Mirthful or satirical, and less philosophical than of yore, neglecting history for incident, and humanity for the puppets of the day, their drawings, which illustrate daily events, will perpetuate the manner and anecdotes of the time, though the illustrations to newspapers, or prints which need a paragraph of explanation, show nothing to compare with the Propos de Thomas Virelocque by “Gavarni.” Quantity perhaps makes up for quality, and some of these artists deserve special mention. ”