Plays by William Shakespeare and the Painter’s Creation

Ved Prakash Bhardwaj

William Shakespeare is considered a great dramatist because each of his plays has such visual images that settle in people’s memory. Even today his plays are being translated and staged all over the world. Not that Shakespeare influenced only writers. His sphere of influence included filmmakers as well as painters. The scenes of many of his plays have been presented by the famous artists of their time in their pictorial language. Here we are presenting the details of paintings made in some of his plays.

Talking about the Indian context, literature has influenced painters on a large scale. Modern master Syed Haider Raza has made paintings keeping the poems of many poets in the centre. He has also used lines of poetry in many of his paintings. Raja Ravi Varma has painted Kalidasa’s immortal work ‘Abhigyan Shakuntalam’. Jai Zharotia has made drawings and paintings based on the poem ‘Lukman’ by his contemporary poet Soumitra Mohan. Jogen Chowdhury has been influenced by the poems of Bengali poet Jeevananda. From Sobha Singh to Aparna Kaur have made paintings on the story of ‘Sohni Mahiwal’. Siddharth has made paintings keeping the compositions of Punjabi saint poets in the centre. Atul Dodiya has painted the character Shabri of Ramcharitmanas and Kabir. Many such examples are also found in Indian art.

Let us now look at some of the major paintings based on Shakespeare’s plays.

Macbeth

1. Lady Macbeth Stealing the Daggers

Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) was a Swiss painter as well as a writer. He translated Shakespeare’s Macbeth into German. Fusile is famous for his Romantic paintings. He’s always focused on supernatural subjects. He was introduced first to Shakespeare’s plays when he spend some time in Switzerland where and translated Macbeth.

2. The Three Witches

The weird sisters from Macbeth are sometimes considered the inverted portrayal of the three Fates, dressed in white gowns from ancient Greek mythology, responsible for deciding the people’s destiny at birth. In comparison, by predicting Macbeth’s future, the three witches push him to his downfall as he turns into a power-hungry tyrant. Similar in appearance, with thin lips and vaguely androgynous features, Fuseli follows Shakespeare’s description of the witches in portraying them.

3. Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth

John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was an American artist. He was considered a leading portrait painter of his generation. He created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolours, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings. John Singer Sargent asked the famous actress Dame Ellen Terry to pose as Lady Macbeth, after seeing her perform. He did not make it exactly like the scene of the play but mixed his imagination into it. For this, she dressed Terry in different clothes than in the play.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

1. Titania and Bottom

Titania and Bottom, another work of art by painter Henry Fuseli, depicts a scene from Shakespeare’s play, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. In Act IV, Scene 1 of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, in which Titania is forced by Oberon’s magic to fall in love with Bottom, a craftsman with the head of an ass. Leda by Leonardo da Vinci served as inspiration for Titania’s posture, while the elves on the right are reminiscent of Sandro Botticelli’s depiction of Canto XXX of Dante’s Paradiso. Fuseli was drawn to this play because he was enamoured with the idea of the paranormal and how it was depicted in works of art.

The youthful woman grasping a diminutive creature is said to represent the triumph of youth and beauty over ageing, the senses over the mind, and the feminine over the masculine. Witches crafted the group of children who appear to be fairies on the left side of the image. A hooded figure on the right is holding a changeling in its arms, which is a baby that fairies are thought to have substituted for the parents’ infant kid. What an event!

2. Another painting on Titania and Bottom

In one act of Titania and Bottom, painted by Edwin Landseer (1802–1873), Titania is under the influence of a love potion and rests her head on Bottom’s shoulder while they are surrounded by flowers and bunnies. Puck, a pioneering male fairy figure who aided Oberon and gave Bottom a head of an ass, is to be found to Titania’s right. The depiction of fairies in art is influenced by Puck’s incisive years.

Hamlet

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark is Shakespeare’s longest and most famous play, which has been translated into many languages around the world. It is the tragic story of Prince Hamlet who seeks revenge on the murderer of his father. That killer is none other than his uncle. The British painter John Everett Millais (1829–1896) made a painting of Ophelia, a character in the play. It is said that this painting was completed in about two years. Its model had to pose in a tub full of water for four months. In the play, Ophelia, in a fit of madness, drowns herself in a stream of water.

King Lear

King Lear is a tragedy based on the British mythological story. At the end of his reign, King Lear wanted to divide his power among his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Cordelia refuses to accept her father’s wishes. Edwin Austin Abbey (1852–1911) painted a scene from the play in which King Lear abandons his daughter, Cordelia.

Othello

Desdemona (The Song of the Willow)

Shakespeare’s Othello was portrayed by Théodore Chassériau (1819–1856) in a collection of etchings that were released in Paris in 1844; one of them served as the model for this piece of art. In the artwork, Desdemona and her maid Emilia are seen in her bedroom in Act IV, Scene 3. Othello, her spouse, kills her in a jealous rage after falling for Iago’s deception. Since Emilia was involved in his wife’s death, she disappears into the background. The artist added the lyre to Desdemona’s lap rather than having it described in the original play.

Romeo and Juliet

Romeo and Juliet are depicted in Juliet’s chamber in a picture by Benjamin West (1738–1820) while being protected by a housemaid who is, presumably, afraid that someone might walk in on them. A storm is forecast outside the enormous window, which may be a metaphor for the couple’s tragic demise. Benjamin West was well-known for depicting contemporary wars, and like many of his contemporaries, he also painted scenes from plays to depict recent social happenings.

The Tempest

John William Waterhouse painted a painting depicting Miranda from The Tempest. Miranda is one of Shakespeare’s primary characters in The Tempest. She is facing away from us as she somberly observes the shipwreck brought on by the strong storm. The ship belonged to Prospero’s brother, who had stolen his dukedom. Desperate to reclaim his power, Prospero summoned a spell to sink the ship.