, 1889-06-25
DID NOT KNOW ART.
Shakespeare Evidently Was Not Familiar
with PAintern and Painfinc.

Shakespeare Evidently Was Not Familiar
with Painters and Painting.
Considering tho universal character
of S~hakespeare's knowledge, it seems
at first curious that he should have
displayed no very intimate tacquaipt-
ance with the actual art of paint
ing. This is the more striking
when We recollect how much he knew
of the details and positive techni-
que of nearly every other profession,
calling or handicraft under the sun.
His familiarity with them, as shown
by the use of purely professional
phrases and trade words, has given
birth to a host of profound treatises
wherein the writers have striven to
demonstrate that the poet must, in a
sort, have served al apprenticeship
TO q dozen different trades. His en-
tire accuracy in these respects is un-
doubted, and is testified to by masters
and experts. On this ground it has
been attempted to prove that in turn
he practiced as a lawyer, a surgeon, q
physician, a horse dealer, q butcher, a
soldier, a sailor, a farmer, a gardener,
a school master and heavens knows
what besides; whilst travellers have de-
clared that unless he had himself Wis
tied many of the countries he describes,
and been familiar with their Ian
guages, he could never have alluded
as he does to their numerous min ute
characteristics.
l am not aware, however, hat any
one has been bold enough to assert
that he was n painter or artist, as we
understand the term. Nor isthis won
derful, perhaps, seeing, as l have
limited, that we look in vain through
his pagesfor than ACUTE
superficial knowledge of the use of the
palette and brushes. Indeed the words
palette and brush nowhere occur, nor
do those of easel, maulstick or any
of the paraphernalia of the studio.
And this, l repeat is rather singular,
for if the art, with the means and ma
terials for practicing it, were uncom-
mon in Englandin S~hakespeare's day,
they could scarcely have been SO in It
ally, Germany, Flanders or France;
ond he was so conversant with the
habits of continental nations that one
would have thought the artists life
and its surroundings would not have
escaped him in detail. Yet he never
even mentions the painters brush, 1t
is always his pencil !" and although
we know that the word popularity ex-
presses the instrument by which ar
tistic work is produced, It is at least
odd that the poet avoids the use of its
literal synonym, especially remem-
The artist CTimon of Ath-
EMS talks no SHOP tells nothing
about his models who sat to him, or
the difficulty of getting the sort of
heads he wants. Nothing is revealed
as to the technique, or the system of
printing the canvas, or laying in this
or that color. hrstEor what in a word,
the process and progress Of the work
have been, as, L submit, might fairly
havesb been expected. Neither is any
further clew offered as TO the nature Of
the subject, nor any hint as to its di-
mansions; but later on, when the pa
tron Timon sees it, he commends 1t,
and in spicing his admiration with
some philosophic moralizing, pays a
just tribute TO the noble art thus:
Painting is welcome.
Painting Is almost the natural mon;
For since dishonor trafics with mans nature,
He is but outside; these pencied figures are
Even such rs they give out like your work;
And you shall find 1 like it
If this significant promise was
EVE performed, it was Master Paint
er's own fault, and he was rightly
served. In tho last act of the play we
discover what he really is; and if our
heaven gifted 'Swan of Avon" in
tended to typify in him the artistic
character generally, we can only say
his opinion Off was not high. Would
it be a terrible heresy to add that it
also betrays the shallowness of his ac-
q~uaintance, if not With the art of
painting, at least with its professors2
The scene is too long to quote, but it
is little less than a libel upon the
whole community to have it exem-
plified in the person of suoh a mean,
contemplate, fawning sycophant as
the painter shows himself,-Magazine
of Art