Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1889-06-07
DID NOT KNOW ART.
Shakespeare Evidently Was Not Familiar
with Painters and Painting.

with Painters and Painting.
Considering the universal character
Of Shakespeare knowledge, it seems
at first curious that he should have
displayed no very intimate acquaint-
ance with the actual art of paint
ing This is the more striking
when we recollect how much ne 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 an apprenticeship
to a dozen different trades. His en-
tire accuracy in these respects is UNI
doubted, and is testified to by masters
and experts. On this ground it has
been attempted to prove that in turn
he practiced as lawyer, a surgeon, a
physician, horse dealer, butcher, a
soldier, a sailor farmer, a gardener,
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, that any
one has been bold enough to assert
that he was a painter or artist, as we
understand the term. Nor is this won
derful, perhaps, seeing, as l have
limited, that we look in vain through
superficial knowledge of the use of the
palette and brushes. Indeed the word:
palette and brush nowhere occur, nor
do those of easel, maulstick or any
of the paraphernalia of the studio
And this, | repeat, is rather singular
for if the art, with the means and ma
terials for practicing it, were uncom
mon in England in Shakespeare day
they could scarcely have been so in 1t
ally, Germany, Flanders or France
and he was SO conversant with tn,
habits of continental nations that on,
would have thought the artists lif,
and its surroundings would not hav,
escaped him in detail. Yet he neve
even mentions the painters brush, i
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 leas
odd that the poet avoids the use of it
literal synonym, especially remem
bering the vast scope of his vocabulary
The artist (Timon of Ath
ens) talks no shop" tells nothin,
about his models who sat to him, O
the difficulty of getting the sort O
heads he wants. Nothing is reveale,
as to the technique, or the system q
printing the canvas, or laying in thi
or that color first-or what, in word
the process and progress of the wor
have been, as, l submit, might fairl
have been expected. Neither is an
further clew offered as to the nature Q
the subject nor any hint as to its d
mansions; but later on, when the pf
iron Timon sees it, he commends i
and in spicing his admiration wit
some philosophic moralizing, pays
just tribute to the noble art thus:
Painting is welcome
Painting is almost the natural man:
For since dishonor trafiics with mans nature
Even such they give out l like your work;
, And you shall find like it.
If this significant promise Wa
never performed, it was Master Pain
= er's own fault, and he was right
/ served. In the last act of the play W
! discover what he really is; and if on
E heaven gifted "Swan of Avon" il
s tended to typify in him the artist
= character generally, we can only sa
e his opinion of it was not high. Woul
: it be terrible heresy to add that
also betrays the shallowness of his a,
quaintance, if not with the art {
painting, at least with its professor.
c The scene is too long to quote, but
J. is little less than libel upon I'll
5 whole community to have it exen
+ pliiied in the person of such a meal
, contemplate, fawning sycophant {
. the painter shows himself.-Magazir
4 of Art