How Shakespeare Influenced Modern Painters

How Shakespeare Influenced Modern Painters

Literature is a wide area, in which great names are found. With these names come great stories, and with the stories come great characters, which make us reflect their actions, sometimes even over our lives. Authors might not have the intention to influence other artists at first, but art is universal, and even paintings and plays can be related. One of the greatest names of literature ever, Shakespeare, influenced artists of different areas, one of which is painting. Painters tried to immobilize the scenes of Shakespeare's plays, expressing in a wonderful form, how far imagination can go. The play itself is indistinguishable from imitations of the works of English dramatist William Shakespeare that abounded in Britain in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

All of the Shakespeare's plays were painted by many artists, and many of the scenes are famous for being painted more than once by more than one painter. In Macbeth, Act I the scenes when the three witches appear with Banquo on the Heath and even when they appear alone, are listed as painted by more than one painter. One example of the Three Witches being painted shows Banquo, Macbeth, and The Witches meeting. It was painted by John Wooton in 1750, and following his nineteenth century style the " human subjects are set against a great landscape that predominates the canvas" and in this particular painting the work was done only with interest with the painter's subject, which was "achieved by the landscape and the lowering sky." (Emory)

Painters used to immortalize actors and actresses that performed Shakespearean plays and were famous by doing that. Mrs. Pritchard, an actress performed Lady Macbeth and was considered the best Lady Macbeth of her days. She retired in 1768, and passed away few months later. Lohann Zoffany, painted her on stage in 1768, performing the scene in which Macbeth comes back after having murdered the King. It was very difficult for painters to know how to make the faces of the characters so that they are expressing perfectly what Shakespeare wrote, and the most difficult character was Macbeth, since most actors hit him off and created faces. That was all the painters had: the expression of the actors, and Mrs. Pritchard was a sweet woman, very calm, so it was difficult for her to show horror, and the final result, the painting would be the way Mrs.