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BRITISH INSTITUTION: A considerable amou...
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Aktjst Natures.—No permanent consciousne...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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King John. On Monday King John Was Reviv...
- i' ^ k ihlK theatre has yet attempted ; and while noting this prodiscene which this * he ?* Fe- ^ 2 ?^ ]| not \ ei ' resetting that a misguided ^ igUSsf ^^ ffP ISlsssssss w ^ LS-Svin * a « bustle" tothe scene which communicated something of ifs afitatTontothe spectator ; they were yery unlike stage movements m general . . ... * x . i t As a spectacle , I have unqualified praise to give it . ^ As a tragedy , 1 was forcibly struck with the truth of a prophecy uttered by Kean s loving and beloved friend , Albert Smith , in The Month , which ran thus : —
" Let not Charles Kean deceive himself as to his position as an actor ; he has none beyond that which appliances of mise en scene assist him to . Kmg John is about to be revived for him . Our readers will see , judging calmly for themselves , that in spite of all the press laudations that will follow , it will be simply a success of tin , and banners , and Jewess-like panoply ; a metallic triumph in every respect , including-the brass . " The sentence is harsh , but in the main it is correct . Except Falconhridqe and Hubert , the parts were played in a style altogether mcora-•?„_ . ! . _ _; . i / i . xi , « j ~^^ Ac , Af + iio n iaTr TTnrl ( Jliarlfis Kean allowed me
to pursue my own friendly course towards him , I should have passed over the performance with some brief remark ; but as silenceja construed into insult , I am forced to speak my mind , and the only difficulty I have is how to say what I really think in the least offensive form . He wont believe that , because his irritable vanity makes him believe that no one can fail to admire except from « bitter enmity ; " and he will attribute my criticism to " anger , " whereas , I am not " angry" at all—I only laugn . My public know me too well , I trust , to doubt the sincerity oi my opinions , severe or favourable . KingJohn and Constance axe two great tragic parts . Mr . and Mrs . Kean were decidedly effective in them , but I venture to doubt whether reflection
theieffect was such as any poetic or cultivated mind can on approve . Had the p lay been a Porte St . Martin melodrame , King John a housebreaker , and Constance a widow de la rue St . Denis , the acting would have been admirable ; but every one must feel the difference between the impassioned grandeur of ideal sorrow , and the prosaic truth of domestic woe . As a bit of * truth , " Mrs . Keeley's sobbing perusal of the letter in Prisoners of War is without a rival ; but imagine that order of truth transported into tragedy , and you at once leap upon the S latform whence to survey the chasm which separates tragedy from omestic drama . Mrs . Kean in the opening scene was ideal and graceful : her attitudes , her intonations , her whole conception promised well .
But when the great storm of grief burst , she dropped trom her elevation into domesticity of a not very pleasing kind ; except in the sarcasms with which her indignant heart relieves itself against Austria ( finely uttered ) , the wronged Constance was at no time before us . The grief and rage were well simulated , and by some of the audience loudly applauded , because the applauders recognised the " truth , " but did not ask themselves " truth of what?—truth of whom?—truth of a Princess in her despair ? ---truth of a tragic heroine whose agonies are poetry ? " It may be said , indeed , that Constance , though a Princess , was a woman , and probably a very unideal woman ; at any rate Mrs . Kean , by representing the grief of a woman ,
represented nature . Specious , but false ! Place Mrs . Keeley in the part , and let her represent womanly grief ; no one will doubt that her representation would be intensely true , but could the audience accept it ? If the defence be admitted , adieu to all personation ! Grant Mrs . Kean her right of portraying Constance in a domestic light , stripped of all the elevation and grandeur of poetry , and , I repeat , her performance was very effective . But those who have seen Fanny Kemble , or Miss Glyn , or Mrs . Warner in the samo part , will scarcely accept such a version .
diaries Kean , as King John , was just what you may expect , showing in one or two scenes a decided quality as a melo-dramatic actor , but nowhere , even by a look , showing the least penetration of Shakspearo ' s meaning . I will not quarrel with him for the pormanont stolidity of his face and bearing ; he cannot help that—it is his misfortune , not his fault , as the man said of his blind horse . But I must object to the unkingly , unideal presentation of the whole part . In his two great scenes—the tempting of Hubert , and the death— -ho fell miserably below the character . The wonderful speech , " Hubert , I had a thing to say , " was an instance
of what I meant in saying the performance was effective , though the effect was wrong , There was a certain breath-suspending , chilling horror , in liis utteranco of that speech , especially in tho hoarse whisper of those words , " A grave , " which affected the audience , and which , had ho been a melo-dramatic ruffian proposing a murdor to his companion , would have been in fine kooping ; but when one thought of it as tho expression of that dark hinting at murder , which tho poet has so wonderfully set forth , it was almost ludicrous . So again in tho death-scene ; tho agonies wore *• true , " but they wore the agonies of a Jew with tho cholic , and produced tittering instead of sympathy . Wigan's Falconhridge fairly took mo by surprise . I heard with regret of his playing tho part , not believing him capable of tho brawny gaiety of the Bastard . I was wrong . Tho first act , indeed , was too light , and seemed to justify forebodings : it was too much in his light comoay vein ; but , as the ' play advanced , ho rose in excellence , and was equal to all the ' " exigencies of tho part . You may observe that . Falconbridge , who begins as a ribald , careless soldier , deepens into bittor irony when exporience of ItEWSPA $ ' *> ¦ troaohory of Franco has roused him , and , as tlio dark scenes of tho IXEiVvoi ^ pjft y fo l ] ow oach other , ho losos tho gaiety of careless lightheartodness , / jwteipi ^ i'i'ttna rises into personal consequence , till tho conduct of affairs scorns & tift §& r . ^ y ltlinost to rost with him . All theso changes vrorp broadly and truly LjM ^ ffV ^ ' jnarkod by Wigan ; and for intelligence in conception , and power of oxo-^ uj ^ fiKPr- " ' ' cution , liia acting was the acting of tho piece . K y dor , as Mubert , playod Y / CsSELk : * ! . with intelligence and nigged fooling , and was loudly applauded . HSLUVai
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¦ . 7 7 \ FEENCH = FL ^ AJSTS . . ^ : ¦ -.. ..: . ; . ; : , , - . Foe lovers of good acting , there is no announcement Wfe g ^ aWul than that of tfe opening of the St . James ' s Theatre by ^ that-model entrepen mr Mr . Mitchell . 6 n Monday , the saucy , piquante ,, and incomparable ' Defazet appears witli Lafont , and after a brief ( brilliant it is sure to be ) engagementi we are to have Frederic Lemaitre , and then Regnier , and the Theatre FranSais . Vaudeville—rdrame—and comedy ( ami the greatest in each department )—is not the very . prospect enough to . make you rub your delighted hands ! At length I shaU have aome . ' -acting , I can prai 8 e heartily—which , on the English stage ; is only the case with at the utmost some half-dozen actors ; and at length I shall feeLmy duty ^ s a pleasure , and not grumble that I am forced to quit the Christian fathers for a Vaudeville ! ' " ¦ ' 7 ' '"'"" ' . Vivian .
British Institution: A Considerable Amou...
BRITISH INSTITUTION : A considerable amount of inild ability covers the walls of the British Institution ; many of our best artists haying s ^ nt ,. pictures not discreditable to their repute , A few works are striking , and only a few ; the rest being precisely of the kind that is indicated in the name of painter an d picture . The story pieces are few , landscapes many , with several pieces of character , and a fair sprinkling of ladies , painted for the abstract admiration of the fair sex . , _ \ , „ , Foremost is Sir Edwin Landseer ' s " Deer Pass —a steep , grassy path , between hugh highland rocks , over a chasm , which is bridged by a great grass-clad rock . Deer are straggling up the pass , and looking back , as if conscious of an intruder ; a big stag prominent m the group . It is painted not in Landseer ' s best manner , . the texture being of the " tea-board " order ; but there is sojmuch living character , so much vigour arid boldness in the scene , that the very rocks have in them a dramatic force . Among the landscapes , there are some which" contain , more than the ™ p ™ nnrne sUffffe & ts . Alfred Clint's " Heath Scene near Poole" ( 5 ) is
striking at the first view ; but as you look out into the scene , you discern so many varied passages of country , so many moving traits of living nature , that you forget the f rame and canvas , and the eye seems to be travelling over a region too wide , with incidents too many , for the pencil to collect . It wants but an ace of subdued power to escape a certain harshness , and make us compare it to Euysdael ' s fresh suggestiye portraitlandscapes . T . Danby ' s " Lake of Thun , " although it belongs to the the familwh is tediousis
category of sun-set effects by y , ose repetition , reconciled to us by the breathing space , the gentle force and harmony of the light , glancing over the broken hills and smooth water ; and it convinces us how well the painter might escape the thraldom of the hereditary manner , if he would but try . Town scenes by Holland and Selous ; country scenes by Lee , Creswick ; Beritley , Copley Fielding ; scenes , with a thought in them , by Linnell , Linton , and Branwhite ; with animals , by Ansdell and Herring- —who does not know themP harmless
Likewise the women of Frost , naked , 40 . Lucretias , and yet as as if they were clothed prudes—fixed models ^^ : ftlie ,. nude ''—are they not brought to mind at the mere name ? Here they are seen in , ; bttle , which is an improvement ; for it abridges the expanse of smooth nerveless symmetrical flesh , which is the Frost idea of AVomen ; and _ you can have the " points" ] ust as well in the little as in the . large . We prefer his " Galatea" and ' his " Wood Nymphs" reduced . It is curious to note the tone of the morals which rule British art : in the collection are lovers , so called , with countenances so bare of expression , as to suggest the question whether English lovers have any emotions ; or whether it is that the painters have never seen the liglit of love in woman's countenance P Perhaps the strictness of our moral taste prohibits the painting of the emotion : as Alexander Smith was so severely handled by certain not
of our correspondents ; but then the " Wicked eyes" of Frith are excluded ; and the bold leer of Newenham ' s " Spanish dance T ^ K } looks like the portrait of some fearless Lola Montez—is admissible . Nakedness you may have , gracefully abstract , as in Gambardellas largo picturo of " Peace , " or cold and nerveless , as , in . Frost ; meretricious suggestion , as in Newenhmn ' s Spanish , lady } but the tender iiffdetitin 6 f a Juliet or an Angelica , of a Gehevieve , wliether in Coleridge or Sand , that is either inadmissible or is unknown to English artists ! You may , indeed , have the countenance of tender beauty , but it must be in perfect repose , as in Phillips ' s " Sueno "—a charming face . The restraint runs even into " action . " There is much force in J . Gilbert ' s " Charge of Prince Rupert s Cavalry at Naseby ; " but how faint an idea of action it gives to ae . every figure on the balance as it is here . Organic life in motion is perpetually off tlio balance ; but our painters seem to live so much in quiescence and restraint , that they think they neither can nor-ought t paint either body or soul in any condition but that of even balance ,- ^" "
out passing act or emotion 1 t , The Prcc-Eaphaclite school—with which W . B . Scott ' s " Visit ; of ^ - Boccaccio to Dante ' s Daughter" must bo classed—is an attempt to brea away from the modern lifeless school , with its mechanical symmetry : an when it shall have attainod a bettor symmetry , though not mechanical , warmer life though not meretricious , a more masterly handling , ™ ? A not mannered , it will have succeeded in its excellent enterprise , and " come , not Prm-Raphaelito , but llaphaolesquo . -
Aktjst Natures.—No Permanent Consciousne...
Aktjst Natures . —No permanent consciousness of thoir own destiny , or ^ their own worth in coinpuriHon with others ,, belongs to them . In their woo oltJvatiou they are . powers to movo the world ; but while tho impqlso that » gono forth from them in ono of these moods nuiy ho still thrilling its way " in widcjr and wider circles through tho hearts of myriads they have never s > they , tho fountains of tho impulse , the spirit being gone from them , mivy ^ sitting alono in the very spot and amid tho ashes of thoir triumph , BunKon dead , doflpondont and self-accusing . It requires the ovidonco of positive results , assuranco of otlior men ' s praises , the vislblo presentation of effects which thoy c * n . hiit trace to themselves , to convinco such men that thoy ore or can do any ^ Whatever inanifcutations of egotism , whatevor strokes of self-assertion come \ ^ euch men , coino in tho very hurst and frenzy of their passing rO 8 ifltlofl » ncs North British llevieiv , No . XXXII .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 14, 1852, page 22, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_14021852/page/22/
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