Maria Ines Aliverti_The Miniatures of Jean Louis ... - Acting Archives

AAR Acting Archives Essays Supplement 10 – April 2011
posing sessions with the actors 75 and quite probably made use of a camera obscura to
frame the whole scene and focus on the details. 76
If Faesch already had a portable camera obscura at his disposal when he made his
first miniatures of actors between 1765 and 1768, his expertise in optical devices
could have improved during the period of his journeys to London (1768-1775/early
1776), both through his contacts with Garrick’s circles and because the market for
optical devices in London was particularly thriving. 77 Here Faesch could have
discovered more refined systems of camera obscura such as the advanced version
that the enterprising English instrument maker William Storer (1750-1799) patented
in June 1778, but that he had begun to experiment in the preceding years: it was
called – thanks to the patents obtained by the inventor – the ‘Royal Delineator’. The
camera obscura designed by Storer can be considered, due to its portability and its
technical superiority, to be the true ancestor of the photographic camera. This optical
apparatus produced images of remarkable clarity, without the need to capture the
subject in daylight, and was thus suited to posing indoors. Storer’s optical box could,
in fact, even be used in a candle-lit room.
75 On the method used by Zoffany to paint the actors there is some uncertainty of opinion. Helen R.
Smith makes the following hypothesis about the way the studio sessions were organized: ‘Although
Zoffany’s paintings were composed in the studio and the figures probably painted one by one as the
actors had time to pose in costume, they suggest, at their most successful, the vivid interactions of an
actual performance’ (H. R. Smith, David Garrick 1717-1779: A Brief Account, p. 53). I agree with Smith
with regard to the way the actors posed in the studio. She does not, however, make any mention of
the possible use by Zoffany of optical instruments. Since we possess a few painted sketches by
Zoffany, we can state that he certainly did not exclude the sketching phase. This does not contrast,
however, with the fact that he drew the actors as they posed with the help of the camera obscura,
probably executing both the group of actors and each actor individually, and then placed the figures in
a scenic setting based on the original theatrical setting, perhaps enriched with details of his own
invention. This solution seems to me more likely than settings reconstructed in the studio. This
explains the discords that Mary Webster, the author of an important monograph on Zoffany,
observes: ‘The figures appear forced in their liveliness as of an actor performing a piece of stage
business, and at times the setting does not fuse with them, either from faults of perspective and
proportion or from excessive concentration on detail’, Mary Webster, Johann Zoffany 1733-1810, (exh.
cat., London, National Portrait Gallery, 14 January-27 March 1977), London, NPG, 1977, p. 10. These
discords, which Webster is unable to explain, can, however, be explained very well if we surmise that
Zoffany used a procedure similar to that of Faesch. It is highly unlikely, however, that Zoffany drew
inspiration directly from theatrical performance. The first theatrical conversation piece painted by
Zoffany for Garrick is David Garrick in ‘The Farmer’s Return’ (Biddick Hall, Lord Lambton Collection),
exhibited at the Society of Artists in April 1762. In this case the short lapse of time between the
premiere of Garrick’s interlude (20 March) and the exhibition of the painting confirms that the work
must have been painted during the rehearsal of the pièce, in order to enable the rapid publicity that
Garrick sought.
76 The use of the camera obscura was widespread among painters of the time. Sir Joshua Reynolds
(1723-1792), who was among the first supporters of William Storer’s ‘Royal Delineator’, also used one.
As did another painter, who had emigrated from Paris to London in 1771, Philip Jacques de
Loutherbourg (1740-1812), who was also introduced to David Garrick by Monnet and immediately
employed by the actor and stage director as scene painter at the Drury Lane. In strict association with
his innovative practice of set design, Loutherbourg carried out pioneering experiments, such as the
famous Eidophusikon, a multimedia optical show staged in a miniature playhouse which opened on
26 February 1781 in Lisle Street, now Leicester Square.
77 In London, even more than in Paris, there was a proliferation of optical shops and workshops. See
L. Mannoni, Le grand art, pp. 132-133.
32