Pictorial Shakespeare, 1880-1890 - eTheses Repository - University ...

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considerable diplomacy in cealing with an unpaid learned
op
advisor and a paid and important scenic ariist.
The diplomacy of managers occasionally broke down, but
it v/aa ,11 the more necessary in the 'eighties, when a distinguished
artist might be called in to provide materials for
the scenic artists. Joseph Harker, who first achieved prominence
in the last two decades 01' the century as an assistant to
Hawes Craven at the Lyceum, takes pains in his reminiscences
to assert the independence of the men who painted cloths and
flats, and to remind his readers that Alma-Taderaa, ^illais
and Burne-Jones might offer DUG cations but did not themselves
execute the scenery. In Alict Comyns Carr's memoirs, the
designs submitted by Burne-Jones for King Arthur (Lyceum,1895)
are described as "very different from the uoual bald sketches
given to a manager to play about v/ith as he pleased" - a phrase
suggesting that it was Coleman's approach to artistic and
o\
learned aut -ority tliat prevailed on raost occasions. i:oteo
On Godwin's programmes expressing reservations about t!ic scenery
of productions of which he was nominally in control, remind us
that the paint—frame was another kingdom, proud of its autonomy.
Another factor to be token into account when considering
the efforts of the "experts" is the grov.-ing sophistication
of the frankly comnorcial and popular theatre. Critics might
disapprove of the tendency for ballet, ^mtomime arid extravaganza
to lean heavily on display and lavish settings, rather
than on literary, or at least narrative, content, but this was
a sphere in which designers were striving for effects not
unlike those which applied to Shakespeare. C.A. iliieln - the
pseudonym of ..illiara John Char :.es Pitcher - v;;. s insistent that
in liim should be vested sole authority over the "ballets and
panto-linos he designed:
the success of the ,:;tage picture - rrouping and
background - depends on its initial conception
cc a whole; and this must undoubtedly onrnate
from one brain. .
Where did this Ic.ivc Augustus Harris, or the choreo^anher and
scene-painter appointed by hin to prepare the pantomimes in
which ilhelm's processions and tableaux played an increasingly