Tieck's Essay on the Boydell Shakspere Gallery Part 4

He says, "I fear that we have but very scanty means of exciting those powers over the imagination which make so very considerable and refined a part of poetry. (Cf. Boydell's preface.) It is a doubt with me if we should even make the attempt. The chief, if not the only occasion which the painter has for this artifice, is when the subject is improper to be more fully represented, either for the sake of decency, or to avoid what would be disagreeable to be seen; and this is not to raise or increase the pa.s.sions, which is the reason given for this practice, but on the contrary to diminish their effect....

We cannot ... recommend an undeterminate manner or vague ideas of any kind, in a complete or finished picture. This notion, therefore, of leaving anything to the imagination opposes a very fixed and indispensible rule in our art,--that everything shall be carefully and distinctly expresst, as if the painter knew, with correctness and precision, the exact form and character of whatever is introduced into the picture. This ... must not be sacrificed ... for uncertain and doubtful beauty which, not naturally belonging to our art, will probably be sought for without success." After praising the artifis of Timanthes, Reynolds goes on to say, "Suppose this method of leaving the expression of grief to the imagination, to be ... the invention of the painter and that it deserves all the praise that has been given to it, it is still a trick that will serve only once; whoever does it a second time, will not only want novelty, but will be justly suspected of using artifice to evade difficulties. If difficulties overcome make a great part of the merit of Art, difficulties evaded can deserve but little commendation." Among the names of those who discuss the "trick"

Lessing's is, of course, wanting. Gilray's satirical plate on Boydell should be compared for this and other points. Copy in N.

Y. Public Library.

[36] In this connection, the letters mention Engel's "Mimik"(1785).

[37] Some of the latter pictures by Smirke are very fine; e. g., the face of Jessica which justifies the statement of the Dict.

Nat. Biog. that Smirke had "good drawing, refinement, quiet humor." Bryan has a cooler comment: "Smirke was well spoken of in the comedy vein." Tieck likes him better in tragedy (page 34). Fiorillo's comment is "Seit Hogarths Zeiten hat kein Kunstler so viel Charakter oder so viel Ausdruck in seine Figuren gebracht, noch eine Scene mit so viel echter Laune bearbeitet."

[38] To me the Tieck-Schlegel translation of this scene misses all the best points of the original. To be sure, Tieck had nothing to do with its translation. (Friesen, I, 136; Sybel, III, 463 ff). It was not that Tieck was not interested in puns, altho the Dr. Cajus scene seems uninteresting to him on that account. Tieck himself made a good many puns. Cf.

"Viehsiognomie," the first lines of his sonnet on the sonnet and the "gemein" from the _Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek_ in "Das jungste Gericht." His sensing of English puns seems not to hav been so keen. So in a discussion of Mss. readings toward the end of the essay on the erly English Theater (Kr. Sch. I, 320) after calling one faulty reading "Unsinn" he continues, "In derselben Rede:

If you can construe but your doctor's bill Pa.r.s.e your wife's waiting woman, etc.

Pa.r.s.e? Was kann das bedeuten? Pierce ist dem aufmerksamen Auge leserlich genug." Tieck seems to hav mist the play on the grammatical idea. To be sure, I hav not seen the Ms., but Tieck was no very careful reader or copyist.

[39] This is a scene where Tieck saw both L. and S. There were two different paintings of the same subject, one with fewer figures, and Tieck rightly points out that the less crowded one is the better. One of the engravings is by W. Blake and is not given in any list of that artist's work. Mr. W. G. Robertson, the most recent biografer of Blake informs me in a letter that he does not know it.

A PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

Athenaeum. Eine Zeitschrift von A. W. Schlegel und Friederich Schlegel, Zweiter Band. Berlin, 1799.

Boydell, John.

Catalogue of the ... Shakspeare Gallery, London, 1789. The first edition of the catalog givs the painters' names only: subsequent editions add the names of the engravers. There are copies of the various editions in the Columbia, Harvard and New York Public Libraries.

A Catalogue of Prints ... comprising the stock of J. and J.

Boydell, London, 1808.

Copy in N. Y. Public Library.

A Collection of prints from pictures painted for the purpose of ill.u.s.trating the dramatic works of Shakespeare, by the artists of Great Britain. London ... 1803, 2 vols. in one, atlas folio.

There are many copies in the U. S. and there is also an American reprint with letterpress explanatory of the plates.

Dessoir, M. K. P. Moritz als Aesthetiker.

Dobson, Austin. William Hogarth, New York and London, 1907.

Engel, J. J. Ideen zu einer Mimik, 1848.

Engel. Angelika Kaufmann, 1903.

Fiorillo, J. D. Geschichte der zeichnenden Kunste, etc. Bd. V.

Geschichte der Malerei in Grossbrittanien. Gottingen, 1808.

Forster, Georg. Sammtliche Schriften, III. Leipzig, 1843.

Friessen, H. von. Ludwig Tieck. Erinnerungen eines alten Freundes. Wien, 1872.

Gottingen. Anzeigen fur Gelehrte Sachen, etc. The volumes from 1791 to 1803 were used.

Haym, R. Die romantische Schule, 1870.

Holtei, K. Drei hundert Briefe aus zwei Jahrhunderten, Hannover, 1872.

Joachimi-Dege, M. Deutsche Shakspeare-Probleme im XVIII.

Jahrhundert und im Zeitalter der Romantik. Leipzig, 1907.

Kopke, R. Ludwig Tieck, Leipzig, 1855.

Minor, J. Friedrich Schlegel. Seine prosaischen Jugendschriften, Wien 1906.

Tieck und Wackenroder. Kurschners D. N. L. Bd. 145.

Moritz, K. P. Ueber die nachahmende Bildung des Schonen. In D.

L. D.

Reynolds, J. Academy Discourses. Bohn Edition, London, 1846.

Shakspere, W. The Dramatic Works of William Shakspeare, London, 1802.

This is the Steevens edition in nine volumes. Copy in New York Public Library.

Spooner, Shearjashub. Prospectus for publishing an American edition of Boydell's ill.u.s.trations of Shakespeare, N. Y., 1848.

Sulger-Gebing. Die Bruder A. W. und F. Schlegel und die bildende Kunst, 1897.

Sybel. Erinnerungen an F. von Uechtritz. Leipzig, 1884.

Volbehr. Goethe und die bildende Kunst, 1897.

Walzel, O. F. Friedrich Schlegel's Briefe an seinen Bruder August Wilhelm. Berlin, 1890.

Wietenkampf, F. How to appreciate prints. New York, 1908.

Zelak. Tieck und Shakspere. Tarnopol, 1900.