By Alexandros Dimiropoulos
England, 1471, Wars of the Roses.
Richard the 3rd makes a marriage proposal to the woman whose husband he has murdered… during the funeral of her father-in-law whom he also murdered… and at the end of the scene Lady Anne lets him woo her!
A difficult scene for every actor, no doubt!
A beautiful painting, with many details, intense colours and a Shakespearean theme. The black dresses of the funeral procession and the contrast with the clothes of the two central figures make the result even more dramatic. Abbey paints with great attention to detail, realism and historical accuracy to not only the Shakespearean drama but also to the period that it takes place (something that we can find and in many other Abbey paintings).
And so, we have two very interesting things here. The story presented (a real event, given through a Shakespearean drama and painted by Abbey) and also the painters technique, that gives vividness to the scene and has great historical accuracy (as far as the Shakespearean play is concerned). And I will say a few things for both of them.
First of all, the story. This scene comes from Shakespeare’s Richard III, a play that depicts Richard as one of the most evil men the world has ever seen (Shakespeare is influenced probably by the great humanist Sir Thomas More and his “History of King Richard III”).
And this had a great impact on how we see Richard III until today. In this play Richard is responsible for the death of Henry VI (whose funeral we see in the painting) and also of prince Edward, son of Henry VI and husband of Anne Neville (who also see in the painting).
But let’s start from the beginning. In this period, in England there were a series of civil wars called Wars of the Roses (named like this many years later from the badges of the two competing royal families). Henry VI (whose funeral we see here) was a king with psychiatric disorders and this made him unable to fulfil his duties and for that reason other noblemen were responsible for running the kingdom. And this created many of the conflicts during the Wars of the Roses.
But responsible for the death of Henry VI was probably Edward IV (and not Richard III) (below a portrait of King Edward IV, National Portrait Gallery, London):
Edward took the throne and became king due to Henry’s inability. After becoming king, Edward was eventually dethroned and Henry VI became king again (puppet king one may say, because he was unable to govern). After many battles Edward took again the throne, jailed Henry VI and probably gave the order of his murdering, a fact that at the end brought a small period of peace during the Wars of the Roses.
Richard III, that is depicted here, and who Shakespeare blames as the murderer of Henry VI, is the brother of Edward IV. But during that period does not have a central role in the events and wasn’t the ruthless and danger man he became later.
The flirting scene during the funeral comes from Shakespeare’s imagination, because as far as I know is not mentioned in any writing from that period (although after one year from the funeral, Richard III indeed married Anne Neville who already knew Richard from her childhood).
As for prince Edward (not the king, the son of Henry VI, husband of Lady Anne), who also was murdered by Richard III according to Shakespeare, in reality probably died during a battle against Edward IV. In this battle Richard III also fought, but whoever killed prince Edward did it in battle and not as part of a personal evil plan.
Richard III later became king and he was indeed a ruthless man as Shakespeare depicts him. Richard died in a battle against Henry VII who then became the first Tudor king, ending that way the Wars of the Roses.
But the important thing in this painting is not only the rich history behind the depicted event, but also the way that Edwin Austin Abbey paints this scene that is truly spectacular.
The whole scene is given in great detail, realism and vivid colours and coupled that with the Shakespearean theme we can see an influence from the Pre-Raphaelites that were painting in a similar way. Another example of Abbeys painting with similar theme is shown below:
The historical detail is an Abbey’s characteristic. He wouldn’t even consider begin a painting with such a theme without be certain that every piece of clothing, every object, every little detail is historical accurate.
One of his biggest projects were a set of murals for the Boston Public Library. The theme of the paintings comes for the legend of King Arthur and “The Quest and Achievement of the Holy Grail”.
Initially he intended to do a series of murals inspired from major works of literacy-poetry, like from Homer, Shakespeare, Dante etc, but for unknown reason he changed his decision and painted the Arthurian legend.
An important chapter in Abbey’s life was his travels to England. Abbey was born in America and in the beginning of his career was mostly an illustrator (in newspapers, magazines etc) depicting real events that happened everyday. But then he began to recreate scenes from the past with his vivid imagination and became famous for that.
As part of his job, he was sent to England were later stayed for the rest of his life. In England he became curious for the recent, at that time, movement of Pre-Raphaelites and also oil painting (an example of this is this painting of Richard III).
The Pre-Raphaelites are an interesting chapter in painting. It was an English group of painters, that existed for a relatively short period of time, during the Victorian period in 19th century. They were painting with realism and lot of details. The themes of their paintings were inspired by the past, from literature from legends etc. Imaginary scenes that you think comes from everyday life. Take for example the scene below from the life of Jesus. Isn’t it like a scene from everyday life?
Their attention to detail can be seen and in the following painting by John Everett Millais. As mentioned in Tate’s gallery website, he started painting the river before painting Ophelia (the character from a Shakespeare’s play) and took him about 5 months (!) only to paint the river, working many hours a day:
So we can see their influence in Abbey’s work. An important painter with many remarkable works.
Your Comment
Alexandros Dimiropoulos
Thank you Kristin!
I am trying my best
17 Feb 2022
Kristin
Что случилось товарищи, приятно
кусок текста и привередливо призывы
прокомментировали в этом месте, я действительно наслаждаюсь ими.
Стенка шкаф
16 Feb 2022