Shakespeare portrait #2
Tom Reedy
'Do but mark the countenance'
A mystery that spans centuries
'Few men have equalled the grand St. Paul's dome of that cranium'
WARREN CLEMENTS
Friday, May 11, 2001
His expression is of self-satisfaction, even of mischief. William
Shakespeare has much to be satisfied about, sitting for his portrait at 39.
He has made some reputation for himself as an actor, but considerably more
as a playwright. He has already written most of the plays we know him for.
Only a few more lie ahead, chiefly Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. His work
has been so successful that despite his unwillingness to publish the
plays -- after all, if people bought them to read, they might not pack the
theatres in such numbers -- the works are regularly issued in pirated
copies, and more official copies (though without his participation) to
correct the mistakes of the pirates. His sonnets have been privately
circulated, though they will not be published until 1609.
We should know by now what he looks like, given the legions of T-shirts and
coffee mugs on which his face has been so liberally plastered. "Few men have
equalled the grand St. Paul's dome of that cranium," scholar A. L Rowse
wrote of the earlier, unreliable renderings. "Other features also speak to
us, the rather sensual nose, the mobile, hairless cheeks of an actor, the
sensitive, sensuous nostril and small mouth, the large and luminous eyes
full of intelligence and observation."
But seeing him like this, with the paint fresh on his career, with the spark
of his wit and intelligence captured more immediately than in the hundreds
of pictures we are used to, is a treat. No, more than a treat, it's a
thrill, whatever suspension of disbelief is necessary until the painting is
proved authentic.
I speak personally here. Most everyone has an association of some sort with
Shakespeare, a connection with his works, even if it's only the forced march
of a high-school reading list. I've been exploiting his plays for years,
writing short musical pastiches for the annual spring revue of Toronto's
Arts and Letters Club, hanging jokes and songs on the unmatchable frame of
his works. Writers have been doing it for centuries. His work is so familiar
we can take for granted audiences' familiarity with every phrase and nuance,
and, if a joke fails, coast along on his perfect plots and perfectly flawed
characters.
Seeing this painting is like seeing the fellow as he was yesterday, sitting
in whatever room the painter was lucky enough to entice him into. He bears a
resemblance to the famous Droeshout engraving, but his smile is more
mischievous, his eyes more alert. He is here, not there.
He looks as though he would make a great -- unimaginably great -- dinner
companion, even if his contemporary, the writer Robert Greene, did say his
voice was "nothing gracious." (He also called him "Shake-scene.") He looks
as though he's thinking up ideas for Measure for Measure or another new work
as he poses. Or perhaps he's just amused, not the tortured artist so many
are but a man aware of his gifts, confident in his future and comfortable
with his good fortune.
Who is he at this point in his life, at 39, in 1603? He has made a good
living since the hardscrabble days of teaching school and acting on the
road. The patronage of the young Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of
Southampton, tided him over the nasty period from 1592 to 1594 when fears of
the plague shut down London's theatres. But he had made his reputation with
his three plays about Henry VI, and added to them with Richard III (1592), A
Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet (1594) and Hamlet (1600-01).
The Globe and the Rose theatres have been lately built, and by 1603 he has
made enough money with his theatre company to buy 107 acres of prime real
estate in Stratford and make true his aspiration to be a gentleman, Master
Shakespeare.
On the family front, he married his neighbour Anne Hathaway when he was 18
after getting her pregnant. His first child, Sara, is making her way in the
world and will marry a doctor four years from now, but one of Anne and
William's twins, Hamnet, died in 1596 and the other, Judith, is not quick.
His father died in 1601; his mother will die in 1608.
He is having his painting done, a true mark of respectability, and behind
that knowing smile and those attentive eyes is the mind that produced the
works we know collectively as Shakespeare. One man, so much lasting,
astonishing art. Very good to meet you, Master Shakespeare. It's truly a
thrill.