#sarah siddons

[portrait-paintings]

Mrs. Siddons

Artist: Sir Thomas Lawrence (English, 1769–1830)

Date: 1894

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom

Description

Sarah Siddons (1755 – 1831), was the greatest tragic actress of her age. She was particularly famous for her interpretations of Shakespearian roles, in particular Lady Macbeth. Siddons retired from the stage in 1812.

[artschoolglasses]

Sarah Siddons as Euphrasia in the Grecian Daughter by Arthur Murphy, John Keyse Sherwin, 1782

[maudeboggins]

Sarah Siddons (née Kemble) ('Mrs Siddons with the Emblems of Tragedy') 1793

painting by Sir William Beechey

[shakespearenews]

Why Lady Macbeth is literature's most misunderstood villain

Shakespeare's murderous queen has long been demonised as a wicked seductress. Yet Frances McDormand is the latest actor to show she deserves far more understanding, writes Hanna Flint.

It's this two-dimensional representation that Oscar-nominated actor Ruth Negga is hoping to combat when she takes on the role opposite Daniel Craig in Sam Gold's Broadway production this spring. "I'm very interested in discussing what I think is the long-standing demonisation [of Lady Macbeth]," she tells BBC Culture. "[The play is] a complex excavation of this relationship and desire, fate and power but it feels like we've just plastered it with misogyny. The problem isn't the play, it's the interpretation....”

...One of the earliest portrayals of Lady Macbeth that broke the mould was delivered by Welsh actor Sarah Siddons in 1785 at London's Drury Lane Theatre. In an essay she wrote entitled Remarks on the Character of Lady Macbeth, Siddons viewed her as "fair, feminine, nay, perhaps, even fragile," which is why in her reading, Macbeth was susceptible to his wife's suggestion. "Such a combination only, respectable in energy and strength of mind, and captivating in feminine loveliness, could have composed a charm of such potency as to fascinate the mind of a hero so dauntless, a character so amiable, so honourable as Macbeth," she writes. 

[historicalbeauties]

1. 1804 portrait Mrs. Siddons by Sir Thomas Lawrence 2.  Sarah Siddons as Euphrasia in Arthur Murphy's The Grecian Daughter, at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, in 1782

Sarah Siddons (née Kemble; 5 July 1755 – 8 June 1831) was a Welsh-born English actress, the best-known tragedienne of the 18th century. Contemporaneous critic William Hazlitt dubbed Siddons as "tragedy personified".

 She was most famous for her portrayal of the Shakespearean character, Lady Macbeth, a character she made her own, as well as for fainting at the sight of the Elgin Marbles in London.

The Sarah Siddons Society, founded in 1952, continues to present the Sarah Siddons Award annually in Chicago to a distinguished actress.

Her celebrity status was called "mythical" and "monumental", and by the mid-1780s Siddons had established herself as a cultural icon.

[a-royal-obsession]

George was the greatest connoisseur ever to sit on the British throne and his additions to the Royal Collection, principally the Flemish paintings of Rembrandt, Rubens, Cuyp and Pieter de Hooch, made it one of the finest collections in the world – he also bought back the beautiful triple portrait of Charles I by Van Dyck which had been sold after Charles’s execution. He commissioned every leading English painter – Gainsborough, Reynolds, Lawrence, Stubbs and Turner – and he bought many of their paintings. He was a generous patron of English literature, being the first to contribute 1,000 guineas to establish the Royal Society of Literature to help impoverished writers – one of the first beneficiaries was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He enjoyed Jane Austen’s novels so much that he arranged for a set to be always available in every one of his houses. Which other English monarchs has expressed any interest in the great tradition of English novel-writing or ever admitted to having read one?

George was the best educated of any English monarch – his rivals being Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. He quoted Homer to Byron, discussed Shakespeare with the celebrated actress Sarah Siddons on her frequent visits to Brighton; he led the campaign to recognize the genius of James Watt, the instrument-maker from Glasgow University whose inventions were giving English industry a world lead; he was also able and willing to make spontaneous witty speeches in French and German; and when Rossini was invited to Brighton George insisted upon accompanying him, which drew the flattering comment, ‘There are few in your Royal Highness’s position who could play so well.’

— George IV: A Life in Caricature // Kenneth Baker

[venicepearl]

Sarah Siddons as Lady Macbeth - Robert Smirke

[books0977]

Sarah (Kemble) Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1783-1784). Joshua Reynolds (English, 1723-1792). Oil on canvas. The Huntington.

Siddons appears as an austere icon of Tragedy, seemingly enthroned for all eternity. Conscious that he was painting a theatrical star, Reynolds dressed Siddons in the way audiences were accustomed to seeing her on stage. She wears a sumptuous gold dress with scalloped sleeves – a fanciful variation on 17th-century style – a diadem, and a twisted strand of pearls. Reynolds’s muted color scheme enhances the drama, while the spotlight on the star allows the supporting players to fade into the shadows.