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John Hamilton Mortimer, Caliban<\/em> from Twelve Characters from Shakespeare<\/em>, 1775, etching.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Inscription: CALIBAN.\u00a0 Do not torment me prithee \/ I\u2019ll bring my wood home faster<\/em>. Tempest Act II. Scene the 2. \/ Published May 20 1775 by J. Mortimer. Norfolk Street STRAND.<\/p>\n A character in William Shakespeare\u2019s play The Tempest<\/em> (1611), the monstrous Caliban was the original inhabitant of the island ruled by the former Duke of Milan and magician, Prospero. He was the child of the witch Sycorax (according to Prospero, he was \u2018got by the devil himself upon thy wicked dam\u2019). Initially, he was supported by Prospero who taught him language \u2013 the main advantage of which to Caliban was that \u2018I know how to curse\u2019 \u2013 but he was later enslaved after Caliban attempted to rape Prospero\u2019s daughter Miranda. Of Prospero\u2019s two familiars he could be seen as representing base matter as opposed to the spiritual Ariel. Although himself the child of a sorceress who recalls figures like Medea and Circe, Caliban\u2019s complaint against Prospero is that \u2018by sorcery he got this isle\u2019 and he leads an unsuccessful rebellion against his master. Prospero\u2019s magic is learnt from books, and his organization of a masque acted by spirits \u2013 a play within the play \u2013 suggests an analogy between Shakespeare\u2019s poetry and Prospero\u2019s magic. As The Tempest<\/em> is thought to be Shakespeare\u2019s last play, it has even been argued that the author announced his own retirement when Prospero states in his final soliloquy that \u2018now my charms are all o\u2019erthrown\u2019.<\/p>\n The artist John Hamilton Mortimer exhibited twelve drawings of characters from Shakespeare\u2019s plays at the Society of Artists exhibition in 1775. A letter of 27 March 1775 from David Garrick to Mrs Elizabeth Montagu, shows that Mortimer was supported by the famous Shakespearian actor in publishing the drawings as etchings. Garrick asked if he could put Mrs Montagu\u2019s name at the top of a \u2018noble list\u2019 of subscribers to the set of prints, and also asked her to canvass support for \u2018a most ingenious man\u2019.[1]<\/a> The etched \u2018portraits\u2019 were published in two sets of six in 1775 and 1776. Mortimer intended the characters to be seen as pairs with, for example, King Lear paired with Caliban<\/a> from The Tempest<\/em>. Edgar, a character also from the play King Lear<\/em>, is shown in the persona of \u2018Poor Tom\u2019, a mad beggar, demonstrating how Mortimer chose to emphasize the more picturesque and wild aspect of Shakespeare\u2019s plays. The Poet<\/em><\/a> is not so much a representation of a character, but rather of a passage in Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/em> describing the \u2018fine frenzy\u2019 required for poetic inspiration: a reading going somewhat against the grain of Theseus\u2019s speech which prefers \u2018cool reason\u2019 to \u2018strong imagination\u2019 (Mortimer\u2019s inscription on the print carefully excludes the comparison of the poet to the lunatic and lover).<\/p>\n Theseus<\/em>: More strange than true: I never may believe<\/p>\n These antique fables, nor these fairy toys.<\/p>\n Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,<\/p>\n Such shaping fantasies that apprehend<\/p>\n More than cool reason ever comprehends.<\/p>\n The lunatic, the lover and the poet<\/p>\n Are of imagination all compact:<\/p>\n One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,<\/p>\n That is, the madman: the lover, all as frantic,<\/p>\n Sees Helen\u2019s beauty in a brow of Egypt:<\/p>\n The poet\u2019s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,<\/p>\n Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;<\/p>\n And as imagination bodies forth<\/p>\n The forms of things unknown, the poet\u2019s pen<\/p>\n Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing<\/p>\n A local habitation and a name.<\/p>\n Such tricks have strong imagination,<\/p>\n That if it would but apprehend some joy,<\/p>\n It comprehends some bringer of that joy;<\/p>\n Or in the night, imagining some fear,<\/p>\n How easy is a bush supposed a bear![2]<\/a><\/p>\n Mortimer was one of an older generation of artists, born in the 1740s, including James Barry and Henry Fuseli, who were admired by William Blake for their advocacy of inspired genius as the model for artistic creation as opposed to the eclectic imitation supported by Joshua Reynolds in art theory, or the concern to please fashionable high society through glamorous portraiture of an artist like Thomas Gainsborough. Blake\u2019s annotations to his copy of Reynolds\u2019s Discourses<\/em>keep up a running commentary on these themes beginning with the statement that: \u2018While Sir Joshua was rolling in Riches Barry was Poor & Independent Unemployed except by his own Energy Mortimer was despised & Mocked called a Madman\u2019.[3]<\/a> Blake also identified Reynolds\u2019s comment that \u2018he who would have you believe that he is waiting for the inspiration of Genius, is in reality at a loss how to begin; and is at last delivered of his monsters, with difficulty and pain\u2019 as being a \u2018Stroke at Mortimer\u2019.[4]<\/a> Mortimer included several monsters in a series of fifteen etchings dedicated, in a spirit of friendly disagreement, to Joshua Reynolds in 1778 which continued the development of the proto-Romantic view of artistic inspiration presented in the Shakespearean characters.<\/p>\n Among the various monsters and banditti<\/em> in this set of prints were two opposing images of the artist: Salvator Rosa<\/a> and Gerard de Lairesse<\/a>. While Rosa represents a heroic conception of the artist, based on one of the virile, armored banditti<\/em>familiar from that artist\u2019s etchings, De Lairesse, the Dutch art theorist, is shown by Mortimer as an infirm and visually-impaired old man hobbling away from the props of his art. Mortimer\u2019s characterization of Salvator Rosa is perhaps closest to Rosa\u2019s own 1664 etching of Jason and the Dragon<\/a><\/em>, where the hero defeats the monster guarding the golden fleece using a magical potion prepared by Medea (itself an allegory of artistic creation?). Blake agreed with Mortimer in opposing the conception of art advanced in Reynolds\u2019s Discourses<\/em> which he interpreted as Locke, Bacon and Burke transposed to art theory: \u2018I read Burkes Treatise when very Young at the same time I read Locke on Human Understanding & Bacons Advancement of Learning on Every one of these Books I wrote my Opinions & on looking them over find that my Notes on Reynolds in this Book are exactly Similar. I felt the Same Contempt & Abhorrence then; that I do now. They mock Inspiration & Vision. Inspiration & Vision was then & now is & I hope will always Remain my Element my Eternal Dwelling place. how can I then hear it Contemnd without returning Scorn for Scorn\u2019.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Incidentally, the painter James Barry gave a useful and succinct summary of the art theoretical case for painting and poetry being sister arts in one of his lectures to the Royal Academy:<\/p>\n All writers of character who have employed their thoughts upon the productions of genius, are universally agreed, that the essence and ground-work of poetry and painting is in every respect the same; and Aristotle\u2019s Poetics and Horaces\u2019 Epistle to the Pisos, will be found just as essentially applicable to painting as to poetry. There is necessary in both, the same glowing enthusiastic fancy to go in search of materials, and the same cool judgment is necessary in combining them. They collect from the same objects, and the same result or abstract picture must be formed in the mind of each, as they are equally to be addressed to the same passions in the hearer or spectator. The scope and design of both is to raise ideas in the mind, of such great virtues and great actions, as are best calculated to move, to delight, and to instruct. In short, according to Simonides\u2019s excellent proverb, \u201cpainting is silent poetry, and poetry is a speaking picture\u201d. These arts, or rather, these branches and emanations of the same art, which is design, have, from the nature of the materials they work with, each of them its peculiar advantages and disadvantages. Nothing can give to poetry that precision of form and that assemblage and instantaneous result that painting has. On the other hand, poetry if it loses by the succession of its images in one instance, it gains by it in another; and it has besides, the power of dealing out infinite mental combinations, which no form can circumscribe.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n [1]<\/a> David M. Little and George M. Kahrl (eds), The Letters of David Garrick<\/em>, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963, no. 900, 27th March 1775. Cited in Benedict Nicolson, John Hamilton Mortimer ARA 1740-1779<\/em>, exhibition catalogue, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne and Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, 1968, pp. 41-42.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> William Shakespeare, A Midsummer\u2019s Night Dream<\/em>, Act V, scene 1.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> David V. Erdman (ed.), The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake<\/em>, New York: Anchor Books, 1988, p. 636.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid, p. 646.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid, pp. 660-61.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Edward Fryer, The Works of James Barry<\/em>, II, London, 1809, p. 233.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" John Hamilton Mortimer, Caliban from Twelve Characters from Shakespeare, 1775, etching. \u00a0 Inscription: CALIBAN.\u00a0 Do not torment me prithee \/ I\u2019ll bring my wood home … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":73374,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[283393],"tags":[15781,290901,290903,283518,290902],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/73374"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/poetryandmagic\/files\/2023\/10\/Mortimer-Poet.jpg\")
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