Art+Analysis+-+Mr.+D.

A Tragic Pleasure by Mr. DeVirgilis

"I have resolved to go down to posterity on the hem of your garment." So said Joshua Reynolds after he signed his name on the bottom of actress Sarah Siddons’s dress in his monumental oil painting, “Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse,” which now hangs in The Huntington Library and Art Collection in San Marino, CA. And though Mr. Reynolds is known for more than just this piece, he was right in predicting that this would be his most renown work. Two hundred years after it was painted, it even starred in a hit movie, “In 1950, Joseph Mankiewicz used the portrait extensively in All About Eve,” which won the 1951 Best Picture Oscar (Wikipedia).

So who was this Sarah Siddons? An immensely popular actress of the late 1700s, Siddons was most known for her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s tragedy. She was a groundbreaker too: she was the first female to play the role of Hamlet, considered by many to be the ultimate role for any male actor.

It was an honor to paint Sarah Siddons then, and Joshua Reynolds was the most qualified man in England for the job. In 1768 Reynolds was named the first president of the Royal Academy, an art institution formed by King George III -- yes, the king America would break away from in a few years. Siddons painted the royalty of England, so why not the queen of the English stage?

The oil portrait Reynolds created is breathtaking. He places Siddons in a resting position on a substantial throne, and the throne rests dramatically on a cloud. You can’t say the piece is colorful, but the gold and brown hues in her heavy gown give the piece richness. And the white of her skin pops out from the darker background. The juxtaposition of vast darkness and select light, which art critics call churrascuro, reminds me of Rembrandt’s great portraits.

Looking at the pale glow of her skin, it appears Siddons is made of marble, like the statue of a Greek goddess. This is no doubt intentional since from the title, Ms. Siddons is here the embodiment of a Greek Muse. The ancient Greeks believed that all art, music, and literature came from goddesses called Muses. Melpomene was the Muse of Tragedy, and it is she whom Siddons embodies here.

But it's her expression that's heartbreaking. Siddons seems to be looking up at the heavens and asking, Why? Some tragedy has befallen this woman, and we, the audience, must weep. Her performances as the tragic characters Lady MacBeth, Ophelia, and Hamlet must have been powerful if Reynolds’s portrait is accurate.

So what’s the purpose of those shadowy characters over each of her shoulders? It turns out, “Mrs. Siddons as the Tragic Muse” is not only a showpiece of Reynolds’s skill and Siddons’s gravitas, it expresses an ancient Greek philosophy. 2,500 years ago, Aristotle asked the question, “Why do we enjoy watching tragic plays?” Aristotle’s work Poetics describes the “tragic pleasure” we get from pity, fear, and the catharsis, or letting go, of those two emotions. Hence, the figure to our left embodies Pity, the right figure, Fear. It’s enlightening to see how Joshua Reynolds not only honors a modern star in this piece, he mines history to deepen the viewer’s experience.

Rick Wakeman, the topic of my ILP, did much the same. In his first solo album, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, released in 1973, the fellow Englishman Wakeman chose to explore a historical topic, in this case old Henry’s tragic wives. Wakeman would go on to create more albums inspired by history, including The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table (whew) and Lisztomania, a piece exploring the success of Hungarian composer Franz Liszt. However, like Reynolds’s masterpiece, Six Wives... would also be Wakeman’s most successful work, his “high water mark” as a musical artist.

Joshua Reynolds and Rick Wakeman composed masterpieces inspired by the Muse of History. All we have to do is look, listen, and enjoy.