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17Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 1 (2016 9) 140-149
УДК 76.03/09
Specifics of Theatrical Concepts of the Creative Method of William Hogarth in His Graphic Series "A Rake's Progress" and I. Stravinsky's Opera "The Rake's Progress"
Svetlana A. Iakovleva*
Krasnoyarsk State Institute of Art 22 Lenin Str., Krasnoyarsk, 660049, Russia
Received 06.10.2015, received in revised form 09.11.2015, accepted 15.12.2015
The article studies the theatrical nature of the creative method of the artist William Hogarth in creating paintings and graphic series "A Rake's Progress" and the composer Igor Stravinsky in creating the opera "The Rake's Progress" based on the engravings of the artist. The formation of theatrical thinking is shown, its origins and interaction with diverse phenomena of English culture in the work of Hogarth and Stravinsky are determined. The author pays particular attention to the issue of the identical creative way that brings out the unity of theatrical thinking, as well as the genre specifics of Hogarth and Stravinsky, scenic and musical dramatic art for the creation of a scenic and pictorial form. The article analyzes the stylistic features that reflect the main trends of English culture of the 18th century and European culture of the first half of the 20th century. It examines in detail the expressive means subordination of the musical pattern to the picturesque dramaturgy of the artist. This research approach allows to confirm the semantic links of structural validity between the works of the music and art.
Keywords: artist William Hogarth, composer Igor Stravinsky, librettist W.H. Auden, creative method, theatre, graphics, stagecraft.
DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2016-9-1-140-149.
Research area: culture studies.
Hogarth's "A Rake's Progress" (1734-1735) and Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" (19481951) created in different sociocultural eras, combined by the unity of moral and aesthetic
problems in the interpretation of the main character, had become widely known during their lifetime.
Repeatedly, the theme of Hogarth's engravings interpretation, the problem of creative
© Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
* Corresponding author E-mail address: masdisf555@mail.ru
understanding of Igor Stravinsky's reading of the graphic series had been arising interest and became the subject of discussion. The issues of the unity of the musical work of the composer with the engravings, modelling of the genre and dramaturgy, music formation, transformation of the visual image into the music one have been studied (Ordzhonikidze, Baeva, Kardash). Ethical dilemmas of moral action of a man in the dialogue
of cultures were also considered in 2006 at the exhibition "Hogarth, Hockney and Stravinsky. The Rake's Progress" at the State Hermitage Museum (Khogart, Khokni i Stravinsky, 2006).
There is no doubt in the uniqueness of the individual creative approach of Hogarth and Stravinsky to the development of the theatrical concept during the creation of the graphic series "A Rake's Progress" and the opera "The Rake's Progress".
Artistic creativity is determined by the creation of the structure of the artistic image of the work. Creativity of the artist and the composer is unique characterized by identical historical thinking, compositional decision confirmed by the graphic series and the opera, based on the profound knowledge of the theatre world. The theatrical origins were an important structure of the graphical and musical works of the creators.
William Hogarth was a historian, painter, engraver, essayist, philosopher and lexicographer of English life associated with the beginning of the history of national art. Hogarth displayed an entire era in his works, which absorbed the traditions of literature, theatre, social thought, philosophical and ethical ideas of his time. Hogarth was an artist-playwright creating genre sketches with "moral stories" (Hogarth, 1967, p. 389).
Development of Hogarth's creative thinking took place on the background of the prevailing national theatrical and literary tradition. English theatre-goers and reading public preferred the likelihood of events from Shakespeare's Renaissance works to the stories and novels of G. Bunyan, D. Defoe, S. Richardson, H. Fielding of the modern times. Narrative-epistolary novels became popular in the wave of political, satirical and pamphleteering journalism in the magazines "The Taltler", "The Spectator". The theatre-acting principle appears in Hogarth's early works: "A Harlot's Progress" (1731), "A Rake's Progress".
"I decided to create paintings on canvas like a theatrical performance ... I tried to develop themes as a playwright" (Hogarth, 1967, p . 390).
Along with the satire on the upper class, the literary and journalistic publications showed the pictorial and critical comprehension of reality by the artist. Hogarth's original painting and dramaturgical series are didactic and straightforward already in the title of paintings and engravings: "The Young Heir Takes Possession Of The Miser's Effects" (Fig. 1), "The Levee", "The Tavern Scene", "Arrested for Debt", "Married to an Old Maid", "Scene in a Gaming House", "The Prison Scene", "In the Madhouse".
The series is made with the knowledge of the theatre specifics and the repertoire of the leading theaters the Drury Lane, Queen in Haymarket and Lincoln's Inn Fields. The plays of William Wycherley, William Congreve, Colley Cibber, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, John Gay, George Lillo had educational, social-accusatory and ethical objectives criticizing the bourgeois society. The ideas of the Enlightenment era were reflected in the characters of the scenic dramaturgy: "All the characters of the Enlightenment drama were divided into positive and negative" (Mokul'skii, 1957, p. 22). The throughline of "A Rake's Progress" is connected with Thomas Rakewell, the main character, who was assigned the role of villain. I Rakewell represents the evils of the society that meet the ideological principles of the enlighteners standing for the objectives of social benefit from the standpoint of literature and theatre. From the first scene, on par with the line of Rakewell, the sideline of his beloved one, Sarah Young, full of drama is traced. The tragic end of the pictorial drama with the eighth painting "In the Madhouse" (Fig. 2) is comparable with the theatrical drama of the era in the plays of R. Steele "The Lying Lover", "The Conscious Lovers" and "The London Merchant by George Lillo.
Fig. 1. Engraving. W. Hogarth. A Rake's Progress. Plate 1. The Young Heir Takes Possession Of The Miser's Effects, 1735
Fig. 2. Engraving. W. Hogarth A Rake's Progress. Plate 8. In the Madhouse", 1735
The success of John Gay's ballad opera "The Beggar's Opera" with music arranged by Johann Christoph Pepusch struck the artist so much that he created multiple versions oS the
same name painting. Using the scenography of the director John Rich, Hogarth carePully coordinated the composition with the stage space giving a persoeal vision ot the rcene.
Along with the main idea of "The Beggar's Opera", a satire on political and social mores of the society, it contained the imitation of the Italian opera represented by G. Handel. Perhaps the second plate of "A Rake's Progress", "The Levee", depicts the composer with a harpsichord (German, 1977, p. 216).
The artist applied the theatrical laws of scenography. The arrangement of paintings meets the usual organization of stage space and showed future aesthetic views of the artist in relation to beauty: "I define the complexity of the form as ... the originality of lines which forces the eye to follow them ... the pleasure that this process brings to consciousness raises it to the name of beauty" ( Hogarth, 1987, p. 130). The structure of the paintings is close to the atmosphere of the theatre with architectural forms of the stage construction: the proscenium, the apron stage and the portal. The last three paintings "Scene in a Gaming House", "The Prison Scene", "In the Madhouse" are gloom due to the mystical dark background, which was often taken into account on stage in order to enhance the mystery. Greed and panache of the prologue of the first two paintings "The Young Heir Takes Possession Of The Miser's Effects" and "The Levee" stand in contrast with the "In the Madhouse", where the foreground, like in theatre's apron stage, the apotheosis of the scenic drama is paraded, the madness of the main character..
Hogarth gave names to the engravings from the paintings "A Rake's Progress", which later served as a material for the creation of Stravinsky's opera "The Rake's Progress".
Stravinsky got to know the works of the artist long before the creation of the opera, which he reported in his letter to A. Benoit in 1912: "... my wife and I are slowly and surely going bankrupt buying the paintings. ... We purchased Hogarth's engraving of his picture "The Election. I-An entertainment" (Sir John Soane Museum,
London) for five francs ..." (Stravinsky, 1997, pp. 327-328).
Fascination with theatre had been strong throughout the creative life of Hogarth and Stravinsky. Staging is typical for the paintings of Hogarth in sequencing them. Theatre origins in the music of Stravinsky repelled from his early experience of communicating with the artists of the "World of Art": "... It is hard to find such a smoothly synthesis of creative aspirations ... that is established between Stravinsky ... and the participants of "Russian Seasons" (Pshantseva, 2012, pp. 37- 38), with Picasso, who vividly drew up "Pulcinella". The success of young Stravinsky's music in Diaghilev's seasons for "Firebird", "Petrushka", "Rite of Spring", where he showed the theatrical principle of the composer is typical for many of his works. "The Wedding", "Pulcinella" and "The Rake's Progress" are composed in a similar style.
Stravinsky maintained his interest in art throughout his life, which is witnessed by the pages from "The Dialogues" (Stravinsky, 1971) with comical sketches and picturesque descriptions.
Stravinsky confirmed that visual impressions were a special creative method in his memoirs. The musical idea is associated with the impression of a line, a drawing, architecture. "We cannot better define the relationship produced by music as by identifying them with the impression from contemplation of architectural forms" (Stravinsky, 1963, p. 100).
Stravinsky's creative method during creation of musical works was not limited to a single method. The composer marked the stylistic heterogeneity with "manners": "... my manners are a birthmark of my art ... While I was interested in music manners all my life, I still cannot say exactly what how they are determined" (Stravinsky, 1971, p. 182 ). The diversity of the composer's personality
included artistic reinterpretation of musical characteristics of past and modern cultures. Methods of the composer's creative technique included traditional art forms focused on the new "conventions": "... I am constantly fascinated by new conventions, which largely determine the attractiveness of the theater for me" (Stravinsky, 1971, p. 183). Musical and theatrical situations with the form of the grotesque and eccentricity, buffoonery in "Mavra", "The Soldier's Tale", "Renard, Histoire burlesque chantée et jouée", "The Wedding", "Jeu de cartes" ("Card Game") and other were established in the works of the composer.
In 1947, Stravinsky visited the Art Institute of Chicago, where he studied the paintings of Hogarth's series "A Rake's Progress". Visual impressions prompted him to creating the opera "The Rake's Progress". "I could not stand listening to music with eyes closed, without the active participation of the vision" (Stravinsky, 1963, p. 122). Stravinsky's vision transformed the picturesque image of the artist into the musical one. Hogarth's experience on creating the painting "The Beggar's Opera" eventually led to the creation of pictorial dramas. Stravinsky was fascinated by his theatricality. "There was a feeling that these engravings could have been easily staged. ... Hogarth also gave me another idea. There I discovered the quintessence of English Settecento that I ought to transform into music" (Stravinsky, 1988, p. 157).
The artist depicted several scenes applying the language of the pictorial story, creating a series with a didactic focus. The concept of Stravinsky and the librettist W.H. Auden avoids the artist's moralizing, fatal predetermination of the characters' actions including an auxiliary image of evil, the servant Shadow.
The opera included nine scenes with a developed compositional and dramaturgical line: "In the Country", "Mother Goose's Brothel,
London", "Anna's Monologue", "Rackwell's House in London", "Marriage to Baba the Turk", "A Marvellous Machine", "Auction", "Cemetery, card game", "Bedlam".
The opera was written with a lyrical tone, due to the introduction of the image of a virtuous Anne Truelove, a prototype of Sarah Young. Keeping the individual features of the plot, Stravinsky and Auden "... strictly followed Hogarth, until our own story began to acquire a different meaning" (Stravinsky, 197, p. 206). The visual appeal was formed by the elements of the opera-buffa, opera-seria, lyrical opera and opera-parable with the principles of allegory and conventions. The opera model was featured by the genre ambiguity: "... of course, I thought that I decided to accept the conventions of that era ... I'd rather choose a form of a number opera of the 18th century for "The Rake's Progress" ..." (Stravinsky, 1973, p. 58).
Stravinsky's creative fantasies were built on historical rethinking of music. Stravinsky took into account the legacy of "the English Settecento", the English era of Enlightenment, basing on the scores of Mozart, Handel, adapting to the English art space: "The English influence is observed for the end of the neoclassical period of Stravinsky's creativity ... "The Rake's Progress" is not just the crown of the thirty years of neoclassicism ... the opera ... is an unprecedented work in its duration and dramatic complexity of all his heritage" (Braginskaia, 2010, p. 142).
Creativity of the artist developed in a multi-genre aspect, the household "moral plots" made him popular, he succeeded in the field of portraiture. There were paintings on a sublime theme among Hogarth's artistic experience: "The Pool of Bethesda", "The Good Samaritan", "The Angel of Mercy", etc. Nevertheless, adherence to the classical principles was unsuccessful: "..."historical" paintings are his tragedy. He was hungry for the monumental glory and died,
bitterly regretting that he hadn't gained this glory" (German, 1977, p. 115).
It would be rather to call Hogarth's paintings a pictorial satire typical for the medieval theatre of instructions and morality. Hogarth had repeatedly testified what a strong impression he got from "The Author's Preface" to "The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews" of Mr. Fielding. The writer rebelled against the traditional strict hierarchy, where the comic drama in prose is valued less than a serious novel referring to "a comic artist and chronicler" Hogarth in one works and describing him as "moral satirist" in the other.
Hogarth's didactic idea was intensified by additional scenes of Stravinsky and Auden, which had no direct analogies with the engravings to bring suspense and visual appeal to the opera. Remarks related to the characters allowed to focus on the representational aspect of their emotions. Auden and Stravinsky studying the graphic works of the artist and the portraits of the characters, interpreted in individual visual images into the musical-poetic ones.
Hogarth's theatrical buffoonery refers to one aspect of the artistic language of the artist: the deformation of the characters. Endless study of human faces, amazing visual memory, knowledge of physiognomy, knowledge of the theatrical stages of the era, the manner of acting contributed to the artist's use of caricature as a consequence of the situations in which the characters found themselves. No wonder the English critic Charles Lamb noted that "some paintings we look at, Hogarth's engravings we read" (Paulson, 1975, p. 12).
Visual impressions of Stravinsky determined the composer's stylistic position. Thus, in his letter to W. Auden he wrote: "... not a musical drama, but only an opera with certain demarcated scenes connected by the spoken text ... Of course, the type of constraint is associated
with Hogarth's style and period" (Savenko, 2001, p. 83)
Stravinsky's theatrical experience was formed under the influence of S.P. Diaghilev and the "World of Art", first experience of working with A. Benoit in the production of "Petrushka", getting to know the principles of Vsevolod Meyerhold, Alexander Tairov. "Demarcated scenes" were the structural composition of the work by Stravinsky: "... I decided to accept the conventions of the era, I prefer to choose the form of a number opera" (Stravinsky, 1973, p. 58).
The theatrical nature of the opera-buffa genre is predetermined by the multivaluedness of Hogarth's paintings. The opera combines structuring of the buffoonery, romantic opera, pastoral and English folk songs: "A method of interfacing by installing different epochal-style layers anticipates the polystylistic method: the organization of the musical texture ... is similar to ... the method of combinatorics ... in the works by I. Stravinsky» (Vinokurova, 2011 p. 131).
Hogarth's creative motto was determined from his early works: detailed pictorial didacticism, the perfection of precise details of the accessory environment. Stravinsky's stage forms were synthesized in a genre meaningful versatility. The main storylines in Stravinsky's opera are the lyric and the dramatic ones. The composer and the librettist replace the artist's thorough substantive edification by visual appeal - the image of the Devil, the image of the fate - the servant Shadow, Baba the Turk, Mother Goose. Stravinsky's interest in the movement, the rhythm is reflected in the transformation of facial expressions and gestures into intonation.
Some Hogarth's scenes "Scene in a Gaming House", "The Prison Scene" do not appear in the opera, but there is a certain analogy with the other series of the artist. The character of
the Mother Goose, the mistress of the brothel, reminds of Mother Needham from the series "A Harlot's Progress" (Fig. 3). Hogarth's spectacular grotesque correlates with the materials from the essays of the magazines "The Tatler" and "The Spectator". Every Londoner of Hogarth's era recognized the inverse images of the artist; thus, Elizabeth Needham, a famous procuress, appears in the first picture of the series (literally sounding "Ensnared by a Procuress"), looking for the next victim, a girl from the province.
Marriage to Baba the Turk, a circus actress with the Assyrian beard in the fifth picture resembles similarity with the painting "The Marriage", where a wealthy bride-hunchback in a precarious marriage is another political satire of the artist to the royal family.
Perhaps in Stravinsky's artistic imagination the image of Baba the Turk appeared from Hogarth's picture "Southwark Fair" (1733), in which roving actors perform comic scenes on the royal wedding ceremony. In the eighth scene of the opera, the action takes place in a
cemetery, Shadow and Rakewell are playing cards. A similar story is found at Hogarth's third engraved sheet in the series "Diligence and Laziness". Hogarth put great didactic sense in his works, he believed in the effectiveness of the series in the correction of human vices, reducing plots to simple stories.
The appearance of Shakespearean passions in the works of Hogarth and Stravinsky's musical drama is due to the reverence to the creativity of the great playwright. Hogarth's passion for the outstanding national treasure of the writer affected many of his paintings and engravings, portraits of theatrical figures. He declared his preferences for the artist for the national literature and Shakespeare in his works "Masquerades and Operas", "Falstaff Examining His Recruits" (1727), "David Garrick in the Character of Richard III", "The Painter and his Pug" (1945). Stravinsky got to know Shakespeare's plays in his youth and had remained connected with the English culture throughout his creative way, composing "Babel" (1944), a cantata on Old English texts (1951-
1952), "Three Songs from William Shakespeare" (1953): "I can write music ... for Shakespeare's works as what he wrote was created for singing" (Stravinsky, 1988, p. 181).
Analyzing the specifics of theatrical concept of the artist and the composer, it is difficult to accept the fact that they were united only by theatrical thinking (Baeva, 1987, p. 130). Their attitude combined deep knowledge of the theatre and acting atmosphere. The creative path of the artists led to the unity of the unique genre, mixing of genres, the emergence of stage forms, originality of scenic and musical dramaturgy. Creative thinking allowed to develop an innovative model of works reflecting the structure of the theatrical concept. Hogarth portraying reality, proposed a model of the scenic dramatic sequence, taking into account the means of expression and techniques of stage and drama. Hogarth's stylistic search for the content and form was definite historical represented in the visual space of the classic and baroque-rocaille models.
The opera "The Rake's Progress" was written in 1940s-1960s, in the ideals of neoclassicism that the composer preferred.
Stravinsky's genre multiplicity includes the prototypes of various musical manners with the sound of genuine comedy, farce, grotesque, but also expressed tragedy. The theatrical and effective line of Auden and Stravinsky is expressed through allegory, comments of the chorus, changes of emotional intensity, actors' appeal to the audience, inseparably merged with the grotesque and subject-cautionary pictorialism of William Hogarth.
Stravinsky explored the European musical space by entering into a dialogue with the English culture by the early acquaintance with Shakespeare's drama. Passion for Shakespearean drama also affected Hogarth in his painted plays. Connection with the great musical and dramatic culture was realized in the multi-level theatrical concept of Hogarth in the "A Rake's Progress" and Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress".
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Специфика театрально-игровых концепций художественного метода У. Хогарта в его графической серии «История распутника» и опере И. Стравинского «Похождения повесы»
С.А. Яковлева
Красноярский государственный институт искусств Россия, 660049, Красноярск, Ленина, 22
Статья предлагает исследование театральной и игровой природы творческого метода художника У. Хогарта при создании картин и графической серии «История распутника» и композитора И. Стравинского при создании оперы «Похождения повесы» по гравюрам художника. Освещается формирование театрального мышления, определяются его истоки и взаимодействие с разнообразными явлениями английской культуры в творчестве Хогарта и Стравинского. Особое место уделено вопросу о самобытности творческого способа, что позволяет выявить помимо единства театрального мышления жанровую специфику Хогарта и Стравинского, живописную и музыкальную драматургию для создания сценической и изобразительной формы. В статье анализируются стилистические черты, отражающие основные тенденции английской культуры XVIII века и европейской первой половины XX века. Подробно разбираются выразительные средства подчинения музыкальной модели живописной драматургии художника. Данный исследовательский подход дает возможность подтвердить смысловые связи структурной правомерности произведений музыкального и живописного, графического искусства.
Ключевые слова: художник Уильям Хогарт, композитор Игорь Стравинский, либреттист Уистен Хью Оден, художественный метод, театр, графика, сценография. Научная специальность: 24.00.00 - культурология.
