A Commonplace Book of Thoughts, Memories, and Fancies. / 2nd ed.

by Mrs. Jameson

As to the last scene of Adrienne Lecouvreur, (which those who are avides de sensation, athirst for painful emotion, go to see as they would drink a dram, and critics laud as a miracle of art,) it is altogether a mistake and a failure; it is beyond the just limits of terror and pity—beyond the legitimate sphere of art. It reminds us of the story of Gentil Bellini and the Sultan. The Sultan much admired Bellini’s picture of the decollation of John the Baptist, but informed him that it was inaccurate—surgically—for the tendons and muscles ought to shrink where divided; and then calling for one of his slaves, he drew his scimitar, and striking off the head of the wretch, gave the horror-struck artist a lesson in practical anatomy. So we might possibly learn from Rachel’s imitative representation, (studied in an hospital as they say,) how poison acts on the frame, and how the limbs and features writhe into death; but if she were a great moral artist she would feel that what is allowed to be true in painting, is true in art generally; that mere imitation, such as the vulgar delight in, and hold up their hands to see, is the vulgarest and easiest aim of the imitative arts, and that between the true interpretation of poetry in art and such base mechanical means to the lowest ends, there lies an immeasurable distance.

I am disposed to think that Rachel has not genius, but talent, and that her talent, from what I see year after year, has a downward tendency,—there is not sufficient moral seasoning to save it from corruption. I remember that when I first saw her in Hermione she reminded me of a serpent, and the same impression continues. The long meagre form with its graceful undulating movements, the long narrow face and features, the contracted jaw, the high brow, the brilliant supernatural eyes which seem to glance every way at once; the sinister smile; the painted red lips, which look as though they had lapped, or could lap, blood; all these bring before me the idea of a Lamia, the serpent nature in the woman’s form. In Lydia, and in Athalie, she touches the extremes of vice and wickedness with such a masterly lightness and precision, that I am full of wondering admiration for the actress. There is not a turn of her figure, not an expression in her face, not a fold in her gorgeous drapery, that is not a study; but withal such a consciousness of her art, and such an ostentation of the means she employs, that the power remains always extraneous, as it were, and exciting only to the senses and the intellect.

Latterly she has become a hard mannerist. Her face, once so flexible, has lost the power of expressing the nicer shades and softer gradations of feeling; so much so, that they write dramas for her with supernaturally wicked and depraved heroines to suit her especial powers. I conceive that an artist could not sink lower in degradation. Yet to satisfy the taste of a Parisian audience and the ambition of a Parisian actress this was not enough, and wickedness required the piquancy of immediate approximation with innocence. In the Valeria she played two characters, and appeared on the stage alternately as a miracle of vice and a miracle of virtue: an abandoned prostitute and a chaste matron. There was something in this contrasted impersonation, considered simply in relation to the aims and objects of art, so revolting, that I sat in silent and deep disgust, which was partly deserved by the audience which could endure the exhibition.

It is the entire absence of the high poetic and moral element which distinguishes Rachel as an actress, and places her at such an immeasurable distance from Mrs. Siddons, that it shocks me to hear them named together.

112.

It is no reproach to a capital actress to play effectively a very wicked character. Mrs. Siddons played the abandoned Milwood as carefully, as completely as she played Hermoine and Constance; but if it had required a perpetual succession of Calistas and Milwoods to call forth her highest powers, what should we think of the woman and the artist?

113.

When dramas and characters are invented to suit the particular talent of a particular actor or actress, it argues rather a limited range of the artistic power; though within that limit the power may be great and the talent genuine.

Thus for Liston and for Miss O’Neil, so distinguished in their respective lines of Comedy and Tragedy, characters were especially constructed and plays written, which have not been acted since their time.