King Lear :: William Shakespeare Literature Essays

King Lear,Abbey exhibited King Lear, another(prenominal) of his large, dramatic pictures, at the Royal Academy in 1898 the painting was accompany in the catalog by these lines from Act I, scene i Ye jewels of our father, with wash eyesCordelia leaves you. I know what you arAnd, like a sister, am most loth to callYour faults as they are named. Love hygienic our father.To your professed bosoms I commit him.But yet, alas stood I within his grace,I would prefer him to a better place.So farewell to you both.The critics saw much to like in Abbeys King Lear. The reviewer for The Art Journal (1898, p. 176) comments peculiarly on the bold use of color and the grouping of the figures on the see If the admirers of Mr. Abbey felt that the note of the superbly dramatic Richard III. was not repeated with quasi(prenominal) force in last years Hamlet and Ophelia, all doubts should be set at rest by the barbaric majesty of the Scene from Lear, a national which, under the title of Cordelias Po rtion, inspired Madox Brown to the production of one of his finest compositions. The superior figure in Mr. Abbeys commanding decoration is Cordelia, and it is impossible to resist the colour-charm in which she is invested. Her yellow-green vestment with the deep blue border set against the green dress of France, and opposed to the menacing reds and sombers of Goneril and Regan, is a triumph of originality. As in Richard III. thither is a strong suggestion motion, and the drooping figure of Lear sustained by his pages and followed by his men-at-arms from the left to right of the canvas gives this note. The dramatic figure of the sisters in the attitudes of dignified indifference and mock courtesy are splendidly realized, and the foot-light payoff discernible throughout the picture certainly adds to the intenseness of the composition. Unmistakably in this beta group, Mr. Abbey has reached a very high level and is going far to prove, by this magnificent series of object lessons, that his decorative style is capable of grownup the fullest expression of dramatic motives. H. S., the reviewer for The Spectator (May 14, 1898, p. 694), also remarks on the assurance of the colour and judges the effects gorgeous and beautiful. The truth of the gestures, he adds, are as finely conceived as are the combinations of scarlet and purple black crimson and sea-green.