Convergence and Dissonance: Romantic Theatre and the Visual Arts

Abstract

This paper examines the complex nexus of affinities and rivalries that characterised the visual and performing arts in the burgeoning visual culture of the Romantic period. As popular modes of cultural consumption and entertainment they appealed to and were shaped by the public’s growing fascination with visual spectacle, exhibition culture and celebrity, but diverged in fundamental ways. A glaring example of this divide is the tension between drama as a literary medium and as stage spectacle that permeated Romantic theatrical criticism. Leading artists, including Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Lawrence and George Romney, were fascinated by actors as portrait subjects, but were highly aware of the dangers of applying theatrical principles to painting. In reassessing the affinities and differences that demarcated painting and the theatre, the lynch-pin is the culture of visuality—the heightened emphasis on visual spectacle and scenic effects and performance that was articulated across different modes of visuality and modes of looking. An alternative model for conceptualising the synergies and tensions between painting, especially portraiture, and theatre would be to re-envisage the relationship as a paragone, or comparative debate, grounded in differing modes of visuality and temporality.