Edward Gordon Craig and W. B. Yeats, 1901–1911: Engaging Turner, Ruskin, Wagner and Appia

Abstract

ABSTRACTEdward Gordon Craig and W. B. Yeats’s early work for the stage bears the clear influence of English landscape artist J. M. W. Turner as he was viewed by Victorian art critic John Ruskin. The article traces this influence as it unfolds during the first decade of the twentieth century when Craig and Yeats’s leave behind theatrical realism for a more dramatic use of light and shade on stage, realised as part of an architectonic concept that was suffused with transcendental symbolism. Among other plays, Dido and Aeneas, The Vikings at Helgeland, The Shadowy Waters and The Hour-Glass are studied against Turner’s The Old Téméraire and The Slave Ship as they had been evaluated in Ruskin’s Modern Painters. Finally, Craig and Yeats’s scenic ideals are compared to those of European theatre-makers Adolphe Appia and Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, who set out to re-think and revise the grandiose scenic concepts of German composer Richard Wagner. The article argues that Craig and Yeats’s mission during this decade was to realise what came to be termed the “Theatre of Mood”.