Hogarth: His Life, Art and Times

A Short Article on a Lively Subject: Geltruda Rossi, Sarah Siddons, and Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth à la Fuseli

“…Austin records this as a composite gesture of both aversion and accusation, and its use by Fuseli suggests that he is representing Lady Macbeth's aversion to the killing of Duncan which she has effected, and an accusation directed at Macbeth for the subsequent murders he has undertaken to secure the throne (Austin 1806, illustrations 100 and 101). Her pose is not dissimilar to that found in the gladiator drawing with which Fuseli's earlier study of the sleepwalking scene has been associated (Tomory 1972, 79 and plate 29). The dislocation experienced by the viewer is partly caused by the figure thrust forward, its slipper missing, its flowing hair, and wild costume, but the dislocation may also be the result of what Marguerite Tassi has identified as the transfer of the heroic; the heroic character is here is the deranged Lady Macbeth, not a tragic male lead (Tassi 2011, 64).…”

“…His literary ambitions had introduced him to the plays on the page, and when he first arrived in London, it was the performances influenced by David Garrick that were on offer. Fuseli was a devotee of the theater—Weinglass recounts that in “later life he often dismissed his classes at the Royal Academy early in order to indulge his passion for the playhouse”—and Shakespeare was, of course, a constant in the repertory (Weinglass 2004, 21: 209 and Tomory 1972, 71). In seeking to describe the effect on Fuseli of seeing Garrick playing Shakespeare, Tomory claims that it was similar to Jacques Louis David's response in seeing Naples for the first time: the result was akin to seeing the world after “an operation for a cataract” (Tomory 1972, 15) 15…”

“…Fuseli had encountered the play Macbeth early in his life and had translated it while still in Zurich (Tomory 1972, 15). From his years in Rome in the 1770s, there is a reference to the now-missing painting A Scene from Macbeth 16 and to some designs for a Shakespeare Room in the manner of the Sistine Chapel 17 .…”

“…From his years in Rome in the 1770s, there is a reference to the now-missing painting A Scene from Macbeth 16 and to some designs for a Shakespeare Room in the manner of the Sistine Chapel 17 . And from the mid-1770s comes an earlier drawing, a Roman-style depiction of Lady Macbeth Sleepwalking that includes two watching figures that Tomory traces to a mosaic by Dioscorides (Tomory 1972, 79 and plate 30). The drawing shows Lady Macbeth striding forward in a manner that can best be described as “concentrated raving,” and although it is in no way preparatory for Fuseli's 1785 painting, it nonetheless presents his subject in an already recognizable interpretation.…”