068

  • John Philip Kemble as Hamlet

  • ca. 1801
  • After or by Sir Thomas Lawrence (English/British 1769-1830)
  • Oil on canvas
  • 79.0 x 54.1 cm., 31-1/8 x 21-5/16"
  • Catherine Carter Goebel, Paul A. Anderson Chair in the Arts Purchase with Gift of Dr. Karin Youngberg, Paul A. Anderson Art History Collection, Augustana College 2005.24

Essay by Karin Youngberg, Professor of English and Conrad Bergendoff Professor of Humanities

The present image is a version of Sir Thomas Lawrence's Portrait of J. P. Kemble as Hamlet (1801). The original painting is one of four massive canvases, each focusing on Kemble in one of his famous tragic roles. Through this group, Lawrence hoped to infuse portraiture with a new dignity and importance by merging the portrait with the widely admired genre of historical painting.

Lawrence's ambition to elevate the genre of portraiture by combining it with the dignity and power of theatrical performances was furthered by the stature of his model, the English actor John Philip Kemble (1757-1823). Kemble specialized in serious dramatic roles that required a kind of aristocratic grandeur.

The Lawrence painting is identified in the Tate catalogue with Hamlet (V. i), the famous Graveyard scene in which Hamlet with his friend Horatio engage in a darkly comic conversation with two grave-diggers. At one point Hamlet picks up a skull which the digger's spade has unearthed and contemplates fragile human mortality which this memento mori (reminder of death) recalls. But when the grave-digger identifies the skull as belonging to Yorick, a court jester and Hamlet's childhood playfellow, Hamlet throws down the skull in horror and disgust. In Lawrence's image, only the skull, and the faint outline of grass and gravestone in the front left corner suggest the graveyard. Instead Hamlet stands inert and serene against a largely dark background into which he seems to melt. Even his feathered hat and the crimson lining of his fur-lined cloak are nearly swallowed up by the darkness.

Lawrence's painting is perhaps best seen, not as an evocation of a particular scene, but as a kind of epitome in the sense of a summary or abridgement of the entire play. His black clothing denotes both his mourning for his father and his melancholic, introverted disposition present throughout the play. But the focus of the painting is Hamlet's luminescent face, framed from below by an open white collar. His features reflect the serene calm of the last soliloquy, "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. . . the readiness is all" (V. ii).