s even falling into the arms ofhis companions, Gwin and Wilson introduced a new subject for artists
to draw upon. Indeed, Hamlet's "start," a familiar and much-commented
upon tradition in theater performance, quickly became one of the most
frequent of subjects. Zoffany, too, added another new subject to the
artists' repertoire by depicting Ross as Hamlet, with "down-gyved"
stocking and with book in hand, apparently in confrontation with an
unseen person (Polonius, one assumes). Depictions of Hamlet as the man
with a book soon provided as recognizable a subject as Hamlet's
"start," the Play Scene, or the Closet Scene, and during the next
century and a half, portraits of a succession of actors holding a book
were to follow, among those depicted being Henry Johnson, Edmund Kean,
[keanlge.jpg]
Edmund Kean
Barry Sullivan, Charles Kean, Charles Kemble, Henry Irving, Jean
Mounet-Sully, Edwin Booth, Sarah Bernhardt, and Johnston Forbes
Robertson.
Some New Subjects and Media for Hamlet Images: Early Portraits
Another matter of importance here is that all the works just mentioned
depict identifiable actors in the Hamlet roles that they were
currently performing in the theater. Apart from the possible portraits
of Betterton and Wilks in the engravings of 1709 and 1734 mentioned
earlier, these were the earliest portrayals of Hamlet topics in which
specific actors can be identified. It is a significant moment in the
history of Hamlet iconography because henceforth every major actor
performing the role of Hamlet (and later som
